5 December, 2018 Class

Why do immigrants face challenges?

PART I

• major obstacles faced by most immigrants are political.
• most countries have adopted selective immigration policies.
• most visas are granted for specific employment.
• based on their policies, they are categorized by the UN into 4 groups:
• 1. maintain current level of immigration,
• 2. increase the level,
• 3. decrease the level,
• 4. or no policy.
• similarly, emigration policies are identified by the same 4 groups.

• those who immigrate illegally enter without proper documents and are called unauthorized immigrants.
• unauthorized immigrant is a term preferred by academic observers as a neutral term.
• undocumented immigrant is a term preferred by some groups that want more rights for these individuals.
• illegal alien is the term given to the individuals by some groups that want tougher restrictions and enforcement for aforementioned individuals.
• the level of unauthorized immigrants entering the US has reached a point where it is actually lower than the unauthorized immigrants leaving.

• the era of unrestricted immigration ended with the Quota Act in 1921 and the National Origins Act in 1924.
• were laws that stablished quotas -- maximum limit on the number of people who could immigrate annually.
• there were several modifications to the laws:
• 1924 - for each country that had native-born people living in the US, 2% of their number could immigrate annually.
• 1965 - quotas for individual countries were replaced with those of hemispheres.
• 1978 - global quota of 290k with a maximum of 20k per country.
• 1990 - global quota was raised to 700k.

• family reunification - approximately, 3/4 of immigrants are admitted to reunify families.
• skilled workers - talented professionals receive most of the remainder of the quota.
• diversity - a few immigrants are admitted by lottery under diversity category for people that come from countries that have sent few people historically.
• quota does not apply to refugees and is also has no limit to number of spouses, children, and parents of US citizens.