The immigration Act of 1924 and the national origins system it established remained the basic immigration law of the land until 1965 (Daniels 321). The Act ended the total exclusion of racial and ethnic groups from naturalization and immigration. Although there had been grumblings, from the inside and outside of Congress, that making eligibility for naturalization global was “lowering the barriers,” there was, by 1952 a very broad consensus was in favor of it. Many Americans feared that the country might be swamped by refugees from a devastated Europe that was economically insecure and politically unstable, with Communist parties growing in every nation (Daniels 330). The struggle over the DP bills helped focus attention on the immigration …show more content…
While both the volume and incidence of immigration continued the steady increase that had begun just after World War II, anti-immigration attitudes, which have always lurked near the surface of the American mind, again emerged (Daniels 388). After five years of debate Congress finally passed an immigration Act in 1986 following some last-minute compromises. The immigration reform Act of 1986 left basic structure of the American immigration law untouched, and legal immigration continued to grow in the 1980s. The 1986 Act required that employers verify the eligibility of all native-born Americans to work in the United States (Daniels …show more content…
Many Americans and many members of congress are dismayed that Europeans make up a small percentage of contemporary immigration. Relatively very few Europeans wish to emigrate to the United States, they would rather visit but not live her (Daniels 400). The nativist tradition is almost as old as the the immigration tradition in America. One of the glories of the United States is that it is permanently unfinished country, and one of the hallmarks of its unfinished state is the constantly changing mix of people who come here (Daniels 408).
American immigration in the years since 1986 has mostly demonstrated continuity, but there have been some startling changes. The major continuities have been the increasing volume of immigration, its sources and in the apparently incorrigible incompetence of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The changes have been in attitudes towards immigration and eventual reflection of those changes in immigration law and regulations (Daniels 409).
The origins of 1998’s immigrants were much as they had been, North America, largely Mexico and Asia contributed more than a third, with the rest divided among Europe, Africa, Oceania and South America (Daniels