Immigration Reform United States

Immigration Reform

11.10.2023

In the United States of America, "immigration reform" is a term widely used to describe proposals to maintain or increase legal immigration while decreasing illegal immigration.

Index

14. 4th wave of immigration

04. 1st wave of immigration

01. Premise

02. Introduction

06. 2nd wave of immigration

15. Migration today

03. Waves of immigration

08. 3rd wave of immigration

21. Conclusions

01. Premise

Push and pull factors

Immigration to the United States was influenced by both push and pull factors. The push factors were what drove the immigrants from their country such as religious persecution, political oppression and poverty, The pull factors were those which attracted immigrants to America such as civil rights, freedom of expression, religion and speech and economic opportunity,

Thus, the freedom, opportunity, and civil rights that were denied Europeans throughout centuries became the basis of the American value system and dream.

The dream was that individuals would be given the opportunity through hard work to succeed.

02. Introduction

The history of immigration to the United States illustrate the movement of people to the United States from the colonial era to the present .

United States Immigration has occured in waves, with peaks followed by troughs.

03. Waves of migration

Each wave was distinguished from the others by the reasons why people emigrated and the different ethnic groups involved in the mass movements.

We can identifyfour waves of immigration.

First two decades of the 20th century

Colonial era

Characterised by the arrival of southern and eastern Europeans.

It started at the beginning of the 17th century.

Post 1965

Mid-19th century

It was the potagonist of mass immigration from north-central and western European countries.

Characterised by strong immigration from Asia and Latin American countries.

Colonial era

04.

1st wave of immigration

The colonial period was from 1607-1680. The first immigrants were called colonists because they founded the first colonies in America. There was a great difference between the types of colonies:

1. In the northern colonies such as Plymouth, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, many colonists came for religious freedom. Many were well educated and through the decades developed industries, such as lumber, linen and woolen mills and shipbuilding. They also opened small shops, got involved in trading or became craftsmen.

2. However, in the South, there were large plantations due to the mild climate and fertile soil, in fact, the original intention of the first southern colonies was profit. The first colonists in Virginia, for example, went in search of gold and trade routes. When those ideas failed, thet dedicated themselves to the agricolture.

05. The plantation system and slave trade

On the American continent, the plantation-based production system begam to take hold. These were large land holdings usually dedicated to one crop, for example sugar cane, which was then destined for export.

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For this reason, blacks taken prisoner in wars between African tribes and states began to be imported as slaves. The mortality rate of slaves on plantations was very high and therefore their demand was constant.

A hot and humid climate, water or animal power, timber and a large labour supply were necessary for the cultivation of the sugar cane.

06. Mid-19th century

2nd wave of immigration

The second wave of immigration from 1820 to 1890 was a period where America went from being mainly a rural and agricultural society to the beginnings of an industrial society. It was during this second wave, that many Irish and Norvegians emigrated.

During the mid-19th century Boston's industrial economy matured and expanded across the globe. New manufcaturing plants were buit along the city's main railroad and metro lines. The city of Boston itself continued to grow with a population of immigrants that made up nearly 40% of those residents.

The Irish were highly dependent on the potato and when the potato crop failed in the 1840's many either emigrated or faced starvation.

During this period, the United Stated grew to a major industrial nation and this growth continued on into the third wave.

07.

Working conditions in the 19th century

As the first wave, many second wave male immigrants worked as day laborers on the streets, harbours and railroads.

Moreover, construction work building new roads, bridges and subways was especially important in this period.

In addition, Irish women continued to work in domestic service and the vast majority of this second-wave immigrants found jobs in local factories making shoes, clothes, textile and chemical products.

Nevertheless, the hours were long, and working conditions were often exhausting. For this reason, to avoid the factory regime, some immigrants worked as peddlers, selling produce or dry goods on the streets.

