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-> This article is part of Documenteds Glossary. We want to make it easier to understand the U.S. immigration system. If you want to know more about different visa types and immigration terms,please check our library here.-> To find useful information for immigrants, such as where to find free food or legal representation, check out ourmaster resource guide.

Also known as the McCarran-Walter Act, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (INA) was intended to reform immigration laws that had for a long time harmed U.S. international relations due to the quota and preference system introduced in the Immigration Act of 1924. However, rather than to fix the controversial policies that favored northern and western European countries, the INA reinforced them by upholding and codifying the national origins quota system.

Under the National Origins Quota System, annual immigration was capped at one-sixth of one percent of each nationalitys population in the United States in 1920, which resulted in 85% of the 155,000 available visas going to individuals of northern and western Europe.

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INA also removed previous laws that prevented Asians from immigrating and naturalizing. But it also imposed a 100-visa annual limit for every Asian country and created a quota system based on race, rather than nationality, in which an individual with one or more Asian parent, born anywhere in the world and possessing the citizenship of any nation, would be counted toward the national quota of the Asian nation of their race.

The low quota allotment and the discriminatory racial construction for how to apply ensured total Asian immigration remained very low.

Additionally, the Immigration and Nationality Act initiated significant reforms seen in later immigration acts that prioritized immigration by skill workers and family reunification.

Also read: IIRIRA: Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, explained

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How the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 Upheld Controversial Immigration Quotas - Documented - Documented NY

They keep coming. The numbers are climbing with no end in sight, claims an ominous voice over images of migrants crowded at the southwestern U.S. border. The implication of the 30-second spot sponsored by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which lobbies for lower immigration, is that the mass migration of people across borders is inevitable. On that point, even many immigration advocates agree. Only their interpretation is different: If large-scale population movement is inevitable, they argue, the receiving countriesand especially wealthy liberal democracies such as the United Statesneed fairer, more humane systems for processing people as they arrive.

The widespread assumption that immigration is inevitable shapes public discourse in other ways. To light a fire under Western governments only sluggishly moving to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, climate activists have cited a looming migration of people from countries prone to floods, fires, extreme storms, and desertification. Supporters of an internationalist foreign policy paint the many Ukrainians streaming across Europes borders so close on the heels of the 2015 influx of Syrian refugees as evidence of a foreordained future, in which those displaced by a surge in conflict will force open Europes doors.

But as I explain in my new book, 8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death, and Migration Shape Our World, this rhetoric does not match reality. It has, however, distorted the politics of the U.S. and other wealthy nations by galvanizing anti-immigrant forces while lulling progressives into complacency. In practice, national governments can and do exercise considerable control over how many people cross their borders. People fleeing conflict, displaced by environmental changes, or just hoping for a better life may try to come to liberal democracies. But those states dont have to take themand probably wont, unless immigration advocates convince the general public that an influx of newcomers is desirable rather than inevitable.

From the May 2021 issue: America never wanted the tired, poor, huddled masses

Even after Donald Trump, who pursued a zero tolerance immigration policy, left office, the U.S. has continued his restrictive approach using a policy known as Title 42, which, since March 2020, has allowed the U.S. to remove people who were recently in a country where a communicable disease was present. Critics see this as a border-enforcement mechanism masquerading as a COVID-19 measure; under first a Republican administration and then a Democratic one, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has used it to expel more than 1.7 million would-be immigrants and asylum seekers along the southwestern U.S. border. (Yesterday, the Biden administration floated the idea of lifting Title 42 in late May.)

Contrast recent American gatekeeping at the Mexican border with Colombias more welcoming response to the mass displacement of people from Venezuela, its economically and politically troubled neighbor. Colombian President Ivn Duque recently offered 10-year residency permits to nearly 1 million Venezuelans living in Colombia.

