Illegal Immigration

Illegal Immigration

Illegal immigration is the major international economic issue facing the United States. An idiotic initiative towards protection might well change this, but our trade problems are of our own making. Illegal immigration thrusts itself upon us, like it or not. The topic deserves formal treatment by economists, and this paper sketches out early steps toward that end. From 1820 to 1930, the United States received about 60% of the world's immigrants. Population expansion in developed areas of the world, improved methods of transportation, and U.S. desire to populate available space were all factors in this phenomenon. Through the 19th cent., the United States was in the midst of agricultural, then industrial, expansion.

The first permanent quota law was passed in 1924; it also provided for a national origins plan to be put into effect in 1929. In 1952, the Immigration and Nationality Act (the McCarran-Walter Act) was passed; while abolishing race as an overall barrier to immigration, it kept particular forms of national bias. The act was amended in 1965, abolishing the national origins