Shadowing Practice: What was immigration like before ICE? - Learn English Speaking with Video

So I noticed something interesting on the history page of ICE's website.

Right here it says, Despite U.S.

Immigration and Custom Enforcement's relatively young age, its functional history predates the modern birth of the agency by more than 200 years.

That phrase, functional history, stuck out to me.

So I decided to do some digging.

It's functional history.

They're arguing that there was a functional equivalent, right, to their agency.

Wow.

Now, we know that ICE was created by the Homeland Security Act in 2003.

To defend the United States and protect our citizens against the dangers of a new era.

So what exactly do they mean by this?

I reached out to ICE directly, asking for their explanation of this functional history, but they never got back to me.

That narrative is kind of an effort to make the agency itself seem like it has this deep lineage

that it simply does not.

Following breaking news in Minneapolis where city officials confirm a shooting occurred reportedly involving a federal ICE agent.

It is the second shooting of an American citizen by federal officers in that city in just three weeks.

The f* did you just do?

So I decided to do a bit of my own research.

We're going to take a look at three distinct eras in American history, showing how immigration policy slowly transformed from labor management to law enforcement,

culminating in the creation of ICE.

So, on the same page of their site, ICE refers to the remarkable development of the country throughout the 19th and 20th centuries,

including the essential role of immigration and the evolving laws and regulations.

Now, in terms of how the US treated immigration enforcement, the 19th and 20th centuries are actually really different from each other.

One of the remarkable things is that the constitution is actually silent on immigration.

So for the first century of the republic, Congress plays virtually no role in regulating the arrival,

admission, exclusion or deportation of foreigners.

With one notable exception, the Alien and Sedition Act, which authorized the president to deport non-citizens and allowed their arrest and imprisonment during wartime.

There is a panic in the United States over the potential radical ideas that certain immigrants are bringing to the United States,

specifically after the French Revolution.

But real immigration restrictions wouldn't happen for almost another hundred years.

And that's because until the Civil War resolved the issue of slavery in the US, regulating immigration at the federal level was incredibly difficult.

The problem throughout the antebellum period is if Congress had muscled in and said,

we're going to control the arrival of the Irish poor into Boston or New York,

exactly the same authority could have been used to regulate the arrival of free black people in South Carolina.

When you have slavery in the picture, it takes a civil war to resolve that conflict between the national and the local level.

So then in 1882, after the Civil War, Congress passed two foundational laws restricting immigration in the US.

The Immigration Act allowed the exclusion of certain vulnerable minorities, such as people carrying contagious diseases.

The same year, in 1882, Congress passes another law, and that's the Chinese Exclusion Act.

This law discriminates against Chinese people on grounds of race.

It also discriminates on grounds of class because it's targeting not all Chinese people, but Chinese laborers in particular.

Now, since immigration isn't in the Constitution, this law was put to the courts.

And the Supreme Court made a decision that would have ripple effects all the way to the modern day.

In effect, what the court rules is that power over national borders is

so fundamental to the definition of any nation that it's extra constitutional.

It's a matter of national security and geopolitics.

This pivotal moment is when the US declares it has the right to turn immigrants away based solely on race or ethnicity.

And in 1891, the first federal immigration agency was established to enforce these laws, the Office of the Superintendent of Immigration.

And it had a staff of four people.

The immigrants of old turn their eyes toward America's gateway, Ellis Island.

It's really hard to overstate just how central Ellis Island was to immigration at this time.

About two years after the formation of the first agency, the staff had grown to 180 people, and 119 of them were employed at Ellis Island.

And that's because from 1892 to 1924, 20 million immigrants arrived in the U.S., and 12 million of them came through Ellis Island.

And almost none of them were turned away.

In that 40-year period between the 1880s and the 1920s, We would estimate that somewhere between only 1

and 2% of all European immigrants coming to the United States were excluded on