In the late 19th century, the issue of illegal immigration was contentious issues, which was often defined by the arrival of foreign workers from China, Ireland, and other European nations to work in the American economy. In the post-Civil War era, the rise of American industry allowed as massive influx of immigrants from all over the world, which resulted in the federalization of immigrant laws in 1875, which then to a series of acts that sought to limit the amount of foreign immigrant that were illegal entering the country. The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) was one of the first major anti-immigrant acts, which prevented Chinese immigrant laborers from entering the country. Chinese immigrants were one of the most populous …show more content…
From the 1880s to the 1920s, there is an estimated 20 million immigrants that came into the United States. Due to the larger amounts of legal and illegal immigrants, the U.S. government created the Quota System in 1921 to help manage the inflow of immigrants coming into the country. After the Roaring Twenties, the great Depression era saw a massive decline in immigrant populations due to the massive decline in economic opportunity. This period defines the results of a weakened U.S. economy, which caused a steady decline in the post-Depression years up until the beginning of World War II in 1941. However, many anti-immigration laws remained intact due to the continued legacy of racism and “nativist” sentiment that sought to curtail the presence of illegal immigrant workers. More importantly, the U.S. border Control was set up to control the inflow of Mexican workers coming into American on the Mexican-American …show more content…
In 1951, the foundation of the NAFTA agreement was formed when the U.S. government made a deal with the Mexican government to import immigrant workers into the United States to work in California and other farming states, which provided a low-cost workforce for large-scale farms. These types of agreements provided temporary work status to the Mexican worker, as a basis for entering the U.S. for a specific purpose and with greater regulation of their role in the economy. More so, the legalization of worker’s visas (the green card) (via the Internal Security Act of 1950_ that allowed workers to be stay and work in the U.S. Legally, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 19065 was the gateway for legal immigrant status for many Mexican workers, since they were regulated as a border country that was beneficial for low-wage workers in the agricultural sector. In many cases, the issue of amnesty often occurred within the context of refugee status and other issues related to accepting the immigrant, which culminated with Refugee Act of 1980 as a rationale for allowing illegal immigrant sanctuary in the United