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Immigrants

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Items with "Subject: Immigrants"
Title Description Class
Refugee Act (1980) This act provided a permanent and systematic procedure for the admission of refugees of special humanitarian concern to the United States as well as comprehensive and uniform provisions for the effective resettlement and absorption of the refugees who are admitted.
Scott Act (1888) The Scott Act rejected the guarantee of free travel for Chinese people provided by the Angell Treaty of 1880. The act stated that Chinese laborers who left the U.S. would not be able to return.
The Insular Cases and Contested Citizenship This teaching module discusses the intersection of U.S. colonial power and migration, featuring a webinar with Robert McGreevey, author of the 2018 book, Borderline Citizens: The United States, Puerto Rico, and the Politics of Colonial Migration.
Trump v. Hawaii (2018) In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that the travel ban instituted by President Trump's Executive Order 13780 was within presidential power granted by Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.
Undesirable Aliens Act (1929) This act made unlawfully entering the U.S. a crime for the first time. Immigrants who did not cross the border through an official point of entry, where they had to pay a fee and submit to tests, could be charged with a misdemeanor crime, facing fines and up to a year's imprisonment. Returning to the U.S. after deportation was made a felony, punishable by $1,000 in fines and up to two years imprisonment. This law applied to all immigrants entering the U.S., but was intended to restrict immigration from Mexico.
United States v. Cartozian (1925) In this case, the District Court of Oregon debated whether an Armenian immigrant was white enough to be naturalized. Just two years after the Supreme Court ruled that Ozawa, a Japanese man, and Thind, a South Asian man, were not white enough for naturalization, the Oregon court ruled that people from Asia Minor were close enough to European descent to be naturalized.
United States v. Thind (1923) The Supreme Court found in U.S. v. Thind that Indian immigrants were not eligible for naturalization, based on a contested category of whiteness. Contradicting their 1922 ruling in Ozawa naming caucasian identity as a requirement for naturalization, as a South Asian immigrant, Thind was deemed ineligible for citizenship because, despite being racially caucasian, he did not appear white.
United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court solidified the principle of birthright citizenship, affirming that anyone born in the U.S., regardless of their parents' citizenship, is a U.S. citizen.
Webinar - Asian Americans Confront U.S. Law and Policy: A Case Study of the Vietnamese Impact on Defining the "Refugee" (2024) In this webinar, Drs. Linda Ho Peché and Donna D. Anderson discuss the role Vietnamese migrants played in creating the current status of refugees with our And Justice For All class.
Webinar - The Insular Cases and Contested Citizenship (2024) In this webinar, Professor Robert McGreevey of the College of New Jersey discusses the intersection of U.S. colonial power and migration with Dr. Jeannette Eileen Jones and her And Justice For All class.