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Immigration Policy:
Past to Present
Current immigration policy rests on the twin pillars of the numerical
limitations on admission and the grounds for exclusion. These provisions
essentially constitute quantitative and qualitative criteria on which the
U.S. immigration system has been based for more than half a century.
Around them have been woven an awesome complex of exceptions, exemptions,
waivers, conditions, criminal penalties, civil fines, reports,
definitions, procedures, and classifications and an extremely broad
exercise of discretion, in addition to which there are special provisions
for asylees and refugees. The first part of this chapter sketches the
legislative road the nation has followed in arriving at its present
policy; the second part describes that policy. Legislative mandate and
policy are the driving forces behind the need for statistics and the
determinants of the kinds of information which, in turn, both program and
. . .
pa. Icy require.
HISTORICAL AND LEGISLATIVE OVERVIEW
Before the Twentieth Century: Unrestricted Entry
When the nation posed for its first "family portrait" in 1790, the
picture showed a recorded census population of around 3 1/4 million, all
of whom were either immigrants themselves or descendants of relatively
recent immigrants (Indians were not included). At that time, immigration
to the United States was virtually unrestricted, and it continued in that
vein for 85 years. Except for a brief flirtation with control in the
Alien Act of 1798, which authorized the President to order the departure
of aliens he judged to be dangerous, virtually no laws limiting
immigration were enacted until 1875. As to policy, George Washington had
proclaimed in 1783 that the "bosom of America is open to receive not only
the opulent and respectable stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of
all nations and religions, whom we shall welcome to a participation of
all our rights and privileges. . . ." The Alien Act itself was not
enforced and expired after its 2-year term.
When the Civil War began in 1860, the population totaled more than 4
million. Between 1860 and 1885, immigration surged to 8 million
arrivals, with more than 9 out of 10 of the immigrants coming from
13
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Northern and Western Europe.
·
In the latter part of the period, however,
Immigrants began to arrive from countries on the southern and eastern rim
of Europe and, in a little over 10 years, they represented the majority
of immigrants. It was during this period that Congress, by its actions
in passing the first exclusion law, assumed responsibility for regulating
immigration and has retained to this day complete control of the criteria
for admission, exclusion, and deportation of immigrants to the United
States.
The law passed in 1875 barred convicts and prostitutes; it brought to
an end almost 100 years of open borders. The first racial law was
enacted in May 1882 to bar Chinese laborers, and, shortly thereafter, in
August of the same year, Congress added idiots, lunatics, and persons
likely to become a public charge to the list of those who could be
excluded. In short order, in 1885, in an action aimed at protecting the
domestic labor market, Congress prohibited the entry of laborers induced
to immigrate by job offers and, in 1888, allowed deportation of workers
who had entered the country illegally. In 1891, Congress expanded
grounds for exclusion, authorizing the deportation of any aliens entering
unlawfully. And so it went. Over the years, the list has continued to
expand: it now contains 33 specified grounds for exclusion.
The Early Twentieth Century: The Beginning of Restrictions
By the turn of the century, the unprecedented growth in both the number
of immigrants and the mix of nationalities had begun to generate
opposition to unrestricted entry, and the rush to exclude persons
continued to mark the legislative history of immigration. In 1910, for
the first time, Congress provided for expulsion on the basis of conduct
after entry, supposedly in response to allegations that Oriental
women--among others--were engaging in prostitution.
The influx of nearly 13 million people into the United States between
1900 and 1914 generated.xenophobic outbursts from a wide spectrum of
society. A respected anthropologist wrote of "hordes of immigrants of
inferior racial value"; the report of the congressionally mandated
Dillingham Commission (1911) supported the popular belief that immigrants
from northwestern Europe were more desirable than their counterparts from
Southern and Eastern Europe; and The New York Times editorialized against
the growing "threat of anarchism" represented by an expanding Russian
presence in our midst, stating: "[The United States] should cast out
this drove of foreign destructionists who have come here to bring about
its ruin" (1919:14~. On the western side of the continent, the concern
was with the influx of Japanese, who were forbidden to buy or lease land
in California and Texas and were subsequently excluded by law from entry
as immigrants and found by the Supreme Court to be ineligible for
citizenship. During World War I legislation barred Orientals generally.