08. First two decades of the 20th century

3rd wave of immigration

Between the 19th and the 20th centuries, the United States knew a significant population increase. To emigrate were mainly Germans, Scots, English and Scandinavians. From the last decades of the 19th century until the First World War, there was a mass immigration of people from eastern and southern Europe who found factory work in the cities of the Northeast and Midwest.

With the First World War, the number of departures was significantly reduced.

After the Second World War, emigration to the United States resumed, but not as considerably as it had happened in previous decades.

09. United States legislation

First restrictions

1. In the late 19th century, migration was encouraged and entry into the United States was essentially free, except for criminals and the mentally ill.
2. In 1862, the Homestead Act was issued granting plots of land at a very low price in exchange for a commitment to cultivate the land obtained and US citizenship.

People from Europe were a formidable resource for economic growth throughout the United States.

Indeed, migrants were indispensable to the country's development and constituted an almost inexhaustible source of cheap labour.

10. Migratory flow controls

In the first decades of the 19th century, emigration was not hindered, but as the years go by, measures were taken to control and select arrivals.

1. Literacy Act - 1917

It prohibited entry to the United States for those who could not prove they could read and write in their native language.

3. National Origins Formula 1921-1965

It calculated how many immigrants of each nationality should be admitted to the United States.

2. Emergency Quota Act - 1921

It restricted entry of individuals from Southern and Eastern Europe.

4. Immigration and Nationality Act - 1965

It granted the possibility of immigrating to the United States not on the basis of native country, but on the basis of the qualification possessed and the profession held.

11.

The case of Italians in the United States

Between 1861 and 1985, 30 million individuals emigrated from Italy and, particularly between the 1880s and the First World War, around 5 million Italians, mainly the southern regions.

The causes

The wave of Italian migration was largely due to the thousands of people who were displaced by natural disasters in Southern Italy: there were widespread diseas and bad harvests in the 1880s and in 1906 the eruption of Vesuvius followed by the massive Messina earthquake in Sicily, in 1908.

The trip

The trip took place on boats and steam ships and after a couple of weeks the emigrants arrived on the Atlantic coast of the United States, near the city of New York.As soon as they disembarked, the first stop was Ellis Island.

Ellis Island arrival

Here all immigrants were subjected to checks on their identity, their profession, and their availability of money. The immigrants also underwent thorough medical checks to ascertain their physical and mental health. Those who were found to be unfit had to return to their country of origin.

12. The Italian community

Among the Italians who emigrated, a large percentage were young men who left alone. The aim was to move for a certain period, find work and earn a certain amount of money, and then return to Italy. If, on the other hand, entire families emigrated, they aimed at a long-term relocation.

Italians settled mainly in the north-east such as New York State, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, but also in California, Missouri and Louisiana. Among the cities in which substantial Italian communities sprang up were:

New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston

Italians tended to move to the cities and were employed as labourers and workers in industry and construction.

13. Racism against Italians

In The United States, racism against Italians was widespread. In the newspapers or in political debates, Italians were often described as inferior individuals, unable to integrate, prone to deliquency. There were numerous vignettes that portrayed them as violent, dirty, small and dark-skinned.

The New Orleans lynching

The case of Sacco and Vanzetti

Racism manifested itself in its violent form in numerous cases, one of the most tragic occuring in 1891 in New Orleans. The previous year, a superintendent of the city's police had been murdered. Investigating the Italian community, the police arrested elevent Italians. The population then attacked the city prison and carried out a massacre: eleven Italians, most of them Sicilians, were lynched.

Another dramatic episode, also sadly known today, concerned two young Italian workers and anarchists, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti accused of murdering two men and sentenced to the electrical chair for this in 1921. Only in 1977 was their full innocence officially recognised.

Post 1965

14.

4th wave of immigration

The fourth and current wave of immigrants began after 1965, characterised by an increasing number of immigrants from Latin America and Asia.

