IMMIGRATION POLICY

Immigration Policy

Immigration Policy

Immigration, the entry and settlement of persons born in another nation-state, has played an important role in shaping the population and culture of the United States since the nation's founding. The country has experienced three large waves of immigration following the first arrival of Europeans, and is currently in the midst of a fourth. This entry reviews the history of immigration and examines past and present policies governing the arrival of people from other countries.

The Record

The first immigration wave included the original settlers of the U.S. colonies beginning in the 17th century and continuing into the 18th century, consisting mainly of British, Scots, Scotch Irish, Germans, and people from the Netherlands, France, and Spain. Servants and slaves from Africa were also brought coercively to the continent during this period. The second wave began in 1820 and consisted mostly of German, British, and Irish migrants who furthered the westward expansion of the country's settlements. The third wave, from about 1880 until 1914, included settlers first from Northern and Western Europe, and then from Southern and Eastern Europe. Alongside these European waves, Chinese laborers were recruited from the late 1840s until the 1880s to work in Hawai'i and California and to build the railroads of the West. Following the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Japanese and Filipino workers took their place until the 1907 “Gentlemen's Agreement” between the United States and Japan ended migration from Japan. (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2006)

Mexican immigrants entered without restriction, and came in growing numbers, particularly after 1880.

The United States is now experiencing a fourth wave of immigration. About 14 million immigrants, legal and illegal, came to the country during the 1990s—more than in any previous decade. Unlike previous flows, the most recent immigrants have hailed from Asia, particularly China, India, and the Philippines, and from Latin America, primarily Mexico. Demographers estimate that more than 15 million immigrants will have entered by 2010. However, despite these large flows, the share of foreign-born persons living in the United States is not as high as it was at the beginning of the 20th century, about 12% currently compared with 15% earlier.

Past Immigration Policy

The orientation of U.S. immigration policy has passed through several phases. During the first hundred years following the country's founding, immigration was quite unrestricted, and both the government and private groups actively recruited new migrants. Immigration did not require any admissions tests or fees. However, some limited bars to admission were enacted following the Civil War, first blocking convicts and prostitutes and later paupers and “mental defectives” from entry.

The government established an admissions test in 1917, which required immigrants older than 16 to prove literacy in at least one language. The Immigration Act of 1924 further limited entry by establishing a national origins quota system, which set caps on migration from any given country based on the percentage of U.S. residents who traced their heritage to that country. This arrangement clearly favored immigration from the Northern and Western European countries that ...