U.S. immigration policy discriminated against Asians until 1965. The
crisis of World War I also led to legislation that tightened control of
alien seamen, strengthened the law against aliens considered by the
government to be subversive, and, after three presidential vetoes, added
illiteracy as a ground for exclusion.
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1
The 1920s: The Flow is Stopped
The most important legislation of the early period of the century, which
was adopted in 1921 and 1924, was designed both to restrict overall
immigration and to limit immigration from certain areas. Although
earlier legislative efforts undoubtedly had some effects on restricting
flows to the United States, Congress for the most part had resisted
efforts to impose quotas. But in 1921 Congress passed its first quota
act, limiting the annual number of immigrants from each country to 3
percent of the number of people born in that country and residing in the
United States as reported in the 1910 census. The intent of the bill was
to limit immigration to people from Northern and Western Europe and stop
the "growing hordes" from Southern and Eastern Europe.
This temporary measure was followed by the more restrictive
Immigration Act of 1924, which used the "national origin" of each
individual in the United States in 1890 as the basis for allocating the
flow of immigrants. Despite attacks from many fronts, and change in 1929
to using the 1920 census population as the base, this approach stood as
the standard for the next 40 years; the national origins quota system was
not abolished until 1965. Since their adoption in 1921, numerical
limitations have never been abolished and have been central in U.S.
policy debates on immigration for more than 60 years.
Coincident with the passage of the 1924 act, Congress established the
Border Patrol, in response to the rising concern with illegal movements
across the U.S. borders tenth Mexico and Canada.
The first "legalization" provision, which acknowledged the need to
accommodate long-term resident aliens not legally admitted for residence,
was enacted in 1929 and applied to aliens who had entered the country
before June 3, 1921. Through the years the qualifying entry date has
been advanced; it is now June 30, 1948. Recent proposals for change
would advance that date to January 1, 1973.
The worldwide depression that began in 1929 virtually shut down the
inflow of immigrants, which fell to the unheard-of level of 23,000 in
1933. Even the smallest quotas were left unfilled, and the number of
people leaving the United States exceeded the number entering during each
year from 1932 to 1936. As a result, during this period the attention of
Congress temporarily turned elsewhere.
World War II and the Postwar Years: Concerns About Security
Reflecting concerns with security and the approach of World War II, the
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), which in 1891 had come into
existence in the Treasury Department as the Bureau of Immigration, was
transferred in 1940 from the Department of Labor to the Department of
Justice, its present home. In the legislative area, the Alien
Registration Act of 1940 introduced the concepts of voluntary departure
in lieu of deportation and of suspension of deportation. Under the
suspension provision, an alien could obtain permanent residence by
showing that deportation would result in extreme hardship to the alien or
to a U.S. citizen relative. The 1940 act also required the registration
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and fingerprinting of aliens and reports of change of address. The
economic and political needs of the wartime United States and diminished
levels of immigration led to liberalization in immigration policy. For
example, in December 1943 the Chinese exclusion laws were repealed--two
years after China had become a wartime ally. In 1942 the Brace ro Program
was begun; through bilateral agreements, agricultural workers were
admitted temporarily to the United States from Mexico, Barbados, Jamaica,
and British Honduras.
The postwar years saw substantial changes in immigration policy. On
the one hand, the policy became more open: war brides, refugees, and
temporary workers from Mexico were admitted under a variety of exceptions
to existing legislation, and a new law in January 1948 provided for the
temporary admission of exchange aliens as students, teachers, and for
certain other purposes. The Displaced Persons Act of 1948 authorized the
issuance of visas for refugees of World War II. Subsequently, the
Refugee Relief Act of 1953 provided for the immigration of refugees and
escapees from Iron Curtain countries. On the other hand, concerns with
subversion and security began to dominate the national dialogue and were
reflected in new, restrictive immigration legislation enacted by Congress
in 1950 and 1952. The Internal Security Act in 1950 required that aliens
in the United States submit address reports annually, made the exclusion
or deportation of "subversives" easier, and proscribed the Communist
party by name, so that proof of membership alone made an alien
inadmissible.
