Immigration Essay

The US was historically the Promised Land for immigrants because the country accepted a large number of immigrants from all over the world. Initially, the US was open to immigrants and they could arrive freely to the US and settle in America. However, as the process of colonization of America by Europeans ended and as the US economy grew stronger, the competition in the labor market of the US started to increase along with the number of immigrants arriving to the country in search of job and better life. In such a situation, the US government had to introduce measures to regulate the flow of immigrants and to restrict immigration through legislative acts. In response to the overwhelming number of immigrants, the US authorities have started to implement legal acts that regulated immigration and helped the country to control the number of immigrants.
In fact, the major attempts to regulate immigration in the US were undertaken in the early 20th century in response to the growing number of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. The number of immigrants grew fast because they attempted to escape from the economic crisis in Europe that struck European countries after World War I and revolutions in European countries, including Russia. To protect the national labor market and to maintain social stability in the country, the US government implemented the Emergency Quota Act, which was backed up by the Immigration Act of 1924. The main purpose of these legal acts was to limit the flow of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe and Jews. The Emergency Quote Act and Immigration Act of 1924 limited the access of immigrants to the US and established strict quotas of the number of immigrants (Janda, et al., 173). In fact, the quota of immigrants from any country was limited to 2-3% of the number of residents from that same country living in the US. In such a way, the number of immigrants was restricted and controlled by the quotas established by the US government.
At this point, it is worth mentioning the fact that professionals were to be admitted without regard to their country of origin. In fact, this legal norm proves that the US was always interested in professionals and the introduced restrictions and quotas were introduced to cut the access of low- and semi-qualified labor force to the US. In such a way, the US focused on the improvement of the quality of immigration instead of quantity (Daniels, 188) In such a situation, the US government protected its labor market, economy and social stability from the huge flow of immigrants which had been growing progressively since the late 19th century.
In fact, the Emergency Quota Act and the Immigration Act of 1924 were highly restrictive and focused on the restriction of immigrants on the ground of the country of origin of immigrants (Foner, 145). This means that quotas were based on nationality of immigrants and their countries of origin. As it has been already mentioned above, it was only professionals, who had access to the US without quotas.
The aforementioned legal regulations persisted to the mid-20th century. In fact, it was only in 1965 the new legislation concerning immigration was introduced. To put it more precisely, the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 was implemented, which changed consistently immigration policies of the US and made them more liberal compared to immigration policies existing in the US before 1965 after the introduction of the Emergency Quota Act and Immigration Act of 1924.
The Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 eliminated the national origin quota and stimulated the immigration from all over the world to the US. The Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 was liberal and loyal to immigration. Nevertheless, it does not mean that the US became absolutely open to immigration. The Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 introduced visas which were limited to certain number of visas for different regions of the world. In such a way, the US regulated the flow of immigrants but not limited the immigration quotas to immigrants’ countries of origin. Moreover, the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 introduced the first-come, first-served basis, which allowed immigrants to arrive to the US as they obtained visas in the US embassies.
In the late 20th century, the US government introduced the Immigration Act of 1990, which increased the number of legal immigrants. In addition, the Immigration Act of 1990 introduced the lottery program that randomly assigned a number of visas (Williams, 15). In fact, this act introduced more liberal immigration policies, but, on the other hand, this act provoked the flow of immigration to the US.
However, today, the US is overwhelmed with illegal immigration and new legislative changes are needed to improve the existing legal norms concerning immigration. The US should regain control over the flow of immigrants, put the end to the illegal immigration and control the legal immigration.