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The US first saw immigration kickstart in the 1600´s. Many people came over for example the Spanish, British, Dutch, and Swedes which all came simply for colonization. Pilgrims and Puritans came over for religious freedom and Africans were forced to the US through enslavement. -
Arguing for American independence, Thomas Paine published a pamphlet called ¨Common Sense.¨ -
Congress passed a new law that discusses who should be granted US citizenship. The law stated that ¨any free white person of good character¨ were able to be granted citizenship. -
The English were deemed the largest ethnic group accounting for 3.9 million people. However, one in five Americans were of African heritage. -
After the War of 1812, peace was re-established between the US and Britain which resulted in the immigration to spike -
Know-Nothing party was the first anti-immigration party created to backlash from all of the immigration occurring -
After the Civil War, some states started to create their own immigration laws. The Supreme Court later states in 1875 that the Federal Government is responsible for establishing immigration laws -
This act prevented Chinese immigrants from entering the US. -
US immigration peaks. 1.3 million immigrants entering America through just one island known as Ellis Island. -
An estimated one-third of New York´s population was immigrants and first-generations Americans. -
The US Border Patrol started preventing illegal immigrants from entering through the Mexican and Canadian borders. Many of the immigrants were of Asian descent and were barred from legally entering. -
The McCarran-Walter Act ended the exclusion of Asian immigrants from the US -
Ronald Reagan signed a law that grants amnesty to more than 3 million immigrants living illegally in the US -
Barack Obama signed Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). This temporarily protected dreamers or aspiring American citizens from deportation. Although I prevented deportation, I didn't provide a path to citizenship. -
Donald Trump issued 2 executive orders that were meant to protect the US from terrorists entering the country. These orders were aimed at 6 mostly Muslim countries along with North Korea and Venezuela.