Guarding the Golden Door Paper Book Review

Guarding the Golden Door Paper Book Review.
Roger Daniels book introduces the reader to an entangled history of the immigration policy in the United States. It is evident from the Roger Daniel’s point that much of the United States immigration policy was established by people who had very little idea about the consequences of the immigration policies that were enacted through lots of struggles. Before 1882, the U.S had no established policies on immigration and those who came into the country either legally or illegally could stay in the country for as much as they wished. However, the current American people have felt ambivalent towards the new arrivals in the country since the immigrants come in to provide willing and cheap labor, and they have cast some doubts over the ability of the different groups to integrate.
The Congress and the federal government who were the main institutions addressing the immigration issue experienced a great challenge of balancing the attitudes of the American people and the politics. The Public and politicians were the main dictators of the anti-Chinese policy. It was challenging since the government was trying to maintain its diplomatic relations with the Chinese government, which may view the exclusion issue as a provocation and violation of their treaty promise (Daniels, 5). However, the domestic factors of the United States ultimately trumped global concerns, since most of the American people wanted the immigrants restricted from coming the country to take over their jobs.

The immigrants were accused of taking over the American people jobs at a cheaper cost, thus promoting an increase in the unemployment levels among the Americans (Daniels, 8). In 1988, the U.S Congress intensified the exclusion by passing the Scott Act that made reentry into the country after a previous visit unfeasible, even those long-term legal inhabitants were restricted from entry (Daniels, 15). The Chinese government saw the move as an insult. By 1902, the prohibition was expanded to cover the Filipinos and the Hawaiian people. By 1905, the Chinese merchants responded to the American humiliation by organizing anti-American campaigns.
The Chinese Exclusion Act is the only major federal legislation that explicitly suspended the immigration of a particular group of nationality (Daniels, 17). The law was established to prohibit the Chinese laborers from entering the United States. Moreover, subsequent amendments to the law banned those who had left from coming back into the U.S. The establishment of this act was a representation of the outcome of years of anti-immigrant agitation and racial discrimination by the white Americans, which set a precedent for the subsequent restrictions against immigration of the foreign people, and began a new era in which the U.S changed from an immigrant-welcoming nation to a gatekeeping nation. The Congress and the federal government who were the main institutions addressing the immigration issue experienced a great challenge of balancing the attitudes of the American people and the politics. The Public and politicians were the main dictators of the anti-Chinese policy.
The Immigration Restriction had proposed a literacy test for the sole purpose of restricting some immigrants coming into the country. The implementation of this act led to the Americans moving away from regulating immigration to restricting immigrants from coming into the country (Daniels, 31). Members of the Immigration Restriction League believed that the increased number of immigrants contributed to an increase in social problems such as poverty, labor unrest, increased urban population and increased crime, making the Immigration Restriction League advocate for a literacy requirement as a measure of limiting the entry of new immigrants (Daniels, 4).
Immigration policy was the most significant reaction to the Red Scare since most American people feared the influx of anarchists and radicals. In this case, the government established the quota system for all the immigrants in the country and using it to limit the immigration of people from countries where communism and anarchism were highly practiced (Daniels, 67). Moreover, the increased uncertainty that was generated over the national security during the World War I pushed the Congress to enact the immigration restriction act. At the end of the first world war, the United States was suffering social and economic upheavals. The Russian revolution, the fall of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empire and the destruction incurred during the World War led to the migration of people into the U.S (Daniels, 120). This move made the Congress pass the immigration laws to limit the number of immigrants in the country.
The great depression that occurred in the 1930s hit hard the immigrants from Mexico. With the increased level of unemployment and shortage of food in the United States, the Mexican immigrants in the U.S were facing deportation threats from the United States government (Daniels, 176). Hostility towards the immigrants grew as a result of the job crisis that people faced within the United States. In this case, the U.S government began repatriating the Mexicans back to their country to allow the American people access the few jobs that were available. Many Mexicans, including those who were recruited a decade earlier, were sent out of the country (Daniels, 178). Those farm workers who remained in the U.S faced difficulties in surviving under those desperate conditions. The Mexican American farmers discovered that they were to migrate in search of work so as to survive. Due to the violent attacks that the Mexican Americans experienced, the Farm Security Administration set up migrant work camps to keep the Mexican immigrants safe. However, the migrant work camps provided unexpected benefits (Daniels, 182).
The quota system ended with the passing of the 1965 Immigration Act along with the right to vote and Medicare laws. The bill retained many provisions that characterized the legislative immigration restriction before the World War I and bore a distinct relationship to the 1924 and 1953 Immigration Acts (Daniels, 132). The principal aim of the 1965 law was to wipe out the concept of the quota system and substitute it with the issuance of Visas. With the quota system, the United States chose the immigrants basing on their ancestry, thus promoting racism in the country. The system favored the northern Europeans who received many slots as compared to other regions (Daniels, 137). It is evident that the United States was built by immigrants from different regions and not just the Europeans, thus making all races have equal rights of seeking admission into the country. During the great depression, the U.S economy experienced lots of problems, and the country’s GDP fell by more than 25%, erasing the growth that was experienced in the first quarter century. During that period, many companies chose to employ cheap labor in order to sustain themselves in the market. In this case, many Mexican immigrants were getting jobs as compared to the American people, thus creating job crisis to many Americans (Daniels, 180). This prompted the government to repatriate the Mexicans so that the American people can be employed.
The 9/11 incident induced an increase in anti-immigrant sentiments among the United States Citizens and those beyond borders. The attack had significant impacts on the people’s attitudes, thus resulting to a rise in the discriminatory characteristics towards the immigrants (Daniels, 238). The terror attack prompted the government to tighten the immigration rules mainly towards those immigrants from countries that are affiliated to terror. The country has changed from being an easy nation to access to one of the toughest to access. All the immigrants and travelers are required to produce an official, secure identifications at any U.S border. Most visitors are now fingerprinted as well as double-checked to ensure that the terrorists are not able to come into the country. Most of the travelers from the Middle East are scrutinized more today as compared to the previous times before the attack. Although not all the Muslims are terrorists, many Americans and in other countries tend to suspect that all Muslims are terrorists.
Historically, fears of immigrants entering the United States have been expressed regarding race. In the modern America, “culture” is the common term used in distinguishing the assimilable, utilitarian immigrants from the purported dangerous immigrants. Roger Daniels sees the policies of immigration moving in long waves. It is evident that the doors were slowly closing between 1882 and 1921. The immigration policies are viewed to have been tightest between the two world wars, but the policy enforcement started relaxing during the presidential term of Harry Truman (Daniels, 251). However, there was a second period of openness in the reprieve of the 1980s. With the current percentage of the foreign born residents approximately comparable to the numbers of immigrants a century ago, there may be a further advocating to tighten the policies ahead.

Work Cited
Daniels, Roger. Guarding the golden door : American immigration policy and immigrants since 1882. New York: Hill and Wang, 2005. Print.