Talk:History of laws concerning immigration and naturalization in the United States

Table of Contents
No Table of contents? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.228.85.87 (talk • contribs)


 * A TOC is automatically created by sections, which this article does not have. -- brew crewer  (yada, yada) 16:05, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Section headings and automatic TOC have since been added. Chuckiesdad/Talk/Contribs 05:15, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

According to CSIS there was no federal immigration until 1875, Chy Lung v. Freeman because up to that point the states were the ones in charge of immigration law and each state had its own laws as to who could be admitted and who couldn't. In Chy Lung v. Freeman, which involved California immigration laws that banned certain persons, the US Supreme Court ruled that because immigration policy affects the entire country, it could not be decided by individual states and instead had to be decided by the US Congress. It was after this that Congress started passing the laws we see today.

Prior to 1875, immigration policy was left entirely to the states. This was not an "open borders" policy nor did it mean there were no regulations on who could immigrate. It means that if you want to know about immigration law from that period you have to look at the laws of each individual state because each state had its own immigration laws.

Take a look: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/92/275.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.6.71.122 (talk) 20:02, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Merger proposal

 * Agree with the merger proposal with List of United States immigration legislation, the two articles are essentially the bird's content in different formats, and both would be improved by a cow. Chuckiesdad/Talk/Contribs 05:14, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * "Oppose"Both articles are interesting, it is good to have a synthesis about the matter but also to have the list of all th laws--Kimdime (talk) 19:42, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Unsure, leaning towards no on the merge, for the reason that both articles are semi-long and to combine them would probably just create a new debate about the length of the article. However, List of United States immigration legislation isn't in such great shape. It could use some formatting. One day I may get around to it. Another thing, the last two comments about this "merge" were posted a while ago, and nothing seems to have been done since. I'm going to remove the "discuss merge" template from the header. If this "debate" ever picks up again I would highly encourage somebody else to replace it. However, it this time it detracts from an necessary article and probably turns off a slew of potential readers. Kiwiboy121 (talk) 21:50, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Objective View
at few points in the article, it is mentioned as if the writer is a US citizen, which is not the purpose of an Encyclopedia.

Phrases like "holes in our security" really have no place in here, but instead holes in the "US security". 77.124.78.175 (talk) 12:45, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Near the end, it states that the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 would have given "amnesty". "Amnesty" was a loaded word, used by opponents of the Act to claim (falsely) that illegal immigrants could become U.S. citizens without penalty. AFAIK, the Act itself doesn't include that term, and its proponents staunchly deny that the Act provides for genuine amnesty. For this page, something more neutral, like "an path to eventual citizenship" is better than "amnesty."Steve (talk) 15:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for noting that. I've made the changes you suggest, as well as that suggested by 77.124.78.175 above.   Will Beback    talk    17:34, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Use of the word American to refer to immigrants who are not yet American
The sentence "In 1870, the law was broadened to allow African Americans to be naturalized" is technically flawed.

A person being naturalized, is, by definition, not American until the naturalization is complete.

A person of the same race as an African-American is who is being naturalized is therefore not African-American prior to the naturalization. (Someone of that race born in the U.S. is an African-American from birth, but would not require naturalization.)

The only possible exception would be either

(a) someone who is a citizen of Canada or a Latin American country (on the theory that "American" includes the whole Western hemisphere, not just the U.S.) or

(b) someone who has mixed African and American ancestry. However, the term "African American" normally means an American of African ancestry, and more specifically, having ancestry in the black racial groups of sub-Saharan Africa (Arabs from Egypt, Libya, Morocco, etc., are not included in the definition that appears on affirmative action forms).

Since a person being naturalized is not yet a U.S. citizen, we should use whatever term Wikipedia normally uses for persons of that race who are not U.S. citizens -- not "African American". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.109.156.7 (talk) 01:20, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

History of work visas in the United States
When the article on Chinese immigration laws says: Laborers in the United States and laborers with work visas received a certificate of residency and were allowed to travel in and out of the United States. the article does not say anything about previous systems of work permits in US history – or even whether a system of work visas so much as existed.

