User:Mfowler1290/Immigration Act 1907

Immigration Act 1906 ... The Immigration Act of 1907 was a further extension to the Immigration Act 1882 and 1891. It increased the head tax, expanded the category of those who were to be excluded from immigration, increased penalties and fines, and changed the status of American women who married immigrants. All of these changes helped to further solidify the desire of Americans to keep out the Chinese as well as Eastern and Southern Europeans.

History

The Immigration Act of 1882 or the Chinese Exclusion Act barred admission of Chinese laborers for ten years and declared all Chinese immigrants as ineligible for U.S. naturalization. This act also placed a fifty cent head tax on every immigrant and made those people who were declared as “lunatics”, people likely to become public charges, and convicts. This act was then later made more complex by the act in 1891 which made immigration a federal issue. Congress established the Bureau of Immigration under the Treasury Department to administer immigration laws and grants them the power to deport persons who are attempting to enter the United States unlawfully. This act also barred those people who were declared as “persons suffering from a loathsome or a dangerous contagious disease,” felons, polygamists, and persons guilty of “moral turpitude.” All of this was included in the Act of 1907 but this legislation went even further and made it that much harder for those people who the U.S. thought were undesirable to enter into the country. 

All of this legislation was adopted under the cover of protection of the United States from harmful and unwanted elements but much of it was simply a cover for the white supremacist attitude that existed at this time. Many Americans supported these early immigration acts claiming the need for protection of the citizens of the country. While immigrants posed no imminent threat to the American population, in the minds of citizens they were coming to take away jobs, to infringe on American culture with their “strange” ways, and to serve as a burden upon the American way of life, its people, and the government. All of this contributed to the passing of the first immigration policy in 1882 and ultimately to its extension in 1907. This act in combination with the Naturalization Act of 1907 further solidify what every American wanted and attempted to keep the status of the American citizen as one that the people and those in power saw fit.

Provisions ; Immigration Act 1907 • The Immigration Act of 1907 provided the stipulation that there should be a tax levied and collected paid in the amount of four dollars for every alien entering into the United States. • Section 2 of this act prohibits that all aliens who are “idiots, imbeciles, feeble minded, epileptics, persons who have been insane within five years previous, those likely to become a public charge, professional beggars, persons affiliated with tuberculosis or with a dangerous disease” • In general the act also prohibited companies and people from attempting to bring aliens into the U.S. for labor or any other purpose by promising jobs or offering them passage in exchange for labor.

Significance

The Immigration Act of 1907 furthered the discrimination that was used to keep what was deemed as unwanted peoples out of the United States. While the practice of exclusion based on appearance had simply been a thing of race, mostly meant for the Chinese, now people immigrating into the U.S. could now be kicked out for having any physical or mental disability that according to American standards would mean they were weak. This disabilities as classified by the inspectors who worked on Ellis Island, were often based off of a quick glance at the person as they walked through the line making they were to be officially checked in. Some of these people were given a more extensive examination while others were quickly judged and simply put back onto the ship that they used to travel here. The problem with these examinations is that inspectors were not just trying to protect the American people from diseases they were essentially weeding out those people who they government had defined as undesirable elements. Many of those coming into the U.S. did not have any serious health issues or afflictions that would prevent from living and earning a life in America, they were just targeted because of common stereotypes and beliefs about the mental, physical, and moral standing of certain groups. Another piece of legislation passed this same year provided another road black for immigrants. The Naturalization Act of 1907 stopped immigrants from gaining citizenship my marrying women who were citizens of the United States. Now the status of a woman was connected to her husband and if she married a non-citizen she also would be stripped of her citizenship and labeled as an alien ineligible for citizenship. But, if a man married an immigrant she would automatically become a citizen and maintain this status even after he died. Both of these pieces of legislation acted as legally justification for discrimination within the United States and as way to maintain what people thought to be a supreme American race. But more specifically what the citizen of the United States wanted to be a supreme American white race.

Results

Through the Immigration Act of 1907 and other acts passed before and after it, the people of the United States were able to partially control who was allowed into the country and who was granted the privilege of citizenship. These requirements often changed but for the most part stuck to Western Europeans who would serve as a benefit to society. While America was not able to maintain its idea of the supreme American white race, these immigration acts were able to prolong diversity and temporarily maintain a large Western European majority. These laws also led to the problem of illegal immigration which was unforeseen by the government and the people. By restricting immigration to certain people the government opened the doors for those who were willing to do and pay anything to get into the country. This problem was one that would start in the 1800s and continue until present day changing according to the selected excluded group and increasing and decreasing according to financial times.

Refrences Cott, Nancy F. Marriage and Women's citizenship in the United States, 1830-1934. The American Histrocial Review. Vol. 103. No. 5. P. 1440-1474. 1998

An Act To Regulate the Immigration of Aliens into the United States'Italic text, 1907. American Society of International Law. The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 1, No. 2.

Ward, Robert DeC. The New Immigration Act. Univeristy of Norther Iowa. The North American Review , Vol. 185, No. 619 p 587-593.

Longmore, Paul K, Umansky, LAuri. The New Disability History, American Perspectives. New York Univeristy press.

External links

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