Transcript gabriela nhd

Immigrants are foreign-born people who
have moved into another country for a
better life style. Immigration is the
introduction of new people into a habitat
or population. People have migrated all
over the world, especially in the United
States. But in the end of the 1800’s, the US
began to make take their first steps against
immigration.
Immigrants Arriving in the
"Land of Promise," 1901
Immigrants Aboard the
S.S. Patricia
Between 1865 and 1890 a great wave of people
migrated in the United States, mostly from
northwest of Europe. Then, from the 1890 to 1914,
another group of approximately 15 million people
from eastern and southern Europe came to the US.
Not all immigrants planned to stay, the so called
‘Birds of Passage’ mostly consisted of young men
who intended to make money in the US then to
return to their native countries. Those who did stay,
brought their families to live the new and improved
American life style.
In the end of the nineteenth century, laws against
immigration started to take place. On the year of 1875
Congress passed the first restrictive immigration law by
barring criminals, anarchists, polygamists, and prostitutes to
enter the country. Congress later passed a series of Alien
Contract Labor laws from 1885 through1891, that restrained
immigrants from entering the U.S to work under contracts
made before their arrival and prohibited U.S employers from
advertising job opportunities in other countries. By World
War I people believed that the country was becoming
overcrowded. Many Americans complained that new
immigrants were taking good jobs but that they worked too
much for little money. Congress responded by passing new
immigration laws in 1917, 1921, and 1924. The 1921 law
established a quota system, in which the total number
immigrants from any nation in a year could not surpass
three percent of the number of foreign-born residents of
that nationality living in the U.S. Immigration slowed down
during the Great Depression, as economic opportunities in
the U.S. also became weak.
In May of 2006 President Bush responded to pressure from
the Congress over the amount of illegal immigrants coming
into the country by crossing the Mexican border, and he
promised to send as many as 6,000 National Guards troops
to reinforce the Border Patrol in the southwestern U.S. Since
immigration reform is often debated in the halls of Congress
and by state legislators, actions are taken. But the public
also has strong feelings about the topic. The United States is
divided on solutions for immigration reform. Many American
have taken strong actions against undocumented
immigrants, and many have led to tragedies. But others feel
like everyone has the right to personal success. Difficult
questions arise when immigration reform is brought up.
Human rights, economic opportunities, racism, poverty,
exploitation, and employment are just some of the issues of
this particular subject.
Numbers of immigrants continue to go up til today.