This wave followed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart-Cellar Act, which abolished quota restrictions based on national origin. This allowed the entry of increasing numbers of people from Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

15. Migration today

Pew Research Center

The United States is currently the country with the most migrants in the world. This is stated by Pew Research Center, a US study centre that informs the public about social issues, pubblic opinion and demographic trend in the US and the world in general.

Today, more than 40 million people living in the United States were born in another country, representing about one-fifth of the world's migrants. The immigrant population is also very diverse, with almost every country in the world represented among US immigrants.

16. Increasing inequalities

In the historical era in which we are living, socio-economic, political and climate inequalities are widespread and, in some areas of the world, are increasing dramatically.

And with them, population displacements have inevitably increased. Displacements that bring with them the suffering of those who have to travel long and dangerously, crossing rejecting borders and facing the risk of abuse, trying to survive and gradually become part of the societies of receiving countries.

Over the past ten years, there has been an increase in migration in all areas of the world, particularly in 2020, when the number of people on the run from wars, violence, persecution and human rights violations in the world increased significantly.

17. Illegal immigration

Today, unauthorised migration is the main political issue.

It is a phenomenon that has taken hold since 1960s, mainly affecting states in Central America, the Caribban and South East Asia. The vast majority of clandestine immigrants come from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Cuba and Puerto Rico as far as Latin American countries are concerned; as far as flows from Asia are concerned, China, the Philippines and Vietnam should be mentioned.

Immigration is defined "illegale" or "clandestine" when entry has taken place illegally, as the name implies, mainly with false documents or visas, but also hidden in lorries or trains, or through clandestine landings by sea.

18. Mexico and The United States

Mexico is the main country of origin of the US immigrant population and they also represent the largest group of unauthorised immigrants.

The construction

Mexico-United States border wall

1. The construction of the metal barriers began under President George H. W. Bush in 1990, who inaugurated the first 23 kilometres.
2. Later, in 1994, it was expanded under the president Bill Clinton.
3. Successive presidencies have continued the construction and increased controls.
4. This was not enough for President Donal Trump, who during his election campaign promised to build a wall on the border.

The Mexico-United States border wall is a series of vertical barries along the Mexico-United States border intended to reduce illegal immigration to the United States. Currently, the dividing barrier built between the United States of America and Mexico exceeds 1100 kilometres and to divide the entire border would still be 2000 kilometres away.

Furthermore, the barrier is not a continuous structure, but a series of obstacles such as rail fences, wire mesh and barbed wire.

19.

Title 42

During these three years, as a result of this policy, thousands of people have been left abandoned with limited access to shelter, basic services and at a risk of being victims of violence in cities that are unsafe or without the resources to meet their enormous needs.

What is it about?

Title 42 was a COVID-19 public health restriction affecting migrants at the US-Mexico border promulgated under the Trump administration. It has expired on May 11 of this year, when the public health emergency for COVID-19 was ended.

20. Expulsion of immigrants

Article 8 of the United States Code

Any foreign who:

1. enters or attemps to enter the United States, at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officials;
2. escape examination or control by immigration officials;
3. attemps to enter or obtains entry into the United States by means of a false representation;

In cases of illegal immigration committed by illegally entering the United States by crossing land and sea borders without authorisation from an immigration officer or without a visa, an offence known as EWI "Entry Without Inspection" is committed.

Shall be fined or imprisoned for not more than 6 months. If he commits this offence again, he shall be fined or imprisoned for not more than 2 years,

21. Conclusions

Should immigrants enter and stay in the US?

Immigration can offer substantial economic benefits, however, it is a subject of controversy. The advantages and disadvantages of migration include several factors. Advanteges include a more flexible labour market for example, while disavantages include crowding and increased demands for public services.

My position

1. I believe that a very fundamental aspect is to guarantee a equal treatment under the law for all people.

2. Promoting the reunification of close family members.

3. Be responsive to those facing political persecution or humanitarian crises.

4. Provide student visas to give everyone the opportunity to study.

Thanksfor your attention

Any question?

Martina Melosu Universidade da Madeira