The topic from our class that I will be examining is immigration. Currently, there is a great deal of discrepancy about what the best policy for immigration is. Actually there has been debate over this topic for a very long time. While some are chanting for a wall to be built to keep out new immigrants, others are fighting to open the borders even more to bring in new immigrants. Kaufman brings up the topic of immigration several times throughout the book, although it is not a major theme of the book itself, and is more used as supplementary information. Because of this the information provided by the book on immigration is somewhat limited, but the topic of immigration is too important to not examine more closely. As stated in lecture, few …show more content…
This also meant the creation of new laws restricting U.S. immigration and the passage of other laws that limited freedom for anyone thought to be associated with a communist organization. Under existing laws, American women who married foreigners lost their citizenship and could even be deported" Kaufman (1250 of 5470). This information shows that the U.S. was fearful enough of the threat of communism that it was willing to even turn it’s back on its own citizens by deporting them if suspected of helping spread communism. According to Kaufman in the early 1920’s the U.S. was making a real effort to look at it’s domestic issues, even if those issues were not a problem. For example the economy was stable when the U.S. passed a series of acts limiting immigration out of economic fear. “Consistent with the priority to look inward, and fearing an influx of foreigners who could disturb the domestic economic balance that existed, Congress passed a series of immigration acts that severely limited the number of people allowed to enter …show more content…
I do believe that Kaufman is missing some things in her presentation of immigration. I don’t think that the book examined the benefits of immigration on GDP or anything else. The book mostly looked at how U.S. immigration policy has been plagued with fear and discrimination (that is clearly continuing into today) but it failed to examine what makes immigration good or bad. For example in lecture it was explored a little further. One interesting thing we looked at was a Gallup poll which showed that over time more and more people are in favor of increasing immigration, and more people see immigration as a good thing. It was also mentioned how immigration can successfully combat poverty and can help more than spending money on aid. I believe, like almost anything else, that everyone would benefit from exploring more sources. Some sources, like lecture, presented a combination of history and current ideas, while Kaufman’s book presents a history of immigration policies in the U.S. and by reading her work one can see how racist the U.S. used to be. Actually this is why we should study history. Because if someone thinks that we are past all of that racist stuff, and reads the history she provides, they might realise when they see Executive Order 13769 indefinitely blocking refugees from Syria and prohibiting seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United