The USA, a nation of immigrant

THE USA :   A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS

• Immigration: the process through which individuals become temporary, permanent residents or citizens of a host country. Historically, the process of immigration has been a social, economic, and cultural asset to the USA. It has resulted in the development of a multicultural society.

The USA is a nation of immigrants and has always been so. It is considered today that 15% of its population is foreign-born. Thus, immigration is a defining factor of the American identity.

• Immigration over the last 75 years:

• a majority of people coming from Mexico (30 % in 2010)
• refugees fleeing war- torn countries
• the end of colonization across Asia and Africa during the 50s-60s

In the 1960s, legislation was passed to facilitate the reunification of families, regardless of the immigrants’origins  -not on merit  ( so this reform caused many would be migrants to apply elsewhere particularly in Canada)

In 1990 the Family Unity and Employment Opportunity Immigration Act has enabled to balance skills and family- motivated applications.

After 2001 admission requirements were tightened because of the threat of terrorism

2009 : Barack Obama called immigration reform a priority but could not go further because of the health care bill which became top priority. Protests in support of the DREAM Act ( development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) brought national attention to the plight of strict immigration laws, but the bill did not pass.

2016 : President Trump has proposed to build a wall on the USA-Mexico border  and expressed support for applying limits on legal immigration on grounds that official estimates of the number of legal immigrants on grounds that official estimates of the number of illegal immigrants are 3 times lower than in reality.

• Some quotes :

“Give me your tired , your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door”

Emma Lazarus

“Everywhere immigrants have enriched and strengthened the fabric of American life “ 

JF Kennedy

“Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity, until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country “

Barack Obama

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