Chapter Seventeen Reading Questions (2 of 2)

For Friday's class, please read Chapter 17 from page 422 to 451, and be prepared to answer
the questions below.

This is the last of the Daniels book, and it's kind of fun to see what was going on just thirteen years ago, and what he predicted for the future. Was he right? After this we will focus on current issues and make our own predictions about the future of immigration.

• Why was there so much anti-immigrant rhetoric in the IRCA and the sixteen statutes affecting immigration passed during the 1990s? Were they really getting "tough"?
• Did Presidents Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton reduce immigration?
• What replaced the concern about communists?
• Why was the money thrown at the INS during the 1990s largely wasted?
• What has been the corollary of increased border security?
• Do people caught at the border usually get deported?
• What is the INS record on prisoners?
• Why did naturalization increase so much in the 1990s? How much did it cost?
• What did the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform report (aka the Jordan report) not point out as the chief culprit in the illegal immigration dilemma?
• Who supported California Proposition 187? Was it effective? Why was George W. Bush (then the governor of Texas) against it?
• Layout the problems with the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the 1998 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act.
• What did Pope John Paul II say about immigration?
• How have Germany and Japan dealt with immigration in the past? What do those countries and many other developed countries have to worry about for the future of their economies?
• Why did organized labor completely reverse its policies on immigration?

Chapter Seventeen Reading Questions (1 of 2)

For Wednesday's class, please read Chapter 17 through page 422 and be prepared to answer
the following questions:

• What has changed and what has stayed the same in American immigration since 1986?
• In the 2000 census, what percentage of the population was foreign born? How does that compare to the historical numbers? (Hint: check the tables in this chapter and in chapter 6.)
• According to the 2000 census, the largest numbers of immigrants came from what regions of the world? Where did most settle? What were their education achievements and income?
• Why is the data so misleading when the census data on immigrants is lumped together?
• What does Daniels say the responsible historian must try to do?
• Who are "nonimmigrant" immigrants?
• Who do experts think comprise the major portion of the illegal immigrants?
• What is the longstanding discrimination against Mexican as opposed to Canadian border crossers?
• Why are the government's estimates of the number of illegal immigrants so unreliable?
• If we accept the government's numbers, what, in Daniel's opinion, are the vast majority of the 1.8% of the U.S. population that is undocumented?