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"Any alien, being a free white person may be admitted to become a citizen of the United States.."
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By 1806, the flow of immigration was reduced to a trickle as hostilities between England and Napoleon's France disrupted Atlantic shipping lanes.
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After 1808 Congress was given the authority to ban the slave trade
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The War of 1812 between the United States and Britain slowed immigration even further. Peace was re-established in 1814 and immigration from Great Britain, Ireland and Western Europe resumed at a record pace.
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The Industrial Revolution began in the later 1700s but continued to flourish into the mid 1800s. Thousnds of immigrants were able to find work on the railroads during this time.
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Word of the California Gold Rush spread, causing an influx of immigrants from Asia and Europe. Around this time Immigrants from Ireland were moving to the US to escape famine.
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The creation of steam power drastically decreased the journey to America which caused an influx of immigration from all over the world.
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One of the most significant restrictions on free immigration, prohibiting all Chinese laborers.
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Ellis Island was opened and became the nation's busiest immigration inspection station until 1954.
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Informal agreement between the United States and the Empire of Japan whereby the United States of America would not impose restriction on Japanese immigration, and Japan would not allow further emigration to the U.S. The goal was to reduce tensions between the two powerful Pacific nations. The agreement was never ratified by Congress, and was ended by the Immigration Act of 1924.
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After the outbreak of World War I in 1914, American attitudes toward immigration began to shift. Nationalism and suspicion of foreigners were on the rise, and immigrants' loyalties were often called into question. Through the early 1920s, a series of laws were passed to limit the flow of immigrants.
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In the late 1930s, with World War II accelerating in Europe, a new kind of immigrant began to challenge the quota system and the American conscience. A small number of refugees fleeing Nazi persecution arrived under the quota system, but most were turned away.
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Authorized for a limited period of time the admission into the United States of certain European displaced persons for permanent residence, and for other purposes after World War II.
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Between 1956 and 1957, the US admitted 38,000 Hungarians, refugees from a failed uprising against the Soviets. These were among the first of the Cold War refugees.
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The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, also known as the Hart-Celler Act, abolished an earlier quota system based on national origin and established a new immigration policy based on reuniting immigrant families and attracting skilled labor to the United States.
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The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the most hotly disputed part of Arizona's anti-immigrant law, S.B. 1070, which requires police to determine the immigration status of someone arrested or detained when there is “reasonable suspicion” they are not in the U.S. legally.
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It seems that we have learned nothing from letting in or refusing refugees throughout th years. That when some people are in need we should help. And in many cases they expand and help our economy. Every time new immigrants want to enter the US we forget how great they can make us.
