Background
In 1924 Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1924, which favored source countries that already had many immigrants in the U.S. and excluded immigrants from unpopular countries. Immigration patterns of the 1930s were dominated by the Great Depression, and in the early 1930s, more people emigrated from the United States than immigrated to it. Immigration continued to fall throughout the 1940s and 1950s, but it increased again afterwards.
Immigration is also widely used to describe proposals to increase legal immigration while decreasing illegal immigration, such as the guest worker proposal supported by George W. Bush. Proponents of greater immigration enforcement argue that illegal immigrants cost taxpayers an estimated $338.3 billion dollars and jeopardize the safety of law enforcement officials and citizens, especially along the Mexican border.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 made it illegal to hire or recruit illegal immigrants. In 2006, the House of Representatives passed the Border Protection, Anti-terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, and in 2006 the U.S. Senate passed the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006. Neither bill became law because their differences could not be reconciled.
The Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 (the Hart-Cellar Act) abolished the national origins quota system that had been put in place by the 1924 Immigration Act. In 2006, the number of immigrants totaled a record 37.5 million. After 2000, immigration to the United States numbered approximately 1,000,000 per year. Despite tougher border security after 9/11, nearly 8 million immigrants came to the United States from 2000 to 2005--more than in any other five-year period in the nation's history. Almost half entered illegally. In 2006, 1.27 million immigrants were granted legal residence.
Recent Immigration Reform Hot Topics
In 2009 immigration reform became a hot topic, since the Obama administration recently signaled interest in beginning a discussion on comprehensive immigration reform before the year's end. The proposed reform plan had as its goal bipartisan support and included six sections designed to appeal to both parties. These six sections are: (1) fixing border enforcement, (2) fixing interior enforcement, such as preventing visa overstays, (3) preventing people from working without a work permit, (4) creating a committee to adapt the number of visas available to changing economic times, (5) an amnesty type of program to legalize undocumented immigrants, and (6) programs to help immigrants adjust to life in the United States.
Citing Congress' failure to enforce U.S. immigration laws, the state of Arizona confronted reform and on April, 23, 2010 Republican Governor Jan Brewer signed the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act, the broadest and strictest immigration reform imposed in the United States. The Arizona immigration law directs law enforcement officials to ask for immigration papers on a reasonable suspicion that a person might be an illegal immigrant and make arrests for not carrying ID papers. On July 6, 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit against Arizona with the intent of preventing Arizona from enforcing the law. In June 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the case Arizona v. United States, upholding the provision requiring immigration status checks during law enforcement stops but striking down three other provisions as violations of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution.
Jan Brewer
Jan Brewer, Governor of Arizona, who signed the controversial Suppor Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act, which makes it a state misdemeanor crime for an immigrant to be in Arizona without carrying registration documents required by federal law.
Being the first state to pass such legislation, Arizona has set a precedent for other states. Although the response has cost the state between $7 million and $52 million, some in the state still feel that this outcome will outweigh the initial cost. Due to conflict and protest, Governor Brewer signed the Arizona House Bill 2162 (HB 2162) amending text in the original document. HB 2162 includes that race, color, and national origin would not play a role in prosecution; in order to investigate an individual's immigration status, he or she must be "lawfully stopped, arrested, or detained. "
In the absence of comprehensive immigration reform at the federal level, many advocacy groups have focused on improving the fairness and efficiency of the immigration court system. They propose incremental steps the executive branch can take to stop an assembly line approach to deportation proceedings. These groups have identified several issues that threaten the due process rights of immigrants, including reliance on low quality videoconferencing to conduct hearings, inadequate language interpretation services for non-English speakers, and limited access to court records.