The History of Immigration Policy in America
“Being an American is not a matter of blood or birth. It’s a matter of faith, of shared fidelity to the ideas and values
that we hold so dear. That’s what makes us unique. That’s what makes us strong.”
– President Barack Obama at American University on July 1, 2010
Pre-1790 Approximately 175,000 immigrants arrive in the colonies, over half of them as indentured servants.
1790
Naturalization Act: Limited naturalization to “free white persons.” Repealed and replaced in 1795, when the
residency requirement was increased from 2 to 5 years.
1864 Immigration Act: Appointed first U.S. Commissioner of Immigration.
1868 14th Amendment: Established birthright citizenship.
1882 Chinese Exclusion Act: Suspended immigration of Chinese workers.
1891 Immigration Act: Created a Bureau of Immigration within the Treasury
Department and called for the deportation of immigrants who entered illegally.
1917 Immigration Act: Excluded most immigrants from Asia and immigrants
with contagious diseases. Act required all immigrants take a literacy test upon
entering the U.S.
1924 National Origins Act: Reduced cap to 165,000 immigrants per year and
country cap to 2% of the number of people of that ancestry in U.S. in 1890.
Restricted entry of Southern, Western Europeans; barred South, East Asians.
1943 Magnuson Act: Repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
Immigrants waiting to be processed in the
Great Hall on Ellis Island
1965 Immigration and Nationality Act: Eliminated the national origins quota system and gave preference to skilled
immigrants and those with relatives in the country. Immigration to the U.S. subsequently doubled between 1965 and 1970.
1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act: Granted amnesty to illegal immigrants who arrived before 1982 and lived
in the U.S. continuously since then. Increased border enforcement funding and established employer sanctions.
1990 Immigration Act: Increased yearly cap on immigration by 40%, lifted ceilings on family and humanitarian visas,
created diversity visas, and relaxed residency requirements, as well as English requirements for elderly immigrants.
1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act: Expanded crimes for which legal permanent
residents could be deported. Forbade undocumented immigrants from applying to return to U.S. for 3 or 10 years. Made
most legal permanent residents ineligible for Medicaid for 5 years and for Medicare and Social Security for 10 years.
2002 Department of Homeland Security (DHS): Formed in 2002; created special registration system for foreign-born
Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians.
2005 REAL ID Act: Required driver’s license applicants to show proof of citizenship or legal status. All 50 states have
received extensions to comply with REAL ID, and 25 have approved legislation or resolutions not to participate.
2006 Secure Borders Initiative: Effort to improve enforcement by reorganizing agencies enforcing immigration law.
SBI-Net, a high-tech surveillance and apprehension network, was suspended indefinitely. The Secure Fence Act
appropriated $49 billion for a 670-mile fence, which was abandoned due to cost. The Congressional Research Service
reported that illegal crossers found routes around existing fences.
2008
Executive Order 13465: President Bush required federal agencies and contractors to use E-Verify – an online
employment-authorization verification system operated by DHS. To date, only a small percentage of employers use the
system, which, despite its potential, has an error rate of 46%.
Immigrants in America Today
There are 38 million foreign-born living in the United States. Immigrants make up 12% of the
population, 16% of the labor force, and 5% of the armed forces.1
Top Countries of Origin
Immigrants High-Skilled and Low
Mexico: 11.5 million
Philippines: 1.7 million
India: 1.7 million
China: 1.4 million
El Salvador: 1.2 million
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29.6% are college graduates, while 27.8% did
not graduate high school
Foreign-born students earn 40% of the Ph.D.s
in science and engineering, and 65% of the
computer science Ph.D.s granted in the U.S.
Sources: Hall, Matthew, Audrey Singer, Gordon F. De Jong, and Deborah Roempke
Graef, “The Geography of Immigrant Skills” and Alden, Edward. “Wanted: A Smarter
Immigration Policy.” The Wall Street Journal, 2009.
Sources: This Box: U.S. Census Bureau 2009 American Community Survey. Above: Ibid.
and Batalova, Jeanne. “Immigrants in the US Armed Forces.” Migration Policy Institute,
2008.
There are an estimated 11.2 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., accounting for 30% of the
foreign-born population, 3.6% of the total population, and 5.2% of the workforce.
What percentage of our workforce is undocumented?
Country of Origin for Undocumented Population
(in hundred thousands )
Mexico
66.4
Other
15.5
6.2
El Salvador
Guatemala
Honduras
5.2
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25% of farm workers
19% of building, groundskeeping, and maintenance workers
17% of construction workers
12% of food preparation and serving workers
Many industries rely on unauthorized labor.
3.3
Philippines
2.8
India
2.0
Ecuador
1.8
Brazil
1.8
Korea
1.7
China
1.3
Passel, Jeffrey and Cohn, D’Vera. “A Portrait of Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States.” Pew Hispanic
Center, 2009
“For a 25-year-old Mexican male with nine years of education
(slightly above the national average), migrating to the U.S. would
increase his wage from $2.30 to $8.50 an hour.”
– Gordon Hanson, “The Economic Logic of Illegal Immigration.” Special Report for the Council on Foreign
Relations, 2007.
Mixed-Status Families:
Undocumented immigrants account for 8% of all U.S.
births, resulting in 4 million American children living
in mixed-status households with undocument parents
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78% of children with an undocumented parent
are U.S. citizens.
Nearly 50% of all undocumented immigrants
live in households with children, compared
with 21% of U.S.-born adults
49% of undocumented immigrants ages 18-24
who graduated from high school are in college
or have attended college in the U.S.
Source: Passel, Jeffrey S. and Paul Taylor. “Unauthorized Immigrants and Their U.S.-Born
Children.” Pew Hispanic Center, 2010.
Graph (right and above): Passel, Jeffrey S. and D’Vera Cohn. “Unauthorized Immigrant
Population.” Pew Hispanic Center 2011.
1
Population and labor statistics represent legal and illegal populations, while military statistics represent only legal immigrants.
Prepared by the Belfer Center for American Pluralism, American Jewish Committee