Newswise — CSU Channel Islands History Lecturer Michael Powelson, Ph.D., can point to numerous examples of when the U.S. has excluded groups of immigrants citing the mistaken notion that they were taking U.S. jobs.
In 1882, for example, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which resulted in falling wages and rising unemployment until the Panic of 1893, one of the worst economic collapses in U.S. history.
In 1924, Congress passed the Johnson-Reed Act, which blocked an estimated 600,000 European immigrants from entering the U.S. each year.
After the act, wages continued to fall, unemployment increased and the stock market collapsed in 1929 in what is now known as the Great Depression. Dr. Powelson has other examples. Blocking immigration never works, he says.
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