Immigration reduction in the United States

Immigration reduction refers to a movement in the United States that advocates a reduction in the amount of immigration allowed into the country. Steps advocated for reducing the numbers of immigrants include advocating stronger action to prevent illegal entry and illegal immigration, and reductions in non-immigrant temporary work visas (such as H-1B and L-1). Some advocate a tightening of the requirements for legal immigration requirements to reduce total numbers, or move the proportions of legal immigrants away from those on family reunification programs to skills-based criteria. What separates it from others who want immigration reform is that reductionists see immigration- or one of its forms- as being a significant source of social, economic, and environmental problems, and wish to cut current immigration levels.

Many immigration reformists support continued legal immigration, only opposing illegal immigration. Some immigration reductionists want legal immigration to be set at a percentage of current levels until fewer adverse effects are created by legal immigration.

The related terminology "self-deportation" or "to self-deport" refers to the viewpoint that social policy that illegal immigration to the U.S. can be reduced by causing residents to leave the U.S. on their own, thus creating a reduction.

Antecedents to immigration reduction or control exist in antiquity, notably in the Roman Empire, where high living standards were an attractant to poorer tribes at the edge of the Empire. Specifically the immigration from Northern Africa, the Middle East, and of Germanic tribes from the northern European continent and Pictish peoples north of Hadrian's Wall in Brittania were viewed as unwanted population influxes.

There have been several discernible groups at various times within the United States, which pushed for immigration restrictions, with separate concerns, origins, and aims; thus there are several antecedents for the modern immigration reduction movement. These include the nativist United States American Party, often called the Know Nothing movement of the mid-19th century, which objected to increased Catholic immigration of predominantly Irish and German origin; the Immigration Restriction League, which objected to greatly increased immigration from southern and eastern Europe during the late-19th and early 20th centuries, and the joint congressional Dillingham Commission, which studied this latter complaint and proposed numerical restrictions. Eventually, following World War I, these studies led to the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924.

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