the saddest thing here is that the fight will be over the wall and not over the fact that under Reagan WE - the republicans made a deal with the DEM's to provide amnesty for the then illegal aliens provided we fix our immigration policy and secure our borders - we got amnesty and no one ever made them FIX the system to prevent the wholesale invasion of illegals the stream into our borders from all countries (yes the majority is from the southern border but it is also guest workers that over stay their visas from all over the world and then just disappear.
And now we have people arguing the if your baby is born in the US even if you are NOT a citizen that that baby is a US citizen - with is NOT in the constitution unless your read it like an idiot)
FOR THOSE TO LAZY TO RED IT ON THEIR OWN OR WANTING TO CREATE THEIR OWN SET OF FACTS:
The Empire of Japan's State Department negotiated the so-called Gentlemen's Agreement in 1907, a protocol where Japan agreed to stop issuing passports to its citizens who wanted to emigrate to the United States. In practice, the Japanese government compromised with its prospective emigrants and continued to give passports to the Territory of Hawaii where many Japanese resided. Once in Hawaii, it was easy for the Japanese to continue on to Japanese settlements on the west coast if they so desired. In the decade of 1901 to 1910, 129,000 Japanese immigrated to the United States or Hawaii; nearly all were males and on five-year work contracts and 117,000 more came in the decades from 1911 to 1930. How many of them stayed and how many returned at the end of their contracts is unknown but it is estimated that about one-half returned. Again this immigrant flow was at least 80% male and the demand for female Japanese immigrants almost immediately arose. This need was met in part by what are called "postcard wives" who immigrated to new husbands who had chosen them on the basis of their pictures (similar marriages also occurred in nearly all cultures throughout the female-scarce west). The Japanese government finally quit issuing passports to the Territory of Hawaii for single women in the 1920s.
Congress also banned persons because of poor health or lack of education. An 1882 law banned entry of "lunatics" and infectious disease carriers. After President William McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist of immigrant parentage, Congress enacted the Anarchist Exclusion Act in 1901 to exclude known anarchist agitators.[3] A literacy requirement was added in the Immigration Act of 1917.
In 1921 the United States Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act, which established national immigration quotas. The quotas were based on the number of foreign-born residents of each nationality who were living in the United States as of the 1910 census.
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.[4] The California Alien Land Law of 1913, overturned in 1952 by the holding in Sei Fujii v. California, 38 Cal. 2d 718, and other similar laws prohibited aliens from owning land property, thus effectively stripping Indian Americans of land rights. While the decision was placating Asiatic Exclusion League (AEL) demands, spurned by growing outrage at the Turban Tide/Hindoo Invasion [sic] alongside the pre-existing outrage at the "Yellow Peril", and while more recent legislation influenced by the civil-rights movement has removed much of the statutory discrimination against Asians, no case has overturned this 1923 classification.
A more complex quota plan, the National Origins Formula, replaced this "emergency" system under the Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reed Act). The reference census used was changed to that of 1890, which greatly reduced the number of Southern and Eastern European immigrants. An annual ceiling of 154,227 was set for the Eastern Hemisphere. Each country had a quota proportional to its population in the U.S. as of the 1890 census.
In 1932 President Hoover and the State Department essentially shut down immigration during the Great Depression as immigration went from 236,000 in 1929 to 23,000 in 1933. This was accompanied by voluntary repatriation to Europe and Mexico, and coerced repatriation and deportation of between 500,000 and 2 million Mexican Americans, mostly citizens, in the Mexican Repatriation. Total immigration in the decade of 1931 to 1940 was 528,000 averaging less than 53,000 a year.
The Chinese exclusion laws were repealed in 1943. The Luce-Celler Act of 1946 ended discrimination against Indian Americans and Filipinos, who were accorded the right to naturalization, and allowed a quota of 100 immigrants per year.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (the McCarran-Walter Act) revised the quotas again, basing them on the 1920 census. For the first time in American history, racial distinctions were omitted from the U.S. Code. As could be expected, most of the quota allocation went to immigrants from Ireland, the United Kingdom and Germany who already had relatives in the United States.[citation needed] The anti-subversive features of this law are still in force.[citation needed]
1960s
The Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 (the Hart-Celler Act) abolished the system of national-origin quotas. There was, for the first time, a limitation on Western Hemisphere immigration (120,000 per year), with the Eastern Hemisphere limited to 170,000. The law changed the preference system for immigrants. Specifically, the law provided preference to immigrants with skills needed in the U.S. workforce, refugees and asylum seekers, as well as family members of U.S. citizens. Family reunification became the cornerstone of the bill. At the time, the then-chairman of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee Edward Kennedy remarked that "the bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs." (U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., Feb. 10, 1965. pp. 1–3.)
1980s
The Refugee Act of 1980 established policies for refugees, redefining "refugee" according to United Nations norms. A target for refugees was set at 50,000 and the worldwide ceiling for immigrants was reduced to 270,000 annually.
In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) was passed, creating for the first time penalties for employers who knowingly hired undocumented immigrants. 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 or INS (now part of Department of Homeland Security).
1990s
The U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, led by former Rep. Barbara Jordan, ran from 1990 to 1997. The Commission covered many facets of immigration policy, but started from the perception that the "credibility of immigration policy can be measured by a simple yardstick: people who should get in, do get in; people who should not get in, are kept out; and people who are judged deportable are required to leave".[5] From there, in a series of four reports, the commission looked at all aspects of immigration policy.[6] In the first, it found that enforcement was lax and needed improvement on the border and internally. For internal enforcement, it recommended that an automated employment verification system be created to enable employers to distinguish between legal and illegal workers. The second report discussed legal immigration issues and suggested that immediate family members and skilled workers receive priority. The third report covered refugee and asylum issues. Finally, the fourth report reiterated the major points of the previous reports and the need for a new immigration policy. Few of these suggestions were implemented.
The Immigration Act of 1990 (IMMACT) modified and expanded the 1965 act; it significantly increased the total immigration limit to 700,000 and increased visas by 40 percent. Family reunification was retained as the main immigration criterion, with significant increases in employment-related immigration.
Several pieces of legislation signed into law in 1996 marked a turn towards harsher policies for both legal and illegal immigrants. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) and Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) vastly increased the categories of criminal activity for which immigrants, including green card holders, can be deported and imposed mandatory detention for certain types of deportation cases. As a result, well over 2 million individuals have been deported since 1996.[7]
This is not a NEW debate. But, how it is resolved is the difference between us becoming Venezuela or remaining the country we are now. If you doubt that then please read what Venezuela used to be as opposed to what it is now ... or ask an old Venezuelan they are all here!