In Europe as in the Americas, individual nations differ significantly in their willingness to admit migrants. More than 1.1 million people applied for asylum in European Union countries in 2016. Although 61 percent of cases received a positive decision overalllargely driven by Germany, which issued approvals in 69 percent of its 631,000 casesFrance approved only 33 percent, the United Kingdom (then an EU member) 32 percent of cases, and Greece just 24 percent. But the welcome mat can just as easily be rolled up as rolled out. As citizens in many European democracies soured on immigration in the second half of the 2010s, even Germany denied more than 50 percent of first-time applicants in 2020.

The initial European response to Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion has been generous. But just a month into the brutal conflict, officials in Moldova, Ukraines smallest neighbor, are already saying that refugees are putting their country under strain. Past experience elsewhere in the world suggests that host nations resolve to support a huge exodus may not last as long as the crisis will.

Predictions of future human mobilityvoluntary and forcedfrequently focus on the dozens of push factors, such as crime and poor job prospects, that could drive people from their home country. The pressures that create emigration will continue in the future. Changing climates will make earning a living difficult for many people, and natural disasters will render some currently populated areas dangerous or even uninhabitable. The global retreat of democracy could yield more civil conflict and an increase in forced-displacement trends. But even if emigration from a troubled country is inevitable, immigration to a wealthy, peaceful one is far from it. Liberal democracies will not open their borders enough to accept all those seeking refuge.

Similarly, the pull factors that make a country attractive to migrants do not guarantee their legal entry. As Americas population ages, unless it can boost its fertility rate (which isnt looking likely), the country will have to either accept more immigrants to supplement native-born workers or else face the consequences of a shrinking labor force. Experts have made the same argument in Japan, where low fertility would seem to have made immigration an economic necessity. But Japanese voters and public officials continue to resist proposals to invite migrants from elsewhere in Asia. Although Japan has the worlds oldest population, immigrants make up only about 2 percent of its residents, and the country imposes significant institutional barriers to discourage immigrants from settling permanently.

Sovereign nations, for reasons of their own, can and do enact restrictive immigration policies even when doing so is not in their best economic interest. Domestic political concernsincluding those in response to fears of ethnic changecan prop up anti-immigration laws indefinitely. I have previously argued that, far from trying to keep immigrants out, the United States should build a wall to keep them in.

Perpetuating the narrative of inevitable immigration has consequences for a countrys politics. Demographic analysis frequently suffers from what psychologists call desirability biasthe data appear to show exactly what the observer wishes to be true. For those who wish to welcome migrantsor who stand to benefit politically from demographic changethe presumption that the flow will always continue may breed inaction and complacency.

Read: The nativists won in Europe

In the U.S., that presumption made the Democratic Party overly confident about its long-term electoral prospects. Many Democrats came to believe that long-term demographic trends would inexorably produce a Democratic majority, Elaine Kamarck and William Galstonboth policy experts who served in the Clinton administrationargued in The Wall Street Journal in February. The expectation was that decades of robust immigration from Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region would steadily increase the diversity of the U.S. population. As these Americans entered the electorate, they would join forces with other people of colorespecially African-Americans and Native Americansto strengthen support for the Democratic Party.

But voters political affiliations are not fixed. Although people of color make up a growing share of younger voters, many Hispanic voters of all ages are shifting to the Republican Party, seemingly out of frustration with the Democratic platform or party norms that seem divorced from their values on a variety of issues, including immigration.

Of course, the narrative of inevitable immigration can also increase some voters resolve to keep would-be newcomers out. Governments respond to those pressures. Many democratic countries have used extreme measures to deter would-be asylum seekers from crossing into their borders. Australia has created offshore processing centers that prevent migrants from ever setting foot on the countrys soil; the U.S. has followed a Remain in Mexico policy to keep Central American migrants at bay; and the EU criminalized rescues at sea in 2017. In lieu of permanently settling refugees, Denmark chose to issue temporary residency permits in many cases, a move supported by politicians on both the right and the left. And now that many Danes are ready for those Syrians to leave, Denmark has instituted a plethora of policies designed to force them to return home, including a jewelry bill entitling the Danish government to seize asylum-seekers assets to build the countrys funds.

