Placing a Barrier on Immigration Allowance
Natalie Quick
Before 1882, the only immigrants who were not allowed access into America were those who were prostitutes or convicts. That protected our dear America from new people entering who wouldn’t help our country move forward. Ever since Congress passed its Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, they have been much pickier about who could stay and who could not.
The Chinese Exclusion Act stated that Chinese Laborers could not come to America. The repealing of that act is an issue being tossed around Congress.
Once the Chinese Exclusion Act was established, immigration officials placed a strict barrier on the people who could not enter America. The Chinese Exclusion Act stated that only a certain number of people could enter the U.S. from China each year. People were starting to strongly dislike the Chinese, and nativism was beginning to be a problem. The list of intolerable immigrants grew to exclude beggars, contract laborers, insane passengers, and unaccompanied minors. It’s a good thing that beggars can’t enter. Imagine all of those people on the street corners with cups full of pennies! That image would not go over well with all of those possible future Americans over in Europe! I don’t understand why they wouldn’t want contract laborers to come. During the beginnings of our country, indentured servants were the equivalent, and they had no restrictions. The contract laborers come to America to work for a certain amount of time. We could benefit from that! We get workers who will work as hard as they can in the amount of time they have to work. We don’t want any insane people coming into America. The political cartoons that could come out of that could be very discouraging to the people who are planning to come to America. The authorities were right to disallow the unaccompanied minors. Having young, unsupervised children running all over the place would not be a good image either.
All in all, the immigrant officials were, for the most part, right to ban those they banned. I would’ve done something similar if I was in their position. To me, it’s all about giving good reasons to prospective immigrants as to why they ought to immigrate here! Our country is a melting pot, and we like it that way!