Relatively soon after the Immigration Act of 1924 was passed, the popularity of using racial theories of intelligence as guideposts to immigration law and policy waned.

The psychological work with the closest influence on later immigration policy was performed by Robert Yerkes of Harvard University.

The nascent science of intelligence testing developed in confluence with growing support for more severe controls on the acceptance of foreign-born entrants to the United States.

The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) was designed to balance public concerns about increasing illegal immigration with business’s need for cheap labor and the need to address issues of racial and ethnic discrimination.

As the complexities and restrictions of U.S. immigration law have increased, the legal profession’s subspecialty of immigration lawyers has flourished, extending in some cases to social-cause lawyering.

The gatekeeper of the borders of the United States, federal immigration law determines who may enter the country, how long they may stay, their status, their rights and duties while in the United States, and how they may become resident aliens or American citizens.

This first major change in U.S. quota policy greatly altered the ethnic makeup of immigrants entering the United States during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and prompted a massive increase in total immigration.

This federal law upheld the national origins quota system established by the Immigration Act of 1924, which gave preference to individuals of northern and western European lineage.

This legislation has been seen as a return to the pre-1920’s open door immigration policy of the United States.

The act represented the first major attempt to restrict immigration into the United States.

The first federal law in U.S. history to limit the immigration of Europeans, the Immigration Act of 1921 reflected the growing American fear that people from southern and eastern European countries not only did not adapt well into American society but also threatened its very existence.

The Immigration Act of 1917 was the first federal law to impose a general restriction on immigration in the form of a literacy test.

This law created the Dillingham Commission to collect data used in future immigration laws, further narrowed Asian immigration, limited Muslim immigration, and expanded the definition of undesirable women immigrants.

The Immigration Act of 1903 expanded the federal government’s power to regulate immigration.

Beginning in 1882, responsibility for administering U.S. immigration law, excluding the Chinese exclusion law, rested with the individual states.

Setting the basic course of United States immigration law and policy, the Immigration Act of 1882 established categories of foreigners deemed “undesirable” for entry and gave the U.S. secretary of the treasury authority over immigration enforcement.

The Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act, or IIRIRA, was enacted to prevent the flow of undocumented aliens into the United States.

Although a self-professed nation of immigrants, the United States has historically shown ambivalence toward newcomers who enter the country illegally.

Based on Congress’s exclusive authority to regulate international commerce, which included the landing of passengers, the Henderson decision had the effect of striking down all state laws regulating immigration.

The Head Money Cases expanded the powers of Congress to control immigration, to use taxation in regulating commerce, and to repeal treaties with foreign countries.

Although the Florida lawsuit was eventually dismissed, the case was important because it represented the first time a state sued the federal government for costs associated with illegal immigrants.

An extension of another piece of post-World War II legislation, the War Brides Act of 1945, the Fiancées Act granted the fiancés of American servicemen a special exemption from previously established immigration quotas that allowed them to enter the United States.

Recognized as the leading anti-immigration group in the United States, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has received support from numerous celebrities and politicians and claims membership from both conservative and liberal party supporters, whose donations make possible the high visibility FAIR receives through its many advertising campaigns.

The Dada decision recognized the right of immigrants to pursue motions to reopen their cases after agreeing to voluntary departure, thereby permitting such immigrants to present new facts to immigration officials.

The U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform was the most far-reaching body charged with examining immigration legislation during the last decade of the twentieth century.