Got Immigration? The World’s Best Damn Blog About U.S. Immigration

I’m reading Thomas Barnett’s book “Great Powers” right now, which deals with America’s place in the post-9/11 globalized world order.  In a chapter tracing the history of American-style globalization, Barnett discusses the Homestead Act, a law that gave applicants freehold title to undeveloped land.  President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act into law in 1862, possibly the darkest year of the Civil War.  The Homestead Act gave anyone title to lands as long as they filed an application, improved the land, and filed for a deed of title afterwards.  An applicant could obtain up to 160 acres in this fashion.  Barnett argues (citing historian Heather Cox Richardson) that the Homestead Act was key in helping America heal the wounds of the Civil War, providing America with an economic model that “unified its citizens’ collective pursuit of individual happiness across a collection of far-flung regions and ‘sections.’”  The Homestead Act also helped unify the North, South, and West, and increased the nation’s food supply at a time of low output.  Simply put, the Homestead Act was an important component of post-Civil War reconstruction and had a profound effect on the nation’s development through the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Why am I talking about the Civil War in an immigration blog?  I found it fascinating that the Homestead Act applied to citizens and non-citizens alike.  Anyone could apply for a land grant, irrespective of citizenship, as long as the non-citizen applicant “expressed a desire to become a citizen eventually.”  The result of this provision was that thousands of European immigrants acquired and developed land in the West, transforming the continental United States into much the way it looks today.  The United States had an open-door immigration policy in the 1860s; gradually, various classes of immigrants became “inadmissible” in the 1870s and later, a quota system was instituted in the 1920s, and the nation’s current immigration regime largely developed in the 1950s and 60s.  I completely do not believe in an open-door immigration policy for America of the 21st century, but it’s fascinating to see what just such a policy did for America of the 19th century.  There’s value in taking a step back from today’s uber-charged immigration debate and objectively evaluating whether a more liberal immigration regime can similarly transform the country again.  In many ways, our current immigration system is a product of an outdated era politically, economically, socially, and technologically.  Immigration can be a potent tool for helping America maintain a competitive advantage in a globalized world, and should be treated exactly as such – and not as a social ill that needs to be further restricted or eliminated.  Just something to think about for the weekend.