History of laws concerning immigration and naturalization in the United States

Under a mostly prevailing "open border" policy, immigration was generally welcomed, although citizenship was limited to “white persons” as of 1790, and naturalization subject to five year residency requirement as of 1802.

Article I, section 8, clause 4 of the Constitution expressly gives the United States Congress the power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.

In other words, for over 110 years, any federal or state court of record could naturalize a qualified applicant.

The Fourteenth Amendment, based on the Civil Rights Act of 1866, was ratified in 1868 to provide citizenship for former slaves.

It barred immigrants considered "undesirable," defining this as a person from East Asia who was coming to the United States to be a forced laborer, any East Asian woman who would engage in prostitution, and all people considered to be convicts in their own country.

The Supreme Court's ruling denied Dred Scott and other African Americans their rights as citizens and intensified sectional tensions leading up to the Civil War.

Amendments made in 1884 tightened the provisions that allowed previous immigrants to leave and return, and clarified that the law applied to ethnic Chinese regardless of their country of origin.

The Japanese government finally quit issuing passports to the Territory of Hawaii for single women in the 1920s.

The quota for each country was derived by calculating 3 percent of the number of foreign-born residents of each nationality who were living in the United States as of the 1910 census.

[13] The crucial 1923 Supreme Court case United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind created the official stance to classify South Asian Indians as non-white, which at the time allowed Indians who had already been naturalized to be retroactively stripped of their citizenship after prosecutors argued that they had gained their citizenship illegally.

The decision placated Asiatic Exclusion League demands and growing outrage at the so-called "Hindoo Invasion" and "Yellow Peril".

While more recent legislation influenced by the civil rights movement has removed much of the statutory discrimination against Asians, no case has overturned the classification of Indians as non-white.

IRCA also contained an amnesty for about 3 million undocumented immigrants already in the United States, and mandated the intensification of some of the activities of the United States Border Patrol and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (now part of Department of Homeland Security).

The second report discussed legal immigration issues and suggested that immediate family members and skilled workers receive priority.

Several pieces of legislation signed into law in 1996 marked a turn towards harsher policies for both legal and illegal immigrants.

A total of 20 foreign terrorists were involved, 19 of whom took part in the attacks that caused the deaths of 2,977 victims, most of them civilians.

In 2005, Senators John McCain and Ted Kennedy revived the discussion of comprehensive immigration reform with the proposal of the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act, incorporating legalization, guest worker programs, and enhanced border security.

In December 2005, the House passed the Border Protection, Anti-terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, which was sponsored by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI).

The bill would provide legal residency and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who graduate from U.S. high schools and attend college or join the military.

For Mexico and the Philippines, the only categories of immigrant visa available in practice are those for immediate dependent family of U.S. citizens.

Persons who applied since 1994 have not been in the categories for adult children and siblings, and trends show that these data are unlikely to change.

This is unlike many other countries, whose laws provide for permanent residence after a certain number of years of legal employment.

[34] In March 2020, the current President Trumps administration launched the Title 42 Immigration Act.

This act was launched by the administration which allowed U.S. authorities to push out migrants back to Mexico, or their country of origin.

[36] With a change in Presidency, The Title 42 Immigration Act was being pushed to be terminated by the Biden administration.

This originally failed as the members of congress were worried that lifting the Act would create a surge in migration.

The bill also replaces the term alien with noncitizen in the immigration statutes and addresses other related issues.

Arizona state or local officials and agencies cannot restrict enforcement of federal immigration laws.

[40] Text of the proposed legislation Archived 2013-04-18 at the Wayback Machine was promptly released on the website of Senator Charles Schumer.

[41] On November 21, 2014, president Barack Obama signed two executive actions which had the effect of delaying deportation for millions of illegal immigrants.