Immigration laws have been ever changing and rising in the United States due to many anti-immigration laws and regulations. The attack on immigration has become so large that the number of immigrants in the United States is decreasing. The mass deportation occurring today is not only affecting communities but the country as a whole. Immigrants and immigration in the the United States have always played an essential role in the United States economy. Immigrants should not be treated as undocumented immigrants or be seen as beneath others. Immigrants are capable, qualified workers and citizens of the United States.
Immigration in the U.S goes all the way back to the early 1600s. The United states had four major waves of immigration. The first major wave lasted from 1607-1830. These immigrants were mostly Protestants, who came to the United States searching for religious freedom. They also came for economic opportunity because Europe had little opportunity for people to advance in their economy during this time. Many Europeans came to America so they could advance and they also came seeking wealth. Another group that came during this time were indentured servants, which is an employee who is bound by a signed or forced contract to work for a someone for an established amount of time. Many Africans were forced to come to America in the early 1600s but, the eighteenth century is when the slave trade expanded. Nearly 800,000 Africans were brought to America in just 1808 (Rodgers, 2010). Although the Emancipation Proclamation was passed in 1863, Africans did not wish to return to their homeland they stayed in America and today African-Americans make up 12.3% of the American population. The second major wave of immigration lated from the 1830s-1887s about 15.3 million immigrants came to the United States during this time because of this the population of America exploded. The second wave immigrants were mostly Irish and German. These immigrants were different from the first wave immigrants because at the time most Americans were Protestant. The Irish and Germans experienced a lot hostility from the Americans because they had a big difference in religion and culture and they Irish and Germans were coming in large numbers which made the Americans feel anxious and unwelcoming to the new immigrants. They also received backlash because of economic resentment. Immigrants were seen as taking the jobs from “real Americans”, this made the Protestants agree and caused many fights between the two. These fights resulted in America’s first official police departments (Waxman, 2017). The third major wave of immigration lasted from the 1880s-1930s. This wave of immigration had more than 20 million immigrants come to the United States and it was also very diverse. In the beginning of the 1890s the majority of immigrants were from Eastern, South and Central Europe. During one decade about 600,000 Italians had come to the United States and by 1920 more than 4 million had come into the United States (History.com, 2009). Jews also played a big role in the third wave because they also arrived in big numbers. Over 2 million jews came to the United States within 1880-1920. The fourth major wave of immigration is still going on it started in 1965 and will go on until the immigration rate in America goes down. During this time over 315 million immigrants from all around the world have come to United states. Many people started to come to America because in the 1960s, America finally decided to end the widespread racism and segregation in America, when President Lyndon Johnson the Immigration and Naturalization act (INA) on October 3, 1965, this ended what Johnson called “a cruel and enduring wrong”. The INA nullified the previous used quota system, which favored Northern Europeans. After removing the racial and national obstacles that discriminated against non-northern Europeans this ultimately changed the entire demographic of the United States. Nobody predicted that the new immigration law would have such a long term effect. Legal immigration increased to 3.3 million in the 1960s, 4.5 million in the 1970s, 7.3 million in the 1980s, and 9 million in the 1990s. However, in the 2000s, it declined significantly to an estimated 5 million ( History.com, 2009). Even though immigration is what built the United states many laws have been passed in the past to restrict immigration.
Many people believe that restrictions on immigration have been only happening recently, which is completely false, numerous of laws have been passed to restrict immigration such as: The Chinese Exclusion act, Geary Act and the Ellis Island Institute. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by congress then signed by President Chester A. Authur. The Chinese Exclusion act