Immigration advocates, including those in the private sector who are hoping that immigrants will fill skills gaps, need to push for legal changes to increase immigration, rather than simply assuming that immigration will happen no matter what.

This piece is adapted from Sciubbas recent book, 8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death, and Migration Shape Our World.

When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

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The Mistaken Assumption That Immigration Is Inevitable - The Atlantic

The train from Lviv pulled into the Polish border town of Przemyl. While the 2,000 Ukrainians packed into its 600 seats waited to disembark, dozens of Polish soldiers entered a single car, emerging one by one cradling a precious cargo: more than 50 children with profound special needs, evacuated without their parents.

Such is the horror facing families in war-torn Ukraine that mothers and fathers are choosing to send children who are not able to fend for themselves across the border into the arms of strangers. They join the more than 3 million who have crossed into Poland among the more than 4 million who have fled the country since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24more than 800,000 of them through Przemyl alone.

We witnessed the flood of refugees arriving on foot, in wheelchairs or carried in arms, and the warm reception of Polish volunteers. Like other business leaders in our World Food Program U.S. delegation, we wanted to understand firsthand how to leverage the resources of our law firm and our community to help in the crisis, which grows worse by the day.

One thing is clear: Time is running out. The Ukrainians and Poles we spoke to sounded the alarm on the need to address two urgent human needs: food and safety.

President Bidens announcement on March 24 that the United States would accept 100,000 Ukrainians and donate $1 billion to European countries are welcome first steps, but the administration must swiftly follow this by expanding eligibility and streamlining intake and resettlement processes, which typically take years.

The business community, for its part, must coalesce to provide financial and logistical support for ongoing relief efforts. Even if the war ceases soon, Ukraines agricultural system and supply chains will not be rebuilt overnight, so food support will remain a priority, both in Ukraine and globally.The most direct way for American business to help now is to donate to organizations providing food security on the ground.

Story continues

As Putins army lays siege to Ukraine, leveling towns with the tactics of a medieval despot, the need for emergency food relief grows exponentially. Despite the danger, the World Food Program has been transporting food into Ukraine and distributing it in the war zone. The program needs more funding from our government, from corporations, and from individuals. Many other organizations on the ground need support.

Poland is shouldering the heaviest burden. We have seen how ordinary Poles are mobilized en masse. In Przemyl, a town that is no stranger to war, authorities and volunteers have set up a reception area stretching several blocks to register, feed, house, and transport the incoming refugees. There is soup, plus coffee, diapers, baby food, stuffed animals, warm clothes, medical supplies, and even free sim cards. Residents are opening their homes. The mayors own mother houses two Ukrainian families.

In the major city of Krakow, where the population has surged by a quarter, businesses have converted empty shopping malls, unused office buildings, warehouses, and train stations into dormitories for displaced Ukrainiansbut food and space will soon run out. We have to do it; we have to help, an 18-year-old volunteer told us.

Most Ukrainian families we met said they want to stay in Europe, as close as possible to home so that they can return when it is safe.To its credit, the European Union has changed course from past crises, opening its borders, providing temporary protected status for Ukrainians to remain in various EU countries, with authorization to work and access to medical care, education, and other public aid.

For those wishing to go to the United States, even to join family there, the path is unfathomably more difficult, as so many from other ravaged countries have found out.

As we waited on the platform in Przemyls train station, we spoke with a father and his 9-year-old twins, waiting for their mother to disembark. Putins soldiers had bombed their house, ransacked it, and taken over. One of the twins pulled out an object shed been clutching in her pocketa piece of shrapnel. She was keeping it, she told us, so that people would believe her familys story of terror.

