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The melting pot concept is most commonly used to describe the assimilation of immigrants to the United States, though it can be used in any context where a new culture comes to coexist with another. In recent times, refugees from the Middle East have created melting pots throughout Europe and the Americas.

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Ratified in 1868 to secure equal treatment for African Americans after the end of slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment also provided key rights for immigrants and their families such as birthright citizenship, equal protections, and due process. Starting in the 1890s, however, courts have ruled that the federal government’s “sovereign and plenary power” over immigration can supersede these civil rights protections, such as in cases involving excludable aliens and unauthorized immigrants whose immigration related situations are handled through the immigration bureaucracy and courts.

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The Chinese exclusion laws barred most Chinese immigrants from becoming naturalized United States citizens during the years of exclusion. It also made Chinese immigrants permanent aliens by excluding them from U.S. citizenship.

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As America begins a rapid period of industrialization and urbanization, a second immigration boom begins. Between 1880 and 1920, more than 20 million immigrants arrive. The majority are from Southern, Eastern and Central Europe, including 4 million Italians and 2 million Jews. Many of them settle in major U.S. cities and work in factories.  In the mid-1880s the number of immigrants to the United States from northern and western Europe declined sharply. At the same time, the number of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe greatly increased. The changing pattern of immigration concerned many Americans who believed the newcomers represented, in the language of the time, inferior races of Europeans.

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American objections to Chinese immigration took many forms and generally stemmed from economic and cultural tensions, as well as ethnic discrimination. Most Chinese laborers who came to the United States did so in order to send money back to China to support their families there. At the same time, they also had to repay loans to the Chinese merchants who paid their passage to America. These financial pressures left them little choice but to work for whatever wages they could. Non-Chinese laborers often required much higher wages to support their wives and children in the United States, and also generally had a stronger political standing to bargain for higher wages.

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Although this law is best known for its creation of a “barred zone” extending from the Middle East to Southeast Asia from which no persons were allowed to enter the United States, its main restriction consisted of a literacy test intended to reduce European immigration.

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Established the nation’s first numerical limits on the number of immigrants who could enter the United States.  The Immigration Act of 1924, also known as the National Origins Act, made the quotas stricter and permanent. These country-by-country limits were specifically designed to keep out “undesirable” ethnic groups and maintain America’s character as nation of northern and western European stock.The Immigration Act of 1924, also known as the National Origins Act, made the quotas stricter and permanent. These country-by-country limits were specifically designed to keep out “undesirable” ethnic groups and maintain America as a nation of northern and western European stock. It was not until the Immigration Act of 1965 that America’s ethnicity-based quotas would disappear and the United States would adopt a more ethnically neutral way of controlling immigration.

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Granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the U.S. The right to vote, however, was governed by state law; until 1957, some states barred Native Americans from voting.

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After Fidel Castro's revolution, anti-communist Cubans received preferential immigration conditions because they came from a historically close U.S. neighbor and ally. This law provided them permanent status and resources to help adjustment to life in the U.S.

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The former “wet foot/dry foot policy” put Cubans who reached U.S. soil on a fast track to permanent residency. The policy expired on January 12, 2017. The U.S. government had initiated the policy in 1995 as an amendment to the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act that Congress passed when Cold War tensions ran high between the U.S. and the island nation of Cuba. The policy stated that if a Cuban migrant was apprehended in the water between the two countries, the migrant was considered to have “wet feet” and was sent back home. However, a Cuban who made it to the U.S. shore can claim “dry feet” and qualify for legal permanent resident status and U.S. citizenship. The policy had made exceptions for Cubans who were caught at sea and could prove they were vulnerable to persecution if sent back.

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For years, a program known as DACA that protects about 650,000 young immigrants from deportation has been a policy roller coaster, with court rulings and administration actions canceling, reinstating or partially rolling back the program every few months.  The stops and starts have left those immigrants, known as Dreamers, uncertain whether the threat of deportation could quickly return with a single court order or presidential memorandum.  A federal judge ruled the program unlawful, finding that President Barack Obama exceeded his authority when he created DACA in 2012. Introduced in 2001, the dream act would have given its beneficiaries a path to American citizenship as well as protection from deportation.