The United States’ immigration policy has constantly struggled to balance two competing goals — bringing in foreign workers to help the economy grow versus protecting American workers. A short overview of USA’s constantly-shifting immigration policy, leading up to the creation of the H-1B visa programme in 1990, is testament to the fact.
How the US immigration policy evolved
More than 10 million Irish, German, English and other European immigrants arrived in the United States between 1820 and 1880. These immigrants were mostly from northern and western Europe, although a smaller number also came from Asia beginning in the 1850s.
According to a 2000 paper by The Center for Comparative Immigration Studies,
University of California, San Diego, rapid industrialization in the second half of the 19th century led big businesses to encourage low-wage immigrant labour. However, pressure from local labor movements, public prejudice also led to passage of the first restrictive laws — such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Contract Labor Laws.
The Congress passed the Contract Labor Laws of 1885 and 1887 to prevent companies from bringing cheap foreign labour to displace US workers. However, big business lobbied successfully for exemptions that permitted the entry of foreign domestic servants, artists, lecturers and other skilled workers.
Impact of the World Wars
World War I sparked heightened fear and suspicion toward foreigners, driving Congress to pass restrictive immigration laws.
Fears of massive European migration following the war led to the 1921 Emergency Quota Act and the 1924 National Origins Act. These laws set strict caps on overall immigration and used national origin quotas to favor immigrants from Northern and Western Europe while sharply limiting those from Southern and Eastern Europe.
Then, the Immigration Act of 1924 officially defined “immigrants” vs. “nonimmigrants,” creating the legal framework for foreign nationals entering the country on a temporary, fixed-term basis rather than for permanent residence.