Immigration Timeline

Resource: NNIRR

1492 COLUMBUS ARRIVES IN THE AMERICAS

1600s -1865 SLAVERY OF AFRICANS:Millions of Africans forcibly removed from the continent, enslaved and transported to North America, primarily to work on a plantations in the South.

1790 NATURALIZATION ACT Only “free white persons” eligible to become U.S.

1830 INDIAN REMOVAL ACT ACT Forces 70,000 Native Americans to relocate in order to free land for settlement by European immigrants.

1848 MEXICAN AMERICAN WAR:War between Mexico and the United States. The U.S. annexes all or parts of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah. Mexicans in these areas lose their citizenship rights.

1865-1870: 13THAMENDMENT outlaws slavery.

1865 Klux Klan is founded

1866 CIVIL RIGHTS ACT grants citizenship to people born in the United States, except American Indians.

1868 14th Amendment grants equal protection of the law of African Americans.

1870 15th AMENDMENT establishes the right of African American males to vote. Specifically excludes all women.

1882-1943 CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT: Denies citizenship for Chinese immigrants and suspends their entry to the U.S. During the late 1880s, Italians and the Irish also faced discrimination.

1890-1895 THE NEW SOUTH LAWS (JIM CROW LAWS) Beginning with Mississippi, Confederate States enact amendments denying blacks the right to vote. Forms of disenfranchisement include poll taxes and ownership of property, In Texas,these laws are also used to deny Latinos the right to vote.

1919 PALMER RAIDS Deportations and round-ups of “aliens,” anarchists, and communists, especially those from southern Europe and Latin America. 10,000 labor and immigrant activists are deported.

1921-1930 DEPORTATION OF MEXICAN WORKERS: Thousands of Mexican workers including many US citizens, are deported.

1929 U.S BORDER PATROL CREATED

1942-1945 JAPANESE INTERNMENT:U.S. forcibly moves 120,000 Japanese-Americans from the western U.S. to detention camps for 3 years.

1954 OPERATION WETBACK Massive deportation: campaign expelling more than 1.1 million Mexicans.

1961 FREEDOM RIDES challenges segregation on buses

1965 VOTING RIGHTS ACT:Literacy tests and other such requirements preventing citizens from voting become illegal.

1965 IMMIGRATION ACT: Eliminates race, creed, and nationality quotas as basis for admission to U.S.