it’s a very simple relationship. There’s a lot that goes into producing the final estimate, but the basic estimate is just this difference.
I’ve got to tell you, you may tell me on one hand, the immigrant population increased 4.5 million in a span of seven years.
But on the other hand, the illegal population (basically a subset of the whole) decreased by 10,000.
The math doesn’t seem to work.
So I started nosing around on the internet and research articles. It appeared that all factions were cherry-picking their data or making vague statements to promote their own agenda.
Take one article on how illegal aliens contribute 19.5 billion in taxes, making them a productive contribution. And compare that with the article stating that illegal cost of Medicaid alone runs close to 18.5 billion, and something seems tainted. More on those numbers later.
Or how about assimilation into days society isn’t as important as when the majority of immigrants came through Ellis Island.
Add to the conflict that one article states most immigrants are hard workers and carry two jobs, while another article claims that the amount of immigrants on government programs are almost twice as high as natives.
Then there is the stance that immigrant crime rate is less than the natives,
While the department of justice maintains that 26 percent of all federal prisoners are alien.
And then there are the sanctuary cities.
Addressing all the issues would require a book that borders on the size of War and Peace.
All the above contradictions and conflict led me on this two-year journey for the truth.
So this conversation is going to research twelve main issues.
To start the conversation, the first chapter will be a brief overview of the rulings and laws that shaped our immigration structure today.
Once again, thank you for joining in on the conversation. I pray that I have done the subject justice. God bless and Godspeed.
Chapter 1
An Overview of the History of Migration in America
“Way back in 1987, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit described immigration law as “second in complexity only to the internal revenue code.”
It would appear little has changed.”
—Anna.O. Law
There are numerous acts, bills, and changes to migration over the centuries.
For the purposes of this book, we will start with current acts and bills that appear to bear the brunt of the reason we are where we are.
Beginning with the Immigration Acts of 1921 and 1924, the Immigration Act of 1965, the amnesty bill in 1986, and the Obama executive action on the DACAs in 2012, the United States experienced rising immigration during the early years of the twentieth century. Between 1900 and 1920, the nation admitted over 14.5 million immigrants. Concerns over the mass immigration brought about a presidential commission that brought about the writing and passage of the Immigration Act of 1917. The act, among other things, required that the incoming immigrants be able to read and write in their native language.
Massive immigration resumed after the First World War. Congress responded with a new immigration policy, the national origins quota system. Established by the Immigration Acts of 1921 and 1924, the national origins system numerically limited immigration for the first time in United States history. Each nationality received a quota based on its representation in past United States census figures. The State Department distributed a limited number of visas each year through US embassies abroad, and the Immigration Service only admitted immigrants who arrived with a valid visa.
Severely restricted immigration often results in increased illegal immigration. In response to rising numbers of illegal entries and alien smuggling, especially along land borders, in 1924, Congress created the US Border Patrol within the Immigration Service.
The 1921and 1924 acts limited the annual number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2 percent of the number of people from that country who were already living in the United States in 1890—down from the 3 percent cap set by the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921, according to the census of 1890. The law was aimed at further restricting the Southern and Eastern Europeans who were immigrating in large numbers starting in the 1890s as well as prohibiting the immigration of Middle Easterners, East Asians, and Asian Indians.
According to the US Department of State Office of the Historian, Mexicans and the Central Americans had a different status. The war would bring about labor shortages especially in the Southwestern fields and farms. In 1942, the bracero act was established, Public Law 45. It was seen as a seasonal workers’ program for workers, not their families. The mostly Mexican workers were housed and fed by the employers, who could bring them in unlimited numbers. It was not meant to be an immigration visa but a temporary work visa. But braceros were free to come and cross the border without restriction. They were not restricted in the National Origins Act of 1924.
In the end, the most basic purpose of the 1924 Immigration Act was to preserve the ideal of American homogeneity, and this stood as the cornerstone for migration until 1965.
The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, also known as the Hart-Celler Act, abolished the earlier quota system based on national origin and established a new immigration policy based on reuniting immigrant families and attracting skilled labor to the United States, “an intellectual victory.”
At the signing of the bill on October 3, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson said, “This bill that we will sign today is not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions. It will not reshape the structure of our daily lives or really add importantly to either our wealth or our power.”
While at an immigration hearing on February 10, 1965, Senator Ted Kennedy stated, “The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not change the ethnic mix of our society.”
But in fact, some say the law changed the face of America. The major source countries of immigration radically shifted from Europe to Latin America and Asia. The number of immigrants tripled by 1978. It made the country the highly diverse, multinational, multiethnic, multicultural American nation that it is today.
The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act may be the most liberal immigration law that will ever be passed in the United States.
It can be said that “no one who supported the passage of the INA so eagerly in 1965, openly recommended what it would turn out to be,” wrote history professor Otis Graham in his 2004 book Unguarded Gates.
The law’s two chief results were unintended (p. 1783):
1 Increasing the volume of immigrants back to over one million legal permanent per year as it had been in the 1920s when the restrictive National Origins Act was passed; in addition, over two million immigrants come in each year on temporary visas, and over five hundred thousand illegal immigrants either sneak across the border (about 60 percent) or overstay their temporary visa, totaling close to four million new immigrants who stay in the country. (Please remember these numbers as we will include them for extrapolation purposes.)
2 Altering
