Anti-Immigration Movement

Anti-Immigration Movement (Summary)

http://americanhistory.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/256054?terms=anti++immigration+movement

Benjamin Franklin argued that the immigration of Germans, stereotyped as "Palatine Boors" would dramatically change the overall appearance of the United States to other countries. He believed that the Germans were unable to adapt to the American lifestyle in the United States. The immigration started after the Civil War between 1870 and 1920, when around 27 million people immigrated to the U.S from Southern and East Central Europe. The Anti-immigration activists hated the idea of any other groups of people coming into the United States area, besides those who had already inhabited the area, causing them to devote their lives to keeping particular races/groups of people out of the United States. The Anti-immigration movement based its moral beliefs and goals off of racism, anti-Catholicism, and anti-Semitism, discriminating against different colored people and people with different religious backgrounds.

People that worked for the Anti-immigration movement were typically native-born white Protestants. These people were known to only value the opinions of people who shared their own common beliefs, making them known to be very xenophobic (meaning that they fear foreigners). The anti-immigration workers worked with the Legislation in Congress to ban the non-European races (also known as people from the India and Muslim world) from entering the United States, using the reasoning that “polygamists” and “anarchists” should not be allowed into the country. The Anti-immigration workers prohibited the Chinese immigrants from gaining U.S. residency, even when the Chinese had entered into the country legally. An man who was against immigrants, named Lothrop Stoddard discriminated against people who came to America, often calling European immigrants “the scum of Europe” and calling Italian immigrants “Mulattoes.” Members of this movement were known to be very racist, and were often very persistent in making it clear to the immigrants that they did not want them in the U.S.

The anti-immigration movement was based around the idea that immigrants were not capable of adjusting to the people, ideas, and culture that was in the United States. Members of this movement believed that it was impossible for immigrants to contribute or even understand the American government, and didn’t think that they would be loyal to the country. If members of this movement were unable to stop immigrants from entering the U.S., their next goal was to “Americanize” them as much as possible, eliminating any prior characteristics or cultural traits that they had carried over from their former country.

Some of the main accomplishments of the Anti-immigration workers were the Quota Acts of 1921 and 1923. The acts limited each nationality to an annual immigration of 3% of its population already in the United States. For the 3% that were allowed into the U.S., they were forced to adapt to the ideas and cultures in the country because they were surrounded by American culture and nothing else. While the work of the members of the anti-immigration movement decreased in the years to follow the acts, anti-immigration sparked back up again in the late 1800’s when Pat Buchanan asked for new regulations on immigration.