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The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was enacted February 2, 1848 and officially ended the Mexican-American War and resulted in the United States acquiring Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, California, and pieces of Utah and Nevada. Once the treaty was enacted more than 80,000 Mexicans that lived in the territories were allowed to remain and receive U.S. citizenship.
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January 2, 1892 the most famous of all the U.S. immigration stations is opened on Ellis Island in New York Harbor. The Ellis Island station had 119 Immigration Service employees, the entire Federal Immigration Service had a total of 180 employees in 1893.
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The bustling mining and railroad industry in northern Mexico drove large amounts of Mexican workers to move to the northern area of the country. Tension escalated in the countries politics in 1910 and the opponents of the then Mexican President revolted against the government, the result was a chaos that pushed 1000’s of Mexicans to migrate north to the U.S.
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The U.S. Immigration Service started task patrolmen to monitor the U.S.-Mexico Border in an effort to prevent illegal immigration as early as 1904. A special task of Mounted Inspectors were launched in March 1915, most of the Inspectors were horseback but there were some that operated cars and even boats.
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According to the U.S. Department of Labor by the end of June 1927 there was an estimated 1,000,000 illegal Mexican immigrants in the United States. This was a sharp rise compared to the 100,000 Mexican immigrants in 1900.
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During the timespan 1929-1936 U.S. officials utilized the Repatriation Act to force Mexican immigrants out of the United States back into Mexico. Raids were common and on February 26, 1931 officials closed off a section in Los Angeles and questioned approximately 400 people about their immigration status.
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The Bracero Program was a United States Mexico labor agreement that allowed Mexican men to work in the United States (short-term) in mainly the agriculture industry. In a timespan from 1942-1964 over 4.6 million contracts were signed which makes it the largest U.S. contract labor program in history.
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In 1964 the United States ended the Bracero program because undocumented laborers kept flooding the United States outside of the negotiated Bracero program agreements. Mexican workers worked illegally in the United States in the face of deportation.
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In Arizona over 450 volunteers from all over the United States begin to patrol the U.S.-Mexican Border in a controversial effort to track down illegal immigrants.
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On June 26, 2007 President Bush spoke about the need for a comprehensive immigration reform. The President’s plan of action included taking actions to improve the nation’s border security. The President stressed that the U.S. needs a new way for foreign workers to lawfully come to the U.S. and support our economy.
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The controversial Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act (Arizona SB 1070) was signed into Arizona law by then Governor Jan Brewer in April 2010. The signed act was the strictest anti-illegal immigration effort signed into Arizona law in several years.
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Days after the controversal Arizona SB 1070 bill is signed into Arizona law, Arizona HB 2162 is signed to amend certain portions of the Support our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act. The new HB 2162 bill was release in an effort to clear the racial profiling undertone of SB 1070.
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In 2005 a Homeland Security initiative was launched in an effort to create a high-tech surveillance system along the U.S.-Mexico Border that would aid in reducing the amount of illegal border smuggling. The effort cost U.S. taxpayer upwards of $1 billion to cover only 53 miles of the 2000 mile long border. The initiative was officially cancelled on January 14, 2011 due to several project problems to include costs and schedule delays.
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President Obama addresses the nation on his plan to "fix the broken immigration system". Working within this legal power the President layed out a plan that would focus on tightenting up on illegal immigration and deporting felons, not families.
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The Obama administration reinstated the catch and release policy in an effort to help reinforce the U.S. immigration laws. The policy is reinstated to combat the fact that since January 2014 several illegal aliens have been apprehended and never show up to their perspective deportation court hearing.