The father was interested in coming to America.Despite our combined 80 years working in the legal system, we struggled to explain some aspects of U.S. immigration law: that the term refugee does not necessarily protect a family fleeing a war; that our system is aimed at providing refuge only to those who can meet the high bar of particularized discrimination against them; that our Temporary Protected Status applies only to those already in the U.S.

Ultimately, we found a few crevices in the existing law that might allow this family to squeeze through to freedom, and our firm will represent them (and others in similar positions) if that is their goal. For this family and so many others, the administrations recent announcements may provide real hope.

For those hopes to become a reality, the administration must move swiftly to promulgate the program rules, staff up, and expedite the process. And at least until we live in a world without cyclical humanitarian crises, we need an immigration law that is flexible enough to meet this kind of moment.

Loretta E. Lynch is a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and served as U.S. attorney general from 20152017. Steven Banks is special counsel in the firms pro bono practice and from 20142021 served as commissioner of the New York City Department of Social Services, the largest social services agency in the U.S.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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From the Ukraine-Poland border, an urgent call for support and immigration reform - Yahoo Finance

When former president Barack Obama was asked, in 2011, to stop the deportation of students with an executive order, he said he couldnt do it: There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply through executive order ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as President.

But he did it anyway a year later when he established the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program, which granted temporary lawful status to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States by their parents when they were children.

Then in 2014, he replaced the statutory classes of deportable aliens inINA section 1227 with his own list of deportable alien classes, which severely restricted who could be deported. Immigration officers needed approval from an ICE Field Office Director to take enforcement action against an immigrant who was not in one of those categories.

Obama justified his action by claiming that he was doing what he thought should be done until the passage of a comprehensive immigration reform bill.

The flaw in Obamas position is that if Democratic presidents can disregard the lawto fix the broken immigration systemuntil Congress acts with their version of a comprehensive immigration reform bill, Republican presidents will be able to ignore the fixes. Republicans have a very different view of how to fix the immigration system.

Biden has gone even further than Obama did.

Bidens DHS secretary, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, issued enforcement guidelines that replace the deportable alien grounds inINA section 1227 with priority categories that restrict deportation to immigrants who are a threat to our national security, to public safety, or to border security.

Mayorkas explained that the majority of undocumented immigrants who are subject to removal have been contributing members of our communities for years; therefore, the fact that an immigrant is removable should not alone be the basis for an enforcement action.

Biden also has cut more than 25 percent of the bed capacity at immigration detention facilities in his budget request for the next fiscal year. This would reduce funding for immigration enforcement beds from 34,000 to 25,000. CBP made 1.9 million arrestsfor illegal border crossings in the first year of the Biden presidency.

States experiencing the negative consequences of Bidens immigration policies, have been trying to stop him and they have had some successes. The most recent one occurred on March 22, when U.S. District Court Judge Michael J. Newman granted an application from Arizona, Montana, and Ohio (the states) for a preliminary injunction pending the outcome of a case that critically examines the public safety section of Bidens enforcement guidelines.

Judge Newmans decision

The Constitution of the United States gives significant authority to the president over immigration, which includes the discretion at every stage in the removal process to abandon the endeavor. But it gave Congress broad power over immigration too.

Congress has passed an Immigration and Nationality Act that includes classes of deportable aliens, provisions for the apprehension and detention of aliens, and provisions for the detention and removal of aliens ordered removed.

Some of these provisions are permissive, stating that DHS may take a certain action, but others are mandatory. And the Constitution has a Take Care clause that requires the president to ensure that the laws are faithfully executed.

INA section 1226(c)(1) provides that DHS shall take into custody immigrants who have committed specified criminal offenses, and INA section 1231(a)(1)(A) provides that DHS shall remove immigrants subject to final orders of removal within 90 days.

In the most recent lawsuit, the states contend that DHS is skirting the mandates in those statutory provisions with its enforcement guidelines, which, among other things, violates the Constitutions Take Care clause.

