Both the general increase in the number of immigrants and the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901 fueled a growing nativism in the United States and in Congress during the first decade of the 20th century.
In the wake of the assassination of President William McKinley by anarchist Leon Czolgosz in 1901, Congress began a thorough review of American immigration policy.
Responding to dozens of petitions from states worried about the maintenance of indigent immigrants, Congress expanded the exclusion precedent set in the Page Act of 1875.
The Immigration Act of 1976 marked a significant shift in Canadian immigration policy in limiting the wide discretionary powers of the minister of manpower and immigration.
In the wake of World War I (1914–18; see World War I and immigration) and the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, and in the midst of an economic depression, the Canadian government amended its Immigration Act of 1910 to protect against subversive activities and to limit the entry of those who might become involved in them.
A number of orders-in-council and regulations pursuant to the 1906 Immigration Act were further codified in the Immigration Act of 1910, which granted the cabinet wide discretionary power to regulate all areas of immigration.
The capstone of Minister of the Interior Frank Oliver’s immigration policy, the Immigration Act of 1906 consolidated all Canadian immigrant legislation, thus making it easier for “the Department of Immigration to deal with undesirable immigrants.”
Seeking to encourage economic development in the new dominion, Canada’s first piece of immigration legislation was designed to attract productive immigrants.
As part of a 1996 initiative to curb illegal immigration, the U.S. Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA).
With the dramatic decline of immigrant admissions and rise in alien deportations during World War I (1914–1918), the Canadian government tried several means of attracting agriculturalists and domestics.
The Dominion Lands Act was designed to entice settlers to the western prairies of Canada by granting 160 acres of free land to anyone 21 years of age or older who paid a $10 registration fee, built a permanent residence, planted at least 30 acres of land, and lived on the land six consecutive months for three years.
Bills to assist central European refugees were brought before Congress in 1937 and 1939, but it was not found necessary to pass new legislation because the number of refugees could be accommodated under existing legislation.
Incorporating recommendations from the Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration (1884–85), the Chinese Immigration Act was the first Canadian legislation to formally limit immigration based on race.
The rapid influx of Irish, German, and Chinese immigrants into the United States after 1845 was accompanied by a series of steamship disasters and the prevalence of cholera, typhus, and smallpox among arriving immigrants.
One of the earliest measures designed to deal with the threat of terrorism, Bill C-86 was introduced in the House of Commons on June 16, 1992, as an alteration to the Immigration Act of 1976.
With the Canadian Supreme Court’s decision in Singh v. Minister of Employment and Immigration (1985) that oral hearings were required in every case for the determination of refugee status, there was an immediate need to restructure the hearing process.
Designed to support the Canadian policy of preferring agriculturalists to all other immigrants, this measure made it illegal to contract and import foreign laborers.
Reflecting a growing concern about the effects of organized labor, Congress enacted the Alien Contract Labor Act, also known as the Foran Act, on February 26, 1885.
The Alien and Sedition Acts is the collective name given to four laws enacted by the U.S. Congress in the midst of its undeclared naval war with France known as the Quasi War (1798–1800).