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In 1790, congress passed a law defining who could become a citizen if a person was not born in america. citizenship was possible only for someone who was a "free white person". As that term was understood back then, this barred any African or Asian immigrant from becoming a citizen. After the civil war, this law was revised to allow people born in Africa to become citizens, but Asian immigrants were still excluded from citizenship.
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one of the heaviest periods of immigration in american history came between 1880 and 1920 when some 25 million immigrants arrived. most came from countries of southern and eastern Europe- parts of the world that were unfamiliar to Americans. they saw these new immigrants as very different from themselves.
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San Francisco and other Californians began to rally against the Chinese. In 1882 , the Chinese responded by passing the Chinese Exclusion Act. it stated that no Chinese laborer could enter the United States for 10 years. Renewed several times, the act was in force until World War 2.
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Congress set up quotas favoring immigrants from northwestern Europe.
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the immigration act of 1924 expands the quota system: immigration from any country is limited to 2% of its total numbers in the 1890 census.
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in 1965 congress passed the immigration reform act, abolishing the quota system based on national origin
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President Ronald Reagan's immigration and reform control act had a dual purpose. First, reagan wanted to slow illegal immigration by punishing employers who knowingly hired undocumented immigrants. Second, he wanted to offer a way for long-term, undocumented immigrants to become legal.
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By 1990, more than 80% of american immigrants came from Asia and Latin America. congress wanted to prevent any one country from making up most of the immigrants to the united states. in order to accomplish this, it passed the immigration act of 1990,which said that no country could account for more than 7% of total immigrants.
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in 1996 concerns about the continuing problem of illegal immigration led congress to pass yet another immigration law. it increased the border patrol staff and stiffened penalties for creating false citizenship papers or smuggling undocumented workers.
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Late in his presidency, in June 2007, president George w bush committed himself to backing a bill to address all immigration issues. bushs bill proposed to fill short-term labor needs through a guest worker program and strengthened boarder control. yet bush argued that his bill did not propose to track down and deport millions of undocumented worker who were already here.
