page_title: Opposition to immigration
section_title: United States
hierarchical_section_title: Opposition to immigration / Opposition to immigration by country or region / Americas / United States
caption_attribution_description: sign, north america, road trip, the west, rocky mountains, immigration, illegal immigration, illegal immigrant, 2001, 2050, special issue, resident, permanent, USA, hunting permit, no bag limit, tagging not required
context_page_description: Opposition to immigration has become a significant political issue in many countries. Immigration in the modern sense refers to the entry of people from one state or territory into another state or territory where they are not citizens. Illegal immigration is immigration in contravention of a state's immigration laws.
  Opposition to immigration ranges from calls for various immigration reforms, to proposals to completely restrict immigration.
context_section_description: In the United States of America, opponents of immigration typically focus on perceived adverse effects, such as economic costs (job competition and burdens on education and social services); negative environmental impact from accelerated population growth; increased crime rates, and in the long run, changes in traditional identities and values.
  In countries where the majority of the population is of immigrant descent, such as the United States, opposition to immigration sometimes takes the form of nativism.
  In the United States, opposition to immigration has a long history, starting in the late 1790s, in reaction to an influx of political refugees from France and Ireland. The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 severely restricted the rights of immigrants. Nativism first gained a name and affected politics in the mid-19th century United States because of the large inflows of immigrants from cultures that were markedly different from the existing Protestant culture. Nativists primarily objected to Roman Catholics, especially Irish Americans. Nativist movements included the American Party of the mid-19th Century (formed by members of the Know-Nothing movement), the Immigration Restriction League of the early 20th Century, and the anti-Asian movements in the West, resulting in the Chinese Exclusion Act and the so-called "Gentlemen's Agreement" which was aimed at the Japanese. Major restrictions became law in the 1920s and sharply cut the inflow of immigrants until 1965, when they ended. The federal government took charge of finding and deporting illegal aliens, which it still does.
  Immigration again became a major issue from the 1990s onward, with burgeoning rates of undocumented immigration, particularly by Mexicans who crossed the Southern border, and others who overstayed their visitor visas. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 provided an amnesty which was described as the amnesty to end all amnesties but it had no lasting impact on the flow of illegal immigrants.
  By 2014, the Tea Party movement narrowed its focus away from economic issues, spending and Obamacare to attacking President Barack Obama's immigration policies. They saw his immigration policies as threatening to transform American society. They tried but failed to defeat leading Republicans who supported immigration programs, such as Senator John McCain. A typical slogan appeared in the Tea Party Tribune: “Amnesty for Millions, Tyranny for All.” The New York Times reported:
  What started five years ago as a groundswell of conservatives committed to curtailing the reach of the federal government, cutting the deficit and countering the Wall Street wing of the Republican Party has become a movement largely against immigration overhaul. The politicians, intellectual leaders and activists who consider themselves part of the Tea Party movement have redirected their energy from fiscal austerity and small government to stopping any changes that would legitimize people who are here illegally, either through granting them citizenship or legal status.
  As of 2014, over 42.4 million immigrants were living in the United States. This was about 13.3% of the entire United States population at that time.
  Labor unions
  The American Federation of Labor (AFL), a coalition of labor unions formed in the 1880s, vigorously opposed unrestricted immigration from Europe for moral, cultural, and racial reasons. The issue unified the workers who feared that an influx of new workers would flood the labor market and lower wages. Nativism was not a factor because upwards of half the union members were themselves immigrants or the sons of immigrants from Ireland, Germany and Britain. However, nativism was a factor when the AFL even more strenuously opposed all immigration from Asia because it represented (to its Euro-American members) an alien culture that could not be assimilated into American society. The AFL intensified its opposition after 1906 and was instrumental in passing immigration restriction bills from the 1890s to the 1920s, such as the 1921 Emergency Quota Act and the Immig
caption: Anti-illegal immigrant car sticker in Colorado
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot S3 IS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2010:06:29 00:27:01", "Image ExifOffset": "2300", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[39, 99/5, 0]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "W", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[102, 3, 0]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSAltitude": "1194", "GPS GPSMapDatum": "WGS-84", "Image GPSInfo": "4820", "Image Padding": "[]", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/640", "EXIF FNumber": "27/10", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:08:07 17:07:05", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:08:07 17:07:05", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "149/16", "EXIF ApertureValue": "23/8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "23/8", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "6", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1305", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1135", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "112640/9", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "299929/24", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}