Whether work visas per se are a part of immigration laws is debatable, but if they allowed for travel otherwise impossible into and out of the United States they certainly would be. Thus, at least background on the origin and history of work visas in the United States – and limits to their use – would be very useful even if it might not fit best in this article. Luokehao, 01:20 (UTC), 5 March 2018

Motivating Factor(s) for Early Immigration Laws
The introductory section of the article currently states, "growing support for eugenics eventually drove the US government to adopt immigration laws. These laws were intended to end the open immigration policy which the Founding Fathers had permitted, in favor of preventing "racial taint" from immigrants who entered from undesirable countries." What is the basis for this statement? The first federal regulation of immigration was to limit criminal professions; prostitution and convicts were banned. Later laws were intended to prevent crime and degeneracy, not through eugenics, but through perceived behavior. Immigration laws also were motivated by labor interests. I have not found any documentation anywhere that shows that the teachings of the eugenics movement played a role in the formulation of immigration laws in the United States. Pooua (talk) 19:08, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Why have you not found this documentation? Did you scrupulously avoid doing a Google search or something? What about Harry Laughlin?


 * Laughlin provided extensive statistical testimony to the United States Congress in support of the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924. Part of his testimony dealt with "excessive" insanity among immigrants from southern Europe and eastern Europe. He was eventually appointed as an expert eugenics agent to the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization (the 1924 law applied national-origin quotas on immigrants, which stopped the large Italian and Russian influx of the early 1900s). At least one contemporary scientist, bacterial geneticist Herbert Spencer Jennings, condemned Laughlin's statistics as invalid because they compared recent immigrants to more settled immigrants.
 * Did you search Google Books?
 * Did you read Wikipedia's own article on the Immigration Act of 1924? Eugenics was used as justification for the act's restriction of certain races or ethnicities of people in order to prevent the spread of perceived feeblemindedness in American society.
 * It seems that the evidence for the influence of eugenics is as plain as the nose on my Irish face (my ancestors came here during the Potato Famine, and faced anti-Catholic Know-Nothings as well as "No Irish Need Apply", because Irishmen like me are known for being consistently drunken and belligerent. I have a hard time accepting that you can find no evidence for the passage you are disputing. Elizium23 (talk) 21:59, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
 * That eugenics influenced immigrations laws in the 20th century (or even earlier), is not support for the claim that it's what "drove the US government to adopt immigration laws" when the first immigration laws were decades earlier and motivated by different goals. The sentence should be deleted or at the very least reworded to clarify its not talking about initial adoption but later developments. 2600:8806:501:F500:A476:6B02:6D95:A29F (talk) 15:50, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Immigration Law Prior to 1875
According to CSIS there was no federal immigration until 1875, Chy Lung v. Freeman because up to that point the states were the ones in charge of immigration law and each state had its own laws as to who could be admitted and who couldn't. In Chy Lung v. Freeman, which involved California immigration laws that banned certain persons, the US Supreme Court ruled that because immigration policy affects the entire country, it could not be decided by individual states and instead had to be decided by the US Congress. It was after this that Congress started passing the laws we see today.

Prior to 1875, immigration policy was left entirely to the states. This was not an "open borders" policy nor did it mean there were no regulations on who could immigrate. It means that if you want to know about immigration law from that period you have to look at the laws of each individual state because each state had its own immigration laws.

Take a look: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/92/275.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.6.71.122 (talk) 20:04, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

No Content After Presidency of Donald Trump
President Biden has been in office for over a year now, and the article ends with a reference to Trump's policy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.229.97.58 (talk) 15:53, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Race, Law, and Politics
— Assignment last updated by Dorbwe (talk) 16:46, 23 April 2024 (UTC)