In 1952, the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) was passed by
Congress over President Truman's veto. It both carried forward many of
the existing immigration provisions and introduced important changes,
such as excluding drug addicts and those who sought to obtain a visa by
fraud; it also established priorities within quotas. Although
extensively amended since 1952, it is still the basic U.S. law on
immigration. The changes have alleviated hardships at the same time that
they have made the law more restrictive. The 1954 changes, for example,
spared from exclusion an alien convicted of a single petty offense, and
1957 saw bans dropped on the immigration of illegitimate and adopted
children and orphans, and discretionary waivers were permitted for aliens
inadmissible on criminal or moral grounds or because of tuberculosis or
visa fraud. Yet in 1956 a foreign residence requirement was imposed on
exchange visitors so that they could not become lawful permanent
residents of the United States unless they went home for 2 years.
From 1965 to 1984: Change and Proposed Change
Despite the urgings of Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy to revise the
national origins quota system, it was not until 1965, during the
administration of President Johnson, that Congress adopted the
immigration reforms that guide U.S. policy to this day. With
wide-ranging civil rights legislation about to be enacted into law and
economic activity at a high point, President Johnson was able to enact
the extensive reforms in immigration policy that had been introduced
during the Kennedy administration. Included in his inaugural address in
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17
early 1965, the revisions were enacted by Congress in late 1965. The
legislation was both liberalizing and restrictive: it abolished the
national origins quota system, ending the harsh limitations on
immigration from Asian and Pacific countries and the restrictive
treatment of countries in Eastern and Southern Europe; it also led to the
first fixed ceiling on immigration from the Western Hemisphere (120,000),
which went into effect in 1968. In 1964, the United States had also
unilaterally ended the Bracero program, thus bringing to a halt the
22-year temporary worker program, which at its peak in the late 1950s
allowed the entry of over 400,000 workers.
Since 1965 additional major changes have been made to the existing
legislation. For example, in 1966 Congress authorized the granting of
permanent residence status to Cuban refugees, who now represent the
largest number of refugees from a single country. In 1976 the annual
limitation of 20,000 immigrants per country and the preference system
were extended to the Western Hemisphere, and in 1978 separate numerical
limitations on immigration for Easte`.. and Western Hemispheres were
combined into a single worldwide annual limit of 290,000 per year. The
total was reduced to 270,000 with the passage of the first permanent
refugee and asylum legislation in March 1980, which created a separate
refugee program and removed the refugee category from the preference
system for immigrants. More recently, in December 1981, Congress sought
to improve the efficiency of the INS by streamlining certain procedures,
eliminating various reports to Congress and discontinuing the annual
alien address reports. A selected list of immigration laws for the past
120 years is shown in Table 2-1.
Since early 1976, Congress and the various administrations have been
discussing and considering the possibilities of major amendments and
modifications to the existing immigration legislation. Following a
series of hearings' administration-initiated studies, and abortive
legislative initiatives, Congress in late 1978 established the Select
Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy "to study and evaluate . . .
existing laws, policies, and procedures governing the admission of
immigrants and refugees to the United States and to make such
administrative and legislative recommendations to the President and to
the Congress as are appropriate" (P.L. 95-412:1978~. In March 1981 the
commission issued its final report and recommendations, and shortly
thereafter legislation to implement various of the recommendations was
introduced into both the House and the Senate. In May 1983 the Senate
approved its version of the legislation, and the House followed suit with
a somewhat different version in June 1984. The legislation, however,
known as Simpson-Mazzoli after its Senate and House sponsors, did not
become law, because a conference committee was unable to reconcile the
differences between the respective bills before Congress adjourned.
