Immigration has changed multiple times over four centuries, and so has this country. The 19th and 20th century has had a big role in how our modern life has formed, and what immigration is. The 19th and 20th century has changed how we talk about immigration today, made it that much harder to get into this country, and despite all the hardship they face immigrants have been able to make America a better place, even if not everyone can see that. Because of the 19th and 20th century immigration, America has been able to continue to succeed as a country, even though the two centuries proved to be difficult to live through. With these changes come new opinions, and now we have so many different ideas about immigration. This has had both positive and negative effects on America, overall showing that the whole idea of immigration has no one specific definition that outshines all others. This continues now, as we struggle to come to an agreement as a country whether immigration is good or bad, and what it truly is.
The Chinese Exclusion Act was created in 1882 to originally limit the number of Chinese immigrants that entered America. The act also placed taxes on all immigrants. Many Chinese immigrants were coming to America for better opportunities. The Chinese Exclusion Act made sure that these immigrants weren’t allowed. America saw that the act simply wasn’t enough, so the act was revised, and the Chinese Exclusion Act started to be the immigrant exclusion act. The act was no longer just excluding Chinese now. From 1903 to 1917, the act underwent four major changes. Included in the revisions was knowledge of English was required, immigrants must not be illiterate, sick, likely to commit a crime or were Japanese couldn’t be let into America. When the quota system was demolished after the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed, this idea of a law of banning people was wrong. Instead, the idea was to limit the number of people in America. The 19th century had shown that laws for banning immigrants were bound to happen because America was recovering from war. They were also a new country at the start of the century. Politician’s back then couldn’t think of anything else to do since immigration wasn’t their top priority. There were many more milestones and key events on immigration that happened in the 20th century than the 19th century. The laws created in the 19th century were targeted at the first immigrants to come to America. Once they were in the U.S., they did not plan on leaving.
Another example of a law that was very picky was the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act. The act was created in 1996 and is a very good example of modern immigration laws today and where they started. Ten years before, the Immigration and Control Act was created in 1986, and IIRIRA was a follow-up of this. The IIRIRA was created to solve America’s growing illegal immigration problem. 50 years before America thought they had the problem under control, only to see the difference in the number of people entering illegally. IRCA was only a modification of the immigration and nationality act because things had calmed down since 1921. IIRIRA was in place because with all the modifications, the act had the same effect as the Chinese Exclusion Act. Somehow, people would still find a way to get in, and the issue became whether or not you legally came into America. Illegal immigration is still one of the biggest immigration problems today, even though it’s been over 20 years. Quota systems were done, banning people wasn’t helping, and limiting the legal amount wasn’t that helpful either, so this law was the next best thing. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services keeps records of all immigrants that come in legally. When Ellis island no longer was an entry point, this was how the U.S. kept track of records. Today, there are many ways we can tell if an immigrant comes here illegally. One of the most common is border security, and this law created the modern version.
With limits, other ways of securing the borders and making sure people come here legally were created. Laws in the 1980s and 90s are similar to the ones today because they all serve a similar purpose on the same cause; illegal immigration. Today there is a more modern approach to this, and there is more advanced technology to help with this. However, separating children from families and not letting immigrants in because America suspects they are drug dealers is similar to the Chinese Exclusion Act. Border patrol becomes so particular about these things, and it has the same effect. America went from a small system with laws not specific and not as caring. Then it became so overwhelming there was an emergency system and laws to replace them. This leads to now, where America is focused on illegal immigration more than anything else involving immigration.
A big part of why so many immigrants came here illegally in the 19th and 20th century is when American politicians decided to limit the number of people who came to America. In a span of four years, the limit was changed three times. The limit was designed so that specific traits of certain people weren’t discriminated against. The words ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ weren’t included. These limits were originally targeted at the poor so that richer immigrants would come to the U.S. and continue to build their economy. That is not what happened. The ones who came were the poor ones seeking a better life. Today no one can really tell the country that has the most people immigrating, because so many do. Systems were created in the 1990s so that they could find and validate refugees. All of this, in the end, would mean that 207,500 immigrants could enter the U.S. legally per year. That’s a big jump from having approximately 1.3 million people enter legally in 1907.
There are plenty of immigrants that come to America now that have similar stories of immigrants who came to America in the 19th and 20th century. Nowadays, immigrants have the reputation of bringing unwanted things such as drugs and disease. In the 19th and 20th century there was still a chance of having a disease, but when Ellis Island became a monument that chance increased. The same year, the immigration and nationality act of 1965 was created. The act was created to boost national border security and was the base of the modern day immigration system. Immigrants continued to come in even though the numbers about who was let in continued to vary. They improved our society by increasing our population and filling positions America needed. Many even went to serve as part of the military after having to go through the struggle of getting to America in the first place. Many were considered model immigrants and showed what an immigrant should be. Not every American agreed with this image. Model immigrants were just immigrants trying to fit in with Americans.
