Gay and lesbian immigrants

U.S. immigration law has historically excluded openly gay and lesbian individuals on various bases, ranging from classifications of them as morally or medically unfit to their perceived social and political threats to the desirable character of American society.

Geary Act of 1892

Enacted to reinforce and extend provisions of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the Geary Act prevented further immigration from China and required established Chinese residents of the United States to carry certificates of residence.

Marcus Garvey

The first person of African descent to galvanize black people throughout the world with the idea of returning to Africa, Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), which sought to deliver African Americans from injustice, encourage racial self-improvement, and promote a back-to-Africa movement.

Garment industry

Fueled by immigrant labor since the massive surge of Jewish and Italian immigrants to New York City during the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century, the American garment industry was long a major economic portal to recently arrived immigrants.

Galvan v. Press

In the context of the Cold War, the Galvan decision upheld the authority of the U.S. government to order the deportation of persons who had been members of the Communist Party, even if there was no good evidence that they had understood the party’s advocacy of violent revolution.

French immigrants

Freedom Airlift

The airlift of hundreds of thousands of Cuban migrants to the United States increased the size and political strength of the Cuban American community while furthering the Cold War foreign policy goals of the United States.

Felix Frankfurter

As a professor at Harvard, Frankfurter got involved in a number of causes. He became a close adviser of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Former Soviet Union immigrants

Immigration to the United States fromseveral of the former Soviet countries is a relatively recent development, but some of the others have long histories of sending people to the United States.

Foreign miner taxes

In the absence of federal laws that discriminated against immigrants, the state of California sought to favor immigrants of European origin by enacting special taxes that targeted the state’s Mexican and Chinese miners.

Foreign exchange students

Exchange students undertake formal studies at postsecondary institutions to increase their cultural exposure, expand their learning opportunities, and improve their language skills.

Foodways

What people eat, when, and with whom—their “foodways”—are largely determined by their cultures. As circumstances allowed, immigrant groups brought their food preferences and eating customs with them to the United States, allowing them to maintain a sense of identity and cohesion.

Fong Yue Ting v. United States

Upholding the constitutionality of the Geary Act of 1892, the controversial Fong Yue Ting decision recognized that the U.S. Congress had almost unlimited discretion to establish all aspects of the nation’s immigration policy, including the rules and procedures for alien registration and deportation.

Foley v. Connelie

Upholding a state law that discriminated against aliens, the Supreme Court in the Foley decision departed from a previous decision based on strict scrutiny, thereby making it much more likely that similar policies would be upheld.

Florida illegal immigration suit

Although the Florida lawsuit was eventually dismissed, the case was important because it represented the first time a state sued the federal government for costs associated with illegal immigrants.