The Simpson-Mazzoli bill would have introduced significant changes in
the Immigration and Nationality Act by prohibiting the employment of
illegal aliens and imposing sanctions on employers of aliens not
authorized-to work and by authorizing amnesty to selected groups of
illegal aliens who entered the United States before a prescribed date.
The bill would also have imposed a 2-year foreign residence requirement
on all foreign students and would have limited judicial review and thus
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TABLE 2-1 Chronology of Selected U.S. Immigration Legislation,
1864-1982
1864
Congress passes law legalizing the importing of contract
laborers.
1875 The first federal restriction on immigration prohibits
prostitutes and convicts.
1882
Congress curbs Chinese immigration.
1882 Congress excludes persons convicted of political offenses,
lunatics, idiots, and persons likely to become public charges
and places a head tax on each immigrant.
1885
Legislation prohibits the admission of contract laborers.
1903 List of excluded immigrants expanded to include polygamists and
political radicals such as anarchists.
1906 Naturalization Act makes knowledge of English a requirement for
naturalization.
1907 Head tax on immigrants is increased; added to the excluded list
are people with physical or mental defects that may affect
their ability to earn a living, people with tuberculosis, and
children unaccompanied by parents.
Gentlemen's agreement between U.S. and Japan restricts Japanese
. . ~
Immigration.
1917
Congress requires literacy in some language for immigrants over
16 years of age except in cases of religious persecution; bans
virtually all immigration from Asia.
1921 Temporary annual quotas are established, limiting the number of
immigrants of each nationality to 3 percent of the number of
foreign-born persons of that nationality living in the United
States in 1910. Limit on Eastern Hemisphere immigration
(mostly European) set at about 350,000.
1924 National Origins Law (Johnson-Reed Act) sets temporary annual
quotas at 2 percent of a nationality's U.S. population as
determined in 1890 census and sets a minimum quota of 100 for
each nationality. Border Patrol established.
1929 Annual quotas of 1924 permanently set to be apportioned
according to each nationality's percentage of the total U.S.
population as determined in the 1920 census and applying that
percentage against the total number permitted to enter, set at
150,000. Minimum quota of 100 for each nationality reaffirmed.
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TABLE 2-1 (continued)
1942 Bilateral agreements with Mexico, British Honduras, Barbados,
and Jamaica cover entry of temporary foreign agricultural
laborers to work in the United States--the Bracero Program.
1943 Chinese exclusion laws repealed.
1946 Congress passes War Brides Act, facilitating immigration of
foreign-born wives, husbands, and children of U.S. armed forces
personnel.
1948 Congress passes Displaced Persons Act (amended in 1950),
enabling 400,000 refugees to enter the United States.
1950 Inte~-~al Security Act increases grounds for exclusion and
deportation of subversives; all aliens required to report their
addresses annually.
1952 Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (McCarran-Walter Act):
o reaffirms national origins system, giving each nation a
quota equal to its proportion of the U.S. population in 1920;
o limits immigration from Eastern Hemisphere to about 150,000;
leaves immigration from Western Hemisphere unrestricted;
o establishes preferences for skilled workers and relatives of
U.S. citizens and permanent resident aliens; and
o tightens security and screening standards and procedures.
1953 Refugee Relief Act admits over 200,000 refugees outside
existing quotas.
1957 Laws allow immigration benefits for certain illegitimate and
adopted children and orphans and permits waivers of
inadmissibility for certain alien relatives otherwise
excludable on criminal or moral grounds or because of
tuberculosis or visa fraud.
1965
Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965:
0 abolish the national origins system;
o establish an annual ceiling of 170,000 for the Eastern
Hemisphere with a 20,000 per-country limit, distributing
immigrant visas according to a seven-category preference
system that favors close relatives of U.S. citizens and
permanent resident aliens, those with needed occupational
skills, and refugees; and
o establish an annual ceiling of 120,000 for the Western
Hemisphere with no per-country limit or preference system.