One of the biggest changes in immigration is how immigrants get to their final destination. Sometimes it will take multiple trips just to get to one place, and that can mean different forms of transportation. Originally, the most common form was a boat, starting in the 1600s when the colonists first arrived in America. It continued until more modern transportation was created three centuries later, and even then, most immigrants couldn’t afford things like international travel on a plane. Another thing that wasn’t common was walking. Walking has become something that started occurring more and more often in the last 40 years. In the 19th century, the only way you came to America was by boat. There simply was no other way to get from place to place overseas. This would cost a lot of money, too. Many immigrants had to give up everything in hopes of having a better future and a new life. In certain cases, some immigrants could afford more expensive spaces on these boats, such as the second or first class. These immigrants were better off and were headed to America to seek better opportunities. Today flying is common for those who are immigrating and have more money. However, there have been several travel bans which make it difficult to fly from certain countries. Boats also had very high risks. Traveling from one place to another without control of the direction is hard. Immigrants had to trust that they would get to America safely without dying during the journey. There was a very high risk of being caught on the way in their journey, and being sent back to the immigrants home country. If Immigrants successfully make it across the ocean in the 19th century, they would head for Ellis Island. Ellis Island is located right off the coast of New York and is very close to the Statue of Liberty. First class and second class passengers were inspected on board the boat for disease.
After arriving, there was an inspection process that took place on the actual island. The immigrants were first inspected by several doctors and then had a brief eye exam. Each immigrant had two minutes with the inspectors. Only two percent of immigrants that entered Ellis Island were turned away. If the immigrants had any currency, it was exchanged into American money. After all of this, the immigrants were allowed to leave Ellis Island and go to New York. Today if immigrants want to come to America, they need something called a green card or a visa. There are different types of visas, and like Ellis Island, the process does not make you a citizen. All the green card does is allow immigrants to be in America without having to be sent back. Unlike Ellis Island, visas can expire, which means at some point a visa has to get renewed or the immigrant has to go back to their home country. A green card can make you a legal citizen in America, which is something that was not very common in the 19th century. The process became more well known at the very end of the 20th century. Many more immigrants will get rejected from the green card process than the application process for Ellis Island. Policies in the 20th century were very strict, and restrictions were continuously created to limit immigration from certain areas and to limit the number of immigrants in America. In the early 20th century, America had a great reputation. America was not at war and was seen as a place where dreams would come true, and a land of opportunity. Many coming here saw this, but as time went on, immigrating became harder and harder. During the First World War, immigration was limited. The same occurred during the Second World War. By the time of the Cold War, America was only letting in immigrants escaping communism.
Immigrants rarely had a one-way journey. If there was a war going on and a country was invaded, leaving the country without being seen by the invaders was challenging. In modern times, this still takes place. As a result of America’s harsh policies, other countries have tightened their policies, too. Immigrants could be sent back to where they came from in other countries if they stopped there. This increased the difficulty of getting to America. Many were starting to get turned down at certain ports, or America did not want to let them in. Letting too many immigrants meant that the economy would be affected, which scared numerous Americans in both the 19th and 20th century. Immigrants still come here for the same reason; a better life. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, other countries had fallen into terrible circumstances, and many small forgotten areas were living in severe poverty. This was also a time right before many countries went to war. Seeing America meant seeing new conditions and a better way to live.
The difficulty many faced trying to get to America over the last two centuries is long, but there are many key things to remember. The journey was always full of challenges, regardless of how much money immigrants had. Immigrants had to hope they could even get to America in the first place. The process of actually getting inspected changed over a century, too. Going from around a 10-minute process per immigrant, to multiple steps just to apply to become a citizen, things have definitely changed. There are more negative effects on this topic because even though there has been lots of change, some of the original things that were negative haven’t changed. This has had both negative and positive effects on America today.
Asylum seekers are common stories today. Part of that is how Americans saw immigrants in the 19th and 20th century. Between a 40-year span starting in 1880, America received 20 million immigrants. After 1920, American politicians decided that number needed to be cut down in order to have their perfect economy. In 1921 the first quantitative immigration law was adopted. It set annual quotas according to nationality. Three years later in 1924, the first permanent immigration quota law was created. With it came a quota system, non-quota status, consular control system, and border patrol. This definitely affects America’s economy today because politicians want to strengthen border security. In the early 1900s, America’s economy was considered one of the most affluent in the world. Today, that could still be said.
The debate over asylum seekers has had plenty of mixed emotions. The positive side of this case is that there were Americans who thought immigrants weren’t trying to take over America and they were simply trying to have a better life. Without immigrants, Americans wouldn’t have the economy they have today. Immigrants have had rising education levels each decade. They also help to create weapons such as the atom bomb and cruise missiles for the military.
The negative side was that nobody thought much about immigration until the numbers started coming in. Over 10 years after the first world war the foreign-born population decreased from 14.2 to 10.3 million, or from 11.6 to 6.9 percent of the total population. When immigration in America started to decrease, times were harder. The immigration rate decreasing didn’t change much for Americans because of this. Due to World War II, America created the policy that was adopted for admitting persons fleeing prosecution. This permitted 205,000 refugees to enter the United States over a span of two years. The policy later increased to 415,000. The 20th century had a big role in the immigration rates decreasing and increasing. At the end of the 20th century, there were many changes to the immigration system, and those changes created the immigration system that Americans know today.
Overall, all of this history in two centuries has created this effect on immigration today. The 19th and 20th centuries have created a timeline where so many things happened for immigration and had one thing been slightly different, immigration in America could be completely different today. The definition of immigration has changed, but not in one specific way. This is because America didn’t talk about immigration the way America immigration talks about it now. It was something that was briefly discussed, then ignored, but attracted attention and action. Compared to 150 years ago, it is much more difficult to get into America. The original process was difficult too, but the difference in how long it took is a big factor. 10 minutes isn’t a lot compared to three months. Even if most Americans didn’t think much about immigration or didn’t see it as positive, it had positive effects on America. Immigrants continued and fought to advance America to where it is today, and without immigrants, America would be a completely different place.
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