U.S. Immigration Policy: History, Race, and Labor Forces

Introduction: Immigration, Identity, and Policy

American immigration policy and population patterns have changed in response to labor demands and economic forces, as well as shifts in American identity and social norms. Global forces have also shaped immigration patterns over the past hundred years. Anti-immigration sentiments have strongly influenced immigration policies, with the most notable historical examples being the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Nativist movement of the 1920s (Young 1). Similar Nativist sentiments resurfaced during the Trump administration, clouding constructive discourse on the role and status of immigrants in the United States and the fundamental functions of immigration policy.

Early Twentieth-Century Immigration and the Melting Pot Ideal

Although the United States was always a settler nation, immigration trends changed significantly in the early twentieth century. Immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe began arriving in large numbers before the First World War, pushed by economic uncertainty and poverty and pulled by the promise of readily available jobs in rapidly industrializing America ("Immigration in the Early 1900s" 1). American immigration policy favored these new immigrants to fill needed low-wage positions in industry. As Zolberg points out, new immigrants were expected to assimilate into America's "melting pot" ideal rather than to create a multicultural nation, though self-segregation of immigrant communities proved inevitable.

Race-based immigration policies were also a defining feature of the twentieth century, with Chinese exclusion being only one example. Cutting off new Chinese immigrants meant that the United States would seek low-wage workers from elsewhere, particularly Mexico. The solicitation of Mexican agricultural and other itinerant or temporary workers became known as the bracero program (McCabe 1). The bracero model continues to dominate immigration trends — not just in the United States but around the world (McCabe 1). By the 1920s, American immigration policy actively sought Mexican immigrants while still placing strict quotas or outright bans on Asian immigrants (Zolberg). The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 was essentially a quota system dictating which nationalities could or could not immigrate to the United States (Alvarez 1).

Race, Gender, and Class in Immigration Law

Immigration policies have also been gendered, particularly regarding restrictions on female immigrants. Chinese male laborers were not permitted to reunite with their wives in America — an overtly racist policy that prevented Chinese laborers from enjoying the full privileges of American citizenship. The same racist and gendered policies applied to Indian applicants (Zolberg 1). However, comparable gendered restrictions did not apply when the United States opened its doors more widely to Europeans. Even though Southern and Eastern Europeans were not considered as "white" as the original settler stock from Northern Europe and Great Britain, Eastern Europeans and Christians were deemed more desirable immigrants than Asians and non-Christians (Zolberg 1).

The immigrants who arrived were not the "poorest of the poor," who could not have afforded passage, but rather unskilled, uneducated members of the working class (Zeitz 1). In this sense, immigration policy has consistently been race-based, gendered, and classist, reflecting the economic and social priorities of the receiving society rather than purely humanitarian values.