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Leading Views of Immigration

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Submitted By Sammy00
Words 1470
Pages 6
Professor Lakew
GSS 1229 Introduction to International Studies
26 March 2012
Leading Views of Immigration
Immigration is an old problem for the United States but is far from an insignificant one. Many Americans worry about the cultural and economic effects of immigration. This is a topic that divides Americans on how to negotiate a solution on this situation. For those who agree with deportation as a solution, approximately half of those people are in favor of a temporary work program. Debates still continue over the positive and negative effects of immigration along with a variety of solutions.
The United States has a long history with immigration. Between 1881 and 1924, the First Great Migration occurred with 25.8 million persons entering the country. In response, Congress enacted the National-Origins Quota System, establishing set parameters for individual regions of the globe, such as restricting immigration from the Eastern Hemisphere to one hundred fifty thousand individuals. As a result, only half a million individuals immigrated to the United States during the 1930s. Since then, the number of legal immigrants has increased at the rate of approximately one million people per decade. The 1965 Amendments to the Immigration and National Act repealed the natural-origin restrictions, increased the number of available visas, and made family ties to United States residents a determining factor for applicants entering the country. The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) granted amnesty to three million illegal aliens and introduced a system of employer sanctions designed to stem the flow of additional illegal workers. The 1990 Immigration Act permits the entry of an additional one hundred fifty thousand legal immigrants, regardless of origin, annually.
Immigration from a country can be defined by five factors: (a) the difference in real wages between

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