By 1919, immigration had been recognized as a major issue in the country. With increased number of immigrants, there was need to establish mechanisms to limit this trend. Some individuals and groups pressured the Congress to establish legal interventions to curb the issue. In 1921, the Emergency Immigration Act was passed with the aim of restricting the number of individuals entering the United States.[1] The Act was projected to have temporary measures. However, the Act had a far-reaching effect on immigration in the United States. The Act introduced the quota system as well as numerical limits to mitigate immigration. The immigration Act of 1924 was also aimed at controlling the number of immigrants.
During the period 1919-1960, the United States took advanced intervention to control immigration. These laws were based on the conviction that immigrants may cause undesirable effects to the United States. However, some of these laws received criticism from some individuals, owing to their discrimination against people from certain areas. For instance, immigrants from Asia were regarded to be potentially contemptible compared to their counterparts from western, northern, and central Europe.[2] Despite the existence of the strict laws, the American government accepted individuals fleeing from Holocaust and other Jews running away from Russia and central Europe. People from Cuban and Hungarian revolutions were also allowed into the United States owing to their plight. Immigration has continued to be a problem in the country even with the passing of laws to the present-day.
Different states in America have been affected by immigration to different degrees in the recent past. Immigration increases available labor in an economy. The composition across education groups in immigrants also boosts the relative supply of less educated personnel. From 1960, immigration brought differentiated expertise and more competition to the labor market. Immigration also induced efficient specialty and affected the choice of techniques. Between 1960 and 2014, immigrants have affected capital accumulation, investments, and the output of more or less sophisticated and learned personnel. The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, which is also referred to as the Hart-Celler Act established novel immigration policy that focused on reuniting families of immigrants and attracting expertise labor to America and abolished previous systems that favored Europeans.[3] The Act put an end to a previous quota system concentrating on national origin. The policies enacted in 1965 significantly changed the demographic composition of population in the United States for the next four decades. This makeup was greatly affected as immigrants entering America came increasing from Latin America, Africa, and Asia compared to Europe.
During the period 1919-1960, the United States took advanced intervention to control immigration. These laws were based on the conviction that immigrants may cause undesirable effects to the United States. However, some of these laws received criticism from some individuals, owing to their discrimination against people from certain areas. For instance, immigrants from Asia were regarded to be potentially contemptible compared to their counterparts from western, northern, and central Europe.[2] Despite the existence of the strict laws, the American government accepted individuals fleeing from Holocaust and other Jews running away from Russia and central Europe. People from Cuban and Hungarian revolutions were also allowed into the United States owing to their plight. Immigration has continued to be a problem in the country even with the passing of laws to the present-day.
Different states in America have been affected by immigration to different degrees in the recent past. Immigration increases available labor in an economy. The composition across education groups in immigrants also boosts the relative supply of less educated personnel. From 1960, immigration brought differentiated expertise and more competition to the labor market. Immigration also induced efficient specialty and affected the choice of techniques. Between 1960 and 2014, immigrants have affected capital accumulation, investments, and the output of more or less sophisticated and learned personnel. The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, which is also referred to as the Hart-Celler Act established novel immigration policy that focused on reuniting families of immigrants and attracting expertise labor to America and abolished previous systems that favored Europeans.[3] The Act put an end to a previous quota system concentrating on national origin. The policies enacted in 1965 significantly changed the demographic composition of population in the United States for the next four decades. This makeup was greatly affected as immigrants entering America came increasing from Latin America, Africa, and Asia compared to Europe.
By the early 1960s, pressure to reform immigration policy in the United States had increased. The civil rights movement contributed significantly to reforms on immigration rules that assigned people a quota on the basis of the nationality representation in past American census figures. The civil rights movement on equal treatment of immigrants eliminated discrimination of Europeans.[4] In the first five years after the passing of the Act, immigration from Asian countries more than quadrupled. Other conflicts and wars in the 1960 and 1970s led to millions of people fleeing poverty to seek fortune in the United States. In three decades after the passage of the Hart-Celler Act of 1965, in excess of 18 million legal immigrants entered America recording more than thrice the number admitted 30 years preceding the enactment of the Act. By the end of the 20th century, the policies had considerably changed the American population. The highest number of immigrants came from Mexico and some from Philippines. Throughout the 1980 and 90s, illegal immigration became a contentious political debate as the number of immigrants increased. In 1996, the US Congress approved the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act to tackle border enforcement. In the wake of terrorist attacks, in 2001, the U.S government created the Department of Homeland Security that took over from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. At present, illegal immigration continues to be a controversial topic in America.