History of Immigration

The immigration laws and regulations provide some avenues to apply for lawful status from within the U.S. or to seek relief from deportation.  The eligibility requirements for these benefits and relief can be stringent, and the immigration agencies often adopt overly restrictive interpretations of the requirements.  Learn about advocacy and litigation that has been and can be undertaken to ensure that noncitizens have a fair chance to apply for the benefits and relief for which they are eligible.  

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All History of Immigration Content

Publication Date: 
June 4, 2010
The capacity of these groups to stymie attempts to reform our broken immigration system should not be underestimated.
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May 21, 2008
Since the mid-1980s, the federal government has tried repeatedly, without success, to stem the flow of undocumented immigrants to the United States with immigration-enforcement initiatives: deploying...
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May 1, 2006
If the current political stalemate over immigration reform is any indication, many U.S. policymakers have yet to heed the lessons of recent history when it comes to formulating a realistic strategy...
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June 1, 2005
Thirty years after the fall of the Saigon government, Vietnamese Americans celebrate the fact that they have moved far beyond their refugee origins and become successful economic and political...
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March 1, 2005
Successive generations of African immigration have continuously transformed the African American community and the sociopolitical climate of the United States.
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December 1, 2004
December 17 marks the anniversary of the 1943 repeal by Congress of the Chinese Exclusion Act of May 6, 1882. With only a few exceptions, this law barred any Chinese from immigrating to the United...
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June 1, 2004
The McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 ended the blanket exclusion of immigrants based on race and created the foundation for current immigration law, but imposed a racialized immigration quota system and...
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May 1, 2004
Asian-Pacific migration to the United States has had a positive impact on immigration and refugee law by contributing to the demise of exclusion acts against non-whites and of the nationality-based...
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December 1, 2003
In the hours following the deadly terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States government took the extraordinary step of sealing U.S. borders to traffic and trade by grounding all...
Publication Date: 
October 1, 2002
In the aftermath of the horrific events of September 11, 2001, our leaders have begun exercising extraordinary powers to ensure our collective safety, sacrificing the personal liberties of some,...
July 23, 2020

A Canadian court has ruled that the United States is no longer a country to which the Canadian government could safely return asylum seekers who crossed the U.S-Canada land border.  This upends...

March 30, 2020

We are in the midst of a crisis unlike any we’ve experienced in our lifetimes. We are scared and scrambling to protect ourselves and the ones that we love. This is normal and understandable....

February 24, 2020

After months in the courts, the Trump administration declared victory and began enforcing its new “public charge” rule. The rule goes into effect on Monday, Feb. 24, 2020, inside the United States...

December 9, 2019

If you have ever wanted to trace your family’s immigration history, you should do it now—accessing genealogical records from the 1800s and 1900s may soon become far more expensive than ever before...

October 21, 2019

The ideology of President Trump is about more than limiting how many immigrants enter the United States each year; it’s about turning back the clock on U.S. social history. A recent analysis by...

August 23, 2019

Short-term thinking is inferior to long-term thinking, some argue, because it does a disservice to the future and those who will live it.  Two long-term thinkers who have profoundly impacted U.S....

June 24, 2019

The American Immigration Council is proud to announce the winner of the 22nd Annual Celebrate America Fifth Grade Creative Writing Contest. The contest encourages educators to incorporate lessons...

May 8, 2019

Each new generation of immigrants to the United States has, in time, achieved a high degree of integration into U.S. society. Whether it was immigrants from southern and eastern Europe a century...

March 25, 2019

Over the past few months, a new trend has emerged at the U.S.-Mexico border: more families are crossing and presenting themselves to U.S. officials to ask for asylum. But even though the number of...

September 17, 2018

Each year on September 17, America marks Citizenship Day, an annual opportunity to reflect on the benefits and responsibilities of U.S. citizenship. In years past, it was used as a day to...

Publication Date: 
September 30, 2020
This report identifies disruptions throughout the immigration system because of the COVID-19 pandemic and makes recommendations for improvements to the federal government’s response.
September 21, 2020
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States and champion of fairness and equality, died Friday in Washington, DC. The following statement is from Beth Werlin, executive director of the American Immigration Council:
August 18, 2020

People born in the United States are American citizens, regardless of what President Trump claims. Birthright citizenship—enshrined by the Fourteenth Amendment in the U.S. Constitution—guarantees...

August 6, 2020

The Trump administration announced on August 3 plans to end the 2020 Census one month earlier than previously planned. The change has led to fears that immigrant and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and...

July 23, 2020

A Canadian court has ruled that the United States is no longer a country to which the Canadian government could safely return asylum seekers who crossed the U.S-Canada land border.  This upends...

April 21, 2020
President Donald Trump announced his intention to temporarily suspend immigration to the United States in response to the coronavirus pandemic. A ban on all immigration would be an extraordinary move that flies in the face of our long history as a nation of immigrants.
March 30, 2020

We are in the midst of a crisis unlike any we’ve experienced in our lifetimes. We are scared and scrambling to protect ourselves and the ones that we love. This is normal and understandable....

February 24, 2020

After months in the courts, the Trump administration declared victory and began enforcing its new “public charge” rule. The rule goes into effect on Monday, Feb. 24, 2020, inside the United States...

December 9, 2019

If you have ever wanted to trace your family’s immigration history, you should do it now—accessing genealogical records from the 1800s and 1900s may soon become far more expensive than ever before...

October 21, 2019

The ideology of President Trump is about more than limiting how many immigrants enter the United States each year; it’s about turning back the clock on U.S. social history. A recent analysis by...

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