U.S. Immigration laws have changed over time for better or for worse around 2000s to 2026. While one of my sources express how Immigration laws have started off through racism and favoriting white immigrants, one of my other sources have expressed how they have debated immigration policies and how they have been shaping policies but also movements as well, and another source has expressed early on immigration laws they have progressed from deportation because it has been created through racism and policies. These sources have shown how immigration laws have been infused through racism and issues that have been affecting many policies that have been still occurring today.
My first secondary source is “The Whites only immigration Regime” By Kelly Lytle Hernández. Hernández has argued that immigration enforcement in the U.S. has been connected to have a lot of impact on racial views. She has expressed that lawmakers were creating stricter rules for immigrants and border enforcement policies to be able to target Mexican immigrants and proviant them from being able to enter the country Legally. This article expressed how immigration laws have been shaped through many ideas through race and even fear that immigrants could change American society. Hernández has not only shown but also expresses her views of how much of an impact and how it is very important because it has mainly focused on the racism has on being a big part of immigration policies and how the idea of these will not change and will always have some type of an effect on debating immigration laws.
My second secondary source is “The history of Immigrant Deportations” By Torrie Hester. Hester started off by expressing how deportation policies in the United States have changed a lot over time and have become more stricter. He has expressed that the deportation laws had been limited but then started to get larger on who they were targeting and which groups of immigrants, there were specific group that had been target which was more the Latinx communizes. In the article it talks about how after 1965, the amount of deportation has been increased by a lot and has become a big impact on immigration of enforcement in the U.S. He had believed that racism and political emotions had impacted many immigrants in the policies mostly laws that even were amained at Mexican and Chinese immigrants. Overall, this source has a lot of impact because it was able to express the reason on deportation and how strong of usage it used by the government, and it is able to show people the reason on how immigration enforcement has managed to get larger over time.
My third secondary source is “The New immigration contestation” By Justin peter Steil and Ion Bogdan vasi. They have focused more on the reason on how immigrants have become such a debate around 2000s to 2011. They have expressed how a few cities have been creating laws to be able to support immigrants but how other cities have laws that are harsher which does not help support immigrates that are unable to live there. Steil and Vasi have argued that the protest and movements have played a big part on shaping immigrant laws around this time. It has shown how immigrant policies have been influenced but also felt like they had been controlled by the government and by communities as well. Overall, it is able to help show how immigrants have been a big political issue through many countries and even have been a social issue as well where it has shaped communizes and lives of immigrants.
In conclusion, through out these three secondary sources it was able to show immigration laws in the United States have changed so much over time because of many reasons political, border security and racism. Each of the writers have provided many different details on why immigration policies have become stricter and even the laws having effect on immigrants and even included Americans lives as well. They all express many different historical focuses with government enforcement, discrimination and even movements. All these sources are help for people to understand how immigration has become an issue and how it is still ongoing issue in the U.S. from 2000s to 2026. By being able to compare all these views of people thoughts your able to see how immigration laws have impacted people’s lives these sources all express a few different topics but is able to connect in their own different ways which helps readers understand a lot of different views and connections to each other. Overall, these sources have shown how immigration laws have been changing and probably will not stop changing.
Alpha History, “What Is Historiography?” https://alphahistory.com/what-is-historiography/
Sources:
(Hernández 2020)
Hernández, Kelly Lytle.2010. Migra! A history of the U.S. Border Patrol. Berkeley: University of california press.
(Hester 2020)
Hester, Torrie.2020. “The History of Immigrant Deportations.” Oxford research Encyclopedia of American History.June 30, 2020https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/61644/chapter/539860630#539860630
( Steil and Vasi 2014)
Steil, Justin petter, and Ion Bogdan Vasi.2014. ” The New immiration Contestation: Social Movement and Local immigration Policy Making in the United States, 2000- 2011.” American Journal of sociology 119,no.4 (January): 1104-1155https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/675301?searchText=%28immigration+laws+and+changed+and+2000s%29+and+latinos&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3D%2528immigration%2Blaws%2Band%2Bchanged%2Band%2B2000s%2529%2Band%2Blatinos%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3Ab7012614173bcf8989c84a99bd0b1283&seq=1