本文讲述了美国对移民方面的规划。作为一个著名的“大熔炉”，美国一直是一个多种族国家，包含了不同种族和来自世界各地的人们。美国人的起源是英国移民。毫不夸张地说，英语毕业论文，移民不仅创造了美国，而且还发展和改变了美国。移民的法学改革是关键的，因为社会逐渐转变了政治模式和世界经济。 As the famous “Melting Pot”, the US has been a country mixing different races and people from all over the world. The origins of the Americans were British immigrants. It is no exaggeration to say that immigrants not only created, but also developed and changed the United States. The legal reform of immigration and naturalization was crucial as the society gradually changed with political patterns and the world economy. The US government has been updating its policies on immigration and naturalization as early as the 18th century when the Constitution was established and later published a rule of naturalization in 1787. Since then, pursuant to this power, in 1790 the Congress passed the first naturalization law for the United States, the Naturalization Act of 1790, which enabled those who had resided in the country for two years and had kept their current state of residence for a year to apply for citizenship. However, as time goes by, the US government has changed the restrictions of immigration several times, challenging those who want to immigrate to this country. These restrictions became slack during the 19th century, as the gold rush and Asian immigrants came to live on the continent. Then, in the 20th century, several Acts such as “Chinese Exclusion Act” and “Emergency Quota Act” were established to reduce the number of immigrants. In the 21st century, the legislations became more specific and diversified the policy on new immigrants. It leans towards those with technology and capital investments and limits quotas on labor immigrants. Several years after the constitution was established, the first act about immigration, the Naturalization Act of 1790, was written. The legislation allowed an individual to apply for citizenship if they were a free white person, have good characters, and have been living in the United States for two years. Upon receiving the courts approval they took an oath of allegiance, which was recorded. The individual's citizenship was also extended to any children under the age of 21, regardless of their birthplace. If the applicant had never been a U.S. resident the application was disregarded . Although it seemed easy to apply for citizenship, such benefits didn’t last long. The Naturalization Act of 1795 increased the residency requirement to five years and added a requirement of giving a three-year notice of intention to apply, and the Naturalization Act of 1798 further increased residency requirement to 14 years and required a five-year notice of intent to apply. Unfortunately, because of the overwhelming amount of applicants and illegal residents, the government had to be strict with the rules to protect the country. It is understandable that even though the fairest way was to treat everyone equally with the same custom policy, during that time it was a specific situation. The government’s mission back then was to fortify the young nation and concentrate its power to eliminate any possible harm that could have come. Therefore, considering the country’s interest as a whole, the government did nothing wrong on regulating and raising the standard of naturalizing. After that, the Naturalization Law of 1802 repealed the Naturalization Act of 1798. The 14th Amendment, passed in 1868, protects children born in the United States. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside" was interpreted by the Supreme Court in the 1898 case United State v. Wong Kim Ark, with the exception of the children of diplomats. In Wong’s case, this Chinese young man had been denied to enter the US boarder since he was not naturalized as a US citizen, although he was born in American. Therefore after, the government could not deny citizenship to anyone born in the United States. One of the largest wave of immigration occurred in 1820 to 1860 with a total number of 5 million. They mainly come from Western Europe and Northern Europe, and there were also a large number of African American slaves. Meanwhile, there were a small number of immigrants from Asia, mainly because of the Gold Rush. To prevent African American slaves to legally become citizens and have equal rights with their slave owners, many of these people were not able to be naturalized as an American citizen even if they were born in the U.S or had been there for more than the required time. Such discrimination is to be blamed but also think of it from another angle: if the government really ignored the social factors of discrimination and treated the African Americans equally, there would definitely be dissatisfactions in the south, which might lead to severe consequences. Back then, thoughts were already given to racial equally on the immigration aspect but were difficult to put into real action. |
