migrate to is heavily influenced by government immigration policies. Even though a place may have strong pull forces, governments typically try to regulate the flow of immigrants for political and economic reasons.
US immigration policy
For most of the history of the United States, the government has enacted policies to regulate the number and/or characteristics of immigrants. Early legislation did not restrict the number of immigrants but rather focused on who could become a US citizen. The 1790 Naturalization Act limited citizenship to “free white persons” of “good moral character.” This was the first legislation that attempted to control the racial or ethnic makeup of the country by limiting who could become a citizen. Citizenship rules were changed with the Naturalization Act of 1870, in which African Americans were given citizenship rights along with whites. However, Asians remained excluded.
The Immigration Act of 1875 placed the first restrictions on immigration, not just citizenship, by prohibiting criminals and forced Asian laborers. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, and in 1917, immigration was banned from most other Asian countries. During this period, restrictions other than those based on race and ethnicity were put in place as well, including bans of anarchists, beggars, polygamists, “lunatics,” illiterates, prostitutes, and those with contagious diseases.
From around 1880, immigration shifted away from Northern and Western Europe toward Southern and Eastern Europe (figure 3.30), prompting fears of a changing ethnic profile among many Americans. This resulted in the 1921 Emergency Quota Act, which placed numerical limits on immigration by creating quotas equal to 3 percent of the foreign-born population based on the 1910 census. It also placed a cap on the total number of immigrants per year. Asian immigration was not allowed. Even more restrictive quotas were enacted with the Immigration Act of 1924, which limited European immigration to 2 percent of the foreign-born population based on the 1890 census. It reduced the total number of annual immigrants and continued to bar Asian immigrants. These quotas were strongly biased in favor of Northern and Western European immigrants, who dominated the US population in the 1890 and 1910 censuses.
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