New Immigrants in 1865-2000 Period of History (Essay Sample)

Minorities/ New Immigrants in 1865-2000 Period of History
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Date: December 9, 2011
Introduction
Immigration in the United States has increased over the last century both legally and illegally. Over the years, the United States government has tried unsuccessfully to reduce these levels by passing laws against illegal immigration, tracking down and deporting illegal immigrants and introducing quota laws to determine the maximum number of immigrants allowed into the country at a particular period, all of which work partly for some time but never in the long run.
Immigration into the United States was pretty easy for anyone especially from neighboring Mexico and Latin countries during the mid 19th century. In 1875 however, a federal law that banned prostitutes and convicts from entering the United States was passed. In 1882, further prohibitory laws banning paupers, criminals, the mentally ill and almost all the Chinese from entering the country were passed by the then president Chester Arthur. These laws brought some level of regulation to immigration which before then was unregulated. It also brought a distinction between legal and illegal migration.[Dinnerstein, Leonard. Ethnic Americans: a history of immigration. Columbia University Press, 2009.]
Immigrants from all over the world flooded into the United States and became citizens settling into the American culture and societies. In 1920 a quota law was passed to limit the number of immigrants into the country. Immigrants were accepted or declined on the basis of their national origin. The Mexicans were still allowed into the country though, mostly because they were a source of cheap labor. The Mexicans around this period made up the bigger percentage of both legal and illegal immigrants.
In 1929, the period after the great depression, the government tightened the rules governing obtaining visas and the number of immigrants allowed into the country every year. They also became more intentional about dealing with illegal immigrants already living in the country and in that period many of them were deported while others left voluntarily. During following decade, close to a million Mexicans left the United States and went back to their native countries. Some were deported while others left voluntarily due to the threat of acute unemployment and deportation. This applied to all immigrants but the Mexicans were most affected since they made up the bigger percentage of immigrants in regards to different races. This was perpetrated by the then president Herbert Hoover who believed that they were taking American job opportunities and putting a strain on their resources. These measures reduced the levels of immigration into the country but did not do away with it altogether.[Dinnerstein, Leonard. Ethnic Americans: a history of immigration. Columbia University Press, 2009.]
During the war years however, there was a labor shortage and the then government arranged to import Mexicans to temporarily work in the agricultural sector in a project dabbed the ‘Bacero program’. The plan was to import numerous Mexicans as workers during the harvest and later encourage them to go back to their home country when the harvest was over. This period is believed to be the reason Mexican immigrants streamed into the United States in large numbers and to be basically responsible for the high levels of illegal immigration today.
This program was only meant to be in use as long as there was a deficiency in the number of available American workers. Employers in the United States however eventually preferred Mexican workers due to their cheap labor. This made it even harder to control the levels of illegal imigrations into the country by the Mexicans since the Employers encouraged their immigration. During the Bacero program period close to 5 million Mexicans flooded the country, in spite of the government’s effort to keep them out. Employers justified this immigration by claiming that the jobs given to the Mexicans were basically jobs that Americans could not or would not do.
The authorities however insisted on law enforcement and refused to legalize these immigrants’ stay in the country. Their presence in the country and the jobs they took for low wages affected American wages negatively. Employers however were...