Public safety

The guidelines for this priority category specify that, Whether a noncitizen poses a current threat to public safety is not to be determined according to bright lines or categories. It instead requires an assessment of the individual and the totality of the facts and circumstances.

There can be aggravating factors that militate in favor of enforcement action, such as the gravity of the offense and the sentence imposed; the nature and degree of harm caused by the offense; the sophistication of the offense; and the use or threatened use of a dangerous weapon.

Conversely, there can be factors that militate in favor of declining enforcement action, such as advanced or tender age; lengthy presence in the United States; and the impact removal would have on family in the United States.

The overriding question is whether an evaluation of the individual and the totality of the facts and circumstances establish that the immigrant poses a threat to public safety.

Judges analysis

Bidens guidelines displace the custody and removal factors Congress intended immigration officials to consider with an extra-textual totality-of-the-circumstances analysis that governs every step in the enforcement process.

The guidelines provide that immigration officials should not rely on the fact of conviction or the result of a database search alone when making an enforcement-related decision. They must weigh the aggravating and mitigating factors against each other.

But INA section 1226(c) mandates the detention of immigrants who have committed certain enumerated offenses, and INA section 1227 provides that immigrants convicted of certain criminal offenses shall be removed.

Newman concludes that there is a strong likelihood that the states will prevail on their claim that Bidens public safety guidelines are unlawful. Accordingly, he issued a temporary injunction requiring DHS to refrain from implementing the guidelines.

The Take Care clause in the Constitution says that the president shall not may execute Congresss laws faithfully. As Obama once said, the man in the White House is a president, not a king.

Nolan Rappaportwas detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an executive branch immigration law expert for three years. He subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years. Followhis blogathttps://nolanrappaport.blogspot.com.

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Immigration highlights the problem of when presidents act like kings - The Hill

WASHINGTON, March 31, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --Today, the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and Labor (DOL) announced that they will exercise their discretionary authority to issue an additional 35,000 H-2B guestworker visas for the second half of the fiscal year. This move will further dampen wage prospects for struggling American workers who are falling further behind due to soaring inflation unleashed by the global pandemic and disastrous fiscal policies.

In announcing the release of 35,000 additional guestworker visas, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas assured the public that he recognizes "the importance of strong worker protections," and is committed to "applying greater scrutiny to those employers who have a record of violating obligations to their workers and the H-2B program."

The following is attributable to Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), in response to the forthcoming publication of a joint temporary final rule to make available an additional 35,000 H-2B guestworker visas for the second half of fiscal year (FY) 2022:

"Instead of incentivizing the return of millions of American workers to the labor force by allowing the laws of supply and demand to set competitive wages, the Biden administration is enabling employers to keep wages low and fill jobs with cheap foreign labor.

"Having opened the flood gates to millions of illegal aliens since taking office many of whom are already competing with lower-skilled American workers the Biden administration has found another avenue to allow more people to enter the country.

"In keeping with the administration's stance on all matters related to immigration policy, the secretary made no mention of true reforms to the program that will actually help American workers. In fact, under policy guidelines Mayorkas issued last fall, U.S. employers have been given carte blanche to bypass American workers in favor of guestworkers or illegal aliens, so long as they don't blatantly exploit them.

"Just another day at the office for a secretary of Homeland Security who is dedicated to ensuring that there are no limits on immigration, and another blow to the people he is supposed to protect," concluded Stein.

Contact: Preston Huennekens, 202-328-7004 or [emailprotected].

ABOUT FAIR

Founded in 1979, FAIR is the country's largest immigration reform group. With over 3 million members and supporters nationwide, FAIR fights for immigration policies that serve national interests, not special interests. FAIR believes that immigration reform must enhance national security, improve the economy, protect jobs, preserve our environment, and establish a rule of law that is recognized and enforced.

SOURCE Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)

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More Guestworkers Will Make it Even Harder for American Workers to Keep Up with Soaring Inflation, Charges FAIR - PR Newswire