1975 Indochinese Refugee Resettlement Program begins.
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TABLE 2-1 (continued)
1976 Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1976:
o extend the 20,000 per-country limit and the seven-category
preference system to the Western Hemisphere and
o maintain separate annual ceilings of 170,000 for the Eastern
Hemisphere and 120,000 for the Western. Hemisphere.
1978 Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1978 combine the
ceilings for both hemispheres into a worldwide total of
290, 000, with the same seven-category preference system and
20, 000 per-country 1 imit uniformly appl led.
19 78 Congre s s pa sse s law provid ing f or the exclusion or deportation
of Nazi persecutors.
1980 Refugee Act removes refugees as the seventh preference category
and establishes clear criteria and procedures for admission of
refugees; reduces the worldwide limit for immigrants from
290,000 to 270,000 to reflect the removal of seventh preference
from the total.
1981 INS Efficiency Act provides for certain technical changes in
the Immigration and Nationality Act to enable the more
efficient application of the law and abolishes annual reporting
of addresses for aliens.
1982 Law permits nonimmigrant temporary workers who have lived
continuously in the Virgin Islands since June 30, 1975, to
obtain permanent residence in the United States.
1982 Law eases restrictions on the immigration to the United States
of young Southeast Asians fathered by American servicemen.
1982 Congress reauthorizes for one year the refugee resettlement
programs established in 1980.
Source: U.S. Immigration Policy and the National Interest. The Final
Report and Recommendations of the Select Commission on Immigration and
Refugee Policy to the Congress and President of the United States,
March 1, 1981, pp. 88-89, with updating.
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expedited the procedures for settling disputes. The legislation also was
significant in that it contained mandates for the preparation and
submission of a range of statistical products.
Throughout all this history, it is important to note one very
important factor, consistent over time and conspicuous by its '
absence--namely, the lack of any substantive controls on emigration,
"out" movement of the population. Various laws and administrative
requirements do limit people's freedom to travel from the United States
to certain nations or require visitors to complete and provide certain
documents upon leaving the United States, but the freedom to leave the
country, with rare exceptions (e.g., criminals, etc.) is very loosely
circumscribed and virtually uncontrolled. This policy--which is in
conformity with the Universal Declaration on Human Rights--has meant that
data on the people leaving the United States, their numbers, reasons, or
characteristics, do not exist.
PRESENT LAW
Numerical Limitations
The Immigration and Nationality Act provides that up to 270,000
immigrants may be admitted annually under the preference system.
Exemptions from the numerical limitations a're accorded to spouses and
minor children of U.S. citizens and to parents of adult U.S. citizens.
Ministers of religion and certain other persons are also exempt. Legal
permanent resident aliens, having been counted under the numerical
limitations when they first immigrated, are not counted again under those
limitations when they return' to the United States after a temporary
absence. Refugees are subject to separate limitations.
Under the numerical limitation on immigration, there are six
preference categories for visa issuance, four on the basis of
relationship and two on the basis of occupation; see Table 2-2 for an
outline of the preference system. Each category is allocated a specified
percentage of the authorized' vise numbers. Relatives are allocated 80
percent? professionals and other workers, 20 percent. If the authorized
number of visas is not issued for the preference'categories, alien visas
can be issued to prospective immigrants in tine' nonpreference category.
.. .
To prevent any one country or a few countries from capturing the lion's
share of the visa numbers, every foreign country is subject to a 20,000
annual ceiling on visas. Dependent areas and colonies are subject to an
annual limitation of 600, chargeable against the mother country.
In general, place of birth determines the country against whose
numerical limitation a prospective immigrant is charged. To deal with
hardship in special situations, a spouse or child may be charged to the
foreign state of the accompanying spouse or parent when necessary to
prevent the separation of families.
