Current and Past Immigration Policies

A. The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act has defined American immigration policy throughout the latter half of the twentieth century and continues to do so in spite of recent attempts by the Trump administration to reform the policy. The Immigration and Nationality Act establishes precedents for both family class and skills-based visa applications, and also presents specific quotas for each country of origin without barring immigrants from any one country or region. It is that latter issue, plus the family class provisions, which Trump has recently taken issue over (Krogstad & Gonzalez-Barrera, 2018). Current policies proposed by Trump would also eliminate prevailing programs like Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Common themes between past and present immigration policies have been the attempt to balance the economic and the humanitarian goals of immigration policy.
B. American immigration policies have affected the demographic composition of the nation, and have also allowed large extended families to stay together for humanitarian reasons with implications especially for gender issues. However, immigration policies do impact different groups differently. The “diversity visa” policies have allowed applicants from “underrepresented” countries to become eligible for residency or citizenship (Krogstad & Gonzalez-Barrera, 2018). Trump opposes the diversity visa program (Krogstad & Gonzalez-Barrera, 2018).
C. Reaction to immigration policy in the United States is politically polarizing. Arguments are framed with both economic and humanitarian goals. For example, DACA is designed to protect the rights of minors who were brought to the United States illegally by their parents and in spite of the successes of DACA recipients, Trump decided to end the program (Krogstad & Gonzalez-Barrera, 2018). Future policies may need to respond better to market forces, while still retaining the fundamental humanitarian outlook of immigration policy (Bush, McLarty & Alden, 2009).
References
Bush, J., McLarty, T.F. & Alden, E. (2009). U.S. immigration policy. Council on Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/report/us-immigration-policy
Krogstad, J.M. & Gonzalez-Barrera, A. (2018). Key facts about U.S. immigraiton policies and proposed change. Pew Research Center. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/02/26/key-facts-about-u-s-immigration-policies-and-proposed-changes/