Immigration

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first significant federal law to restrict immigration based explicitly on nationality and race. It suspended the immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years and prohibited Chinese nationals from becoming U.S. citizens. Although it allowed a limited number…

This undated photograph captures a group of immigrants outside a building on Ellis Island. The Immigration Station at Ellis Island in New York Harbor was the major East Coast processing center for immigrants who came to the United States between 1892 and 1924.

This photograph depicts immigrant children at Ellis Island, New York, in 1908.

In the court case Arizona v. United States, the issue of state authority in immigration enforcement was addressed. The case scrutinized Arizona's S.B. 1070, a state law that introduced controversial provisions. These measures included criminalizing undocumented immigrants for failing to carry…

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is an immigration policy that provides temporary protection from deportation and work authorization to certain undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children. Known as Dreamers, eligible individuals must have entered the U.S.…

The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act is a legislative proposal that seeks to provide a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants who entered the United States as children. To qualify, individuals must meet specific requirements such as arriving in the U.S.…

California’s Proposition 187 aimed to deny undocumented immigrants access to public education, non-emergency health care, and other social services. It also sought to create a state-run system to verify immigration status. Backed by Governor Pete Wilson and fueled by concerns over immigration and…

The Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program emerged in response to humanitarian crises abroad. Congress created TPS in the Immigration Act of 1990 to shield eligible noncitizens from deportation. It also authorized work permits for them if their home countries faced armed conflict, environmental…

The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, aimed to overhaul U.S. immigration policy. It offered legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants who had lived in the country since before January 1, 1982. It did this through two legalization…

In anticipation of a possible war with France, the Alien and Sedition Acts imposed stricter regulations on foreign-born Americans and curtailed any speech that was critical of the government.

The Federalist Party, which supported a strong central government, viewed Democratic-…

<p><span class="deck"> It moved more boys and girls than the Children’s Crusade of the Middle Ages—and to far happier conclusions</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Refugees from the French Revolution, many of them of noble birth, built a unique community in the backwoods of Pennsylvania—and hoped their queen would join them</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> A ponderous memorial to a people who refused to vanish</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> For more than a century, Irish-Americans were whipsawed between love for their tormented native land and loyalty to the United States. But no more</span> . </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> The Facts Behind the Current Controversy Over Immigration</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck">Just before the American Revolution, the flight of British subjects to the New World forced a panicky English government to wrestle with this question.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">It’s a politician’s bromide, and it also happens to be a profound truth. No war, no national crisis, has left a greater impress on the American psyche than the successive waves of new arrivals that quite literally built the country. Now that arguments against immigration are rising again, it is well to remember that every single one of them has been heard before.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">A walk with my great-grandfather through the last foreign country in New York City</span></p>

<p>The Statue of Liberty has been glorified, romanticized, trivialized, and over-publicized. But the idea of “Liberty Enlightening the World” endures. </p>

<p>The daughter of a Gaelic-speaking fisherman on a remote Scottish island emigrated to New York, worked as a maid in the Carnegie Mansion, and married Fred Trump. Her son would become a tycoon like his father and then the president. </p>

<p>Fighting for labor rights in California's Central Valley, Dolores Clara Fernandez Huerta took up <em>la causa</em> in the name of children.</p>