The procedures for obtaining immigrant visas are prescribed in the
INA. Except for nonpreference aliens and special immigrants (and
refugees), a petition must be filed with and approved by the INS before
an immigrant visa may be issued by a consular officer of the Department
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TABLE 2-2 Current Visa Allocation System
NUMERICALLY EXEMPT IMMIGRANTS:
Immediate re let ive s of U. S . cit izens
Spouses
Unmarried minor children
Parents of adult U.S. citizens
Special immigrants
Certain ministers of religion
Certain former employees of the U. S. government abroad
Certain persons who have lost U.S. citizenship
NUMERICALLY LIMITED IMMIGRANTS (270, 000):
Percent age and
Preference Category Number of Visas
First
Unmarried adult children of U.S. 20: or 54, 000
citizens and their children
Second Spouses and unmarried sons and 26% or 70, 200a
daughters of permanent resident aliens
Third
Fourth
Fifth
Sixth
Members of professions or persons of 10% or 27, 000
exceptional ability in the arts and
sciences and their spouses and children
Married children of U.S. citizens and 10% or 27, ooOa
the ir spouse s and children
Brothers and sisters of adult U.S. 24X or 64, Sooa
c it izens and the ir spouse s and chi ldren
Workers in skilled or unskilled occupa- 10% or 27, 000
t ions in which 1 abaters are in short
supply in the United States, the ir
spouse s and chi ldren
Nonpreference Other qualif fed applicants Any numbers not
used abovea
Note: A minor is under 21 years of age; an adult is 21 or older.
Refugees are not inc. luded in the visa allocat ion system.
aNumbers not used in higher preferences may be used in these
cat egorie s .
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of State to a prospective immigrant. In the case of a petition on behalf
of a relative, the petitioner must establish status as a U.S. citizen or
as an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence and his or her
relationship to the beneficiary. In the case of a petition based on a
person's profession or occupation, the petitioner must have a job offer,
and the Secretary of Labor must certify that qualified Americans are not
available and that wages and working conditions would not be adversely
affected by the person's admission.
Refugees and Asylees
The number of refugees that may be admitted is determined annually by the
President after consultation with the Congress. Applicants for refugee
status are first reviewed by an immigration officer to determine if they
are qualified, then permitted to proceed to this country. On arrival
they are admitted as refugees. After they have been in the United States
1 year, they are reinterviewed and permitted to acquire!the status of
lawful permanent residents. A person who has firmly resettled in another
country is no longer eligible to enter the United States as a refugee.
Applications for asylum may be submitted by aliens in the United
States or at a port of entry. If granted asylum--which is based on a
finding that a person would face persecution if forced to return to his
or her country of nationality or residence--the alien may apply for
permanent resident status 1 year after the grant. Not more than 5,000
asylees may be adjusted to the status of permanent resident in a fiscal
year.
Exclusion Grounds
There are 33 grounds of inadmissibility, affecting both immigrants and
nonimmigrants such as visitors, students, or temporary workers,
enumerated in the INA. They cover a wide range, including involvement in
criminal, immoral, or subversive activities; the presence of physical or
mental afflictions; and economic factors that result in the exclusion of
paupers, vagrants, and workers who would deprive or compete unfairly with
Americans for jobs. However, the ground under which most aliens are
denied visas and refused admission to the United States is unenumerated.
Over 400,000 nonimmigrant visas are denied annually by consular officers
because they are not "satisfied" that the applicant is a bona fide
nonimmigrant. An additional 128,000 visas (immigrant and nonimmigrant)
are denied because the applicant failed to comply with documentary
requirements.* Over 200,000 aliens who arrive each year at ports of
entry with visas or under visa exemptions are persuaded by immigration
officers to withdraw their applications for admission and return home.
Less than 700 are refused entry in a formal exclusion hearing before an
immigration judge.
