The History of Immigration Reform and a Viewpoint on Arizona

Hi everyone,

We are going to open this post with a bit of immigration reform history, and end with another member of H.I.I. staff's opinion on the immigration reform in AZ! Enjoy!

First and foremost, it is important to remember that if you are not a Native American, you are most definitely an immigrant. Whether your great-great grandparents emigrated from Europe in the 1800s, your tech-savvy parents emigrated from India in the still-ongoing brain drain, or you crossed the ever-contentious Mexican border, you are (or were the product of) an immigrant. Depending upon the decade, different immigration laws have been passed concerning different ethnic groups. Almost every ethnic group in the US today faced a period of social censure or political antagonism (depending upon your viewpoint, either deserved or undeserved). Here's a brief history of immigration law at the federal level:

In 1862, Congress passed the first immigration restriction law that prohibited American ships to carry Chinese immigrants to the States.

In 1864, Congress created the Bureau of Immigration in order to oversee immigrant Chinese labor.

From 1875-1920, the Fourth Wave of Immigration hit, and 21 million immigrants arrived from Eastern and Southern Europe.

In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act.

In 1917, Congress passed the Immigration Act.

From 1921-1965, the US operated under the Quota system, which stated that no more than 3% of the population could be from the same ethnic group (so the total population could be composed of 3% Irish, 3% Italian, 3% Hungarian, etc.). The quotas were prejudiced against certain ethnic groups.

In 1965, Congress passed the Immigration and Naturalization Act, designed to reunite broken immigrant families and attract highly skilled workers (think Silicon Valley). This resulted in an explosion of Asian (legal) and Mexican (illegal) immigrants.

In 1986, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which allowed continuous illegal residents of the US (since 1982) to apply for naturalization, made it illegal to employ illegal aliens, and created penalties for violations.

In 1996, Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act which made deportation of illegal immigrants easier.

Finally, in 2001, President Bush created the Office of Homeland Security which primarily deals with border security and immigration law enforcement.

Any federal legislation will have to not only reform current immigration bills in existence, but also incorporate the new Office of Homeland Security and speak to the legality of state immigration bills such as Arizona's. Perhaps this is why achieving any consensus on the issue, or even a guarantee of Congressmens' participation, is so difficult.
source: http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/soc/immig.html

H.I.I. Staff Perspective on AZ bill below, with quotes from AZ opposition!!

While the entire United States is currently fighting for a new Immigration Reform, Arizona has approved one of the harshest anti-immigration laws ever to hit America. This law allows police to pull-over and check the backgrounds of any person they encounter with “reasonable suspicion” and makes it illegal for any undocumented immigrants to even set foot in Arizona. The new law also allows citizans to sue if they believe that the state isn’t enforcing the new law. This new law has sent the entire country into a rampage, pro and anti-immigration fighters at each other’s throats.

However, not all of Arizona State thinks this new bill is fair. Arizona State Representative Krysten Sinema believes that the Governor should veto the bill all together. “This legislation would do nothing to solve the problems Arizona faces as a border state, would enshrine racial profiling, would be prohibitively expensive, and will create a permanent culture of fear and panic in innocent communities,” This bill could not have come at a worse time considering the FBI is currently investigating Phoenix and Tuscan for anti-smuggling and immigrant families were already worried about getting caught up in the mess. This bill only increases more fear and sheer panic.

Although a lot of people had their hopes set on Gov. Jan Brewer vetoing this tough bill, she ended up signing it on Friday, April 23rd. She claims that the new law “represents another tool for our state to use as we work to solve a crisis we did not create and the federal government has refused to fix.” Beforehand, even President Obama criticized the bill. Unfortunately, it seems that with this new law in place and American’s spewing out their opinions, it seems that people are starting to give up, making it easier and easier for laws such as this to be put into place, especially after Graham and Obama both dropped the Immigration Reform until 2012.

Resources used:

http://reformimmigrationforamerica.org/blog/whats-the-matter-with-arizona/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/us/politics/24immig.html