From Open Borders to Concentration Camps
For almost one hundred years, the United States had open borders . In the beginning, there were no restrictions on who could enter; all ports of entry would allow anyone in. America had a lot of empty land at the time and was eager to settle it (and had no problem committing genocide to do so.) If an immigrant lived in the country for a certain period of time, they would automatically become a citizen (as long as they were white .) After the Civil War, as America industrialized and urbanized, immigration increased dramatically. The first federal restriction on immigration into the United States was the Page Act of 1875. The law prohibited the entry of "undesirables," that is, any individual from Asia who was coming to perform contract labor. A fine of up to $2000 and a maximum jail sentence of up to one year on anyone who tried to bring a person from any Asian country. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, marking the birth of "illegal immigration"