United States Immigration Policy (INA)

United States Immigration Policy
Our economic times, international relations, and terrorism have shaped our countries immigration policy. These issues have driven us to pass legislation opening and closing our borders in response to current events. Though not always at the forefront of concern, it has been a constant struggle that has affected the dynamics of our country. Arizona’s recent passing of tough immigration laws aimed at identifying and deporting illegal immigrants has again put immigration at the forefront of American politics. Additionally, it has raised the question of constitutionality and rekindled the flame of State v. Federal power. In order to trace the history of our countries immigration policies you must first understand
As the economy began to bounce back, the threat of cheaper Asian labor was replaced with the fear of the communist. This lead to a shift in United States immigration policy and the passing of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (INA).Prior to this act immigration policy had been a scattered group of policies but the INA was the first document that placed all immigration policy into one centralized location. The INA took a lot of the same principles from the Immigration Act of 1924 but did have some drastic changes. One notable change was that it removed racial and gender limitations all together. It also introduced selective immigration which was a preference system used in deciding who would receive priority in the immigration process based on certain criteria. Immigrants with specialized skills in the labor sector and those individuals with relatives who were already United States citizens were given priority. The fear of communism was rampant and it added additional screening and security requirements before citizenship could be granted. The INA would be overhauled in 1965 with a series of amendments that marked the changes our country was going through during the Civil Rights era. The 1965 INA set the foundation that we use today in regards to immigration
Instead, it set hemispherical caps; 170,000 for the Eastern Hemisphere, and 120,000 for the Western, with a limit of 20,000 annually from any nation. When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the bill he, following the vision of the late John F. Kennedy, sought to make America a land of opportunity for the whole world to see. In his eyes this was a way to fight communism by showing the world how democracies embrace all. With immigrants with family already in the United States being given priority, a bulk of the 22.8 million immigrants that entered the country between 1966 and 2000 were of family members of nationalized immigrants (Daniels, 2008). For the first time in over 50 years Asian-Pacific immigrants were again allowed to immigrate to the United States. Between 1965 and 1978 the United States made its greatest strides in establishing immigration reform that gave all immigrants, regardless of nationality or race, the opportunity to live the American dream. Not surprisingly our economic stability was at a high as we we’re still surging from post war prosperity. The 1980’s would place a new emphasis on the illegal alien and the American work