Immigration Scholarship: History, Trends and Development in Global Immigration
Files
Date of Submission
May 2022
Semester
Spring 2022
Class
Article
Professor Name
Sabnam Ghosh
Abstract
In the present day, immigration is a supremely controversial topic and the source of much political debate. However, this is not a recent phenomenon. The question of how to handle immigration in the US has remained an ever changing issue since before the foundation of the country and immigration policy has gone through many changes since then. The purpose of this paper will be to explore the different policies that arose from 1900- present day and how they impacted immigraton. In the early 1900s, xenophobia was strong especially due to the world war. Changes like the 1924 immigration Act made for stricter immigration laws which limited the number of immigrants who could come in. Later, during the 1960s, immigration laws became less strict. Although programs like the Bracero program were still harmful to immigrants, the 1965 immigration Act created many positive changes regarding the immigration process. Unfortunately, this progress was halted after 9/11 brought new legislation which was used to discriminate against immigrants. As time goes on, immigration law continues to improve. We suspect that by examining primary sources from each time period, we will be able to prove that while immigration policies still have room for improvement and that today, overall, US immigrartion policies have become more lenient and allow for more opportunities of success than in previous eras.
Keywords
Immigration Policy Immigration Reform
Theme
Immigration Reform