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Temporary Admissions
Most aliens come to the United States for a temporary purpose rather than
for permanent residence. In 1982 some 11.5 million people entered the
country as temporary admissions (excluding short-tenm border crossers
from Mexico and Canada). By far the largest group of temporary
admissions is visitors. Others included in this category are foreign
officials, people here on business, crew members of vessels and aircraft,
students, temporary workers, and trainees. Each of these groups is
specified in the legislation, which sets forth conditions under which
they can be admitted and whether they may work in this country.
Nonimmigrants in two groups may not work under any circumstances:
visitors for pleasure and transit aliens, i.e., people passing through
the country in order to reach another country. People in some groups,
such as students and exchange visitors, may be granted permission to work
by the INS or the exchange program sponsor.
Deportable Classes
There are 19 Reportable classes enumerated in the statute. Inadmissible
aliens who manage to gain admission may be deported on the ground that
they were excludable at the time of entry. There is no statute of
limitations, and this provision operates retroactively to include all
prior exclusion acts as well as the 33 grounds in the current law (but
see the discussion of exceptions below). An alien may also be deported
for acts or omissions after entry. A special deportation provision deals
with the problem of sham marriages contracted to circumvent the
immigration laws.
The largest number of deportable aliens located are those who entered
without inspection, that is, other than at an authorized border crossing
point . Of the 970,246 illegal aliens found in 1982 by INS, 822,463 (85~)
were in that category. In the same year, the next largest groups were
visitors, crew members, and students, most of whom remained beyond the
period of their authorized stay and some of whom violated the teems of
their temporary admission by unauthorized work.
In most cases deportable aliens located in the United States are
given the opportunity to depart voluntarily, at their own expense and
without the institution of deportation proceedings. In 1982 about
810,000 aliens were permitted to depart voluntarily ; 14 ,154 were deported.
An alien under deportation proceedings has several avenues of
re fief . For example, if otherwise eligible, he or she may apply for an
adjustment of status to that of permanent resident if an immigrant visa
is available or if the person has been residing in the United States
continuously since a date prior to June 30, 1948. Permanent residence
through suspension of deportation can occur if the person has been
physically present in the United States for at least 7 years ( 10 years in
certain cases). An alien may avoid deportation if it is established that
*Total visa denials (immigrant and nonimmigrant) in fiscal 1982 amounted
to 877,486.
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deportation would subject him or her to persecution on account of race,
religion, political opinion, nationality, or membership in a social
group. And whether or not the alien is under deportation proceedings, an
alien who believes that he or she would be subject to persecution for
such reasons may apply for asylum.
The government must establish Reportability by clear, convincing, and
unequivocal evidence. Any decision of an immigration judge may be
appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals. The board is a component
of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, an independent agency
within the Department of Justice. An alien may file a petition for
judicial review from a final order of deportation in the Circuit Court of
Appeals within 6 months of the order. Filing of the petition
automatically stays deportation pending determination by the court,
unless it directs otherwise.
Powers of Immigration Officers
The enforcement powers needed to apprehend suspected illegal aliens and
issue warrants of arrest are expressly spelled out in the law.
Immigration officers are authorized, without a warrant, to interrogate
persons believed to be aliens as to their right to be in the United
States and to arrest any alien who they have reason to believe is in the
United States in violation of the law and likely to escape before a
warrant can be obtained. In addition, immigration officers are empowered
to search, without a warrant, any vehicle within a reasonable
distance--defined as 100 air miles--from any external boundary of the
United States. For the purpose of patrolling the border to prevent
illegal entry, immigration officers are empowered to have access to
private lands, but not dwellings, within 25 miles of the border.
CONCLUSION
The foregoing review of U.S. immigration policy and its legislative
history illustrates the complexity of the issues and the changing views
of immigration. It also highlights the extent to which the laws spell
out in great detail the affected groups, the actions to be taken,
available enforcement powers, and fines and penalties that compel
compliance--and thus define the statistical boundaries. This degree of
specificity has another effect: it sets forth both the groups and the
activities for which selected statistics are necessary, if for no other
purpose than to provide measures of magnitude for administrative and
legislative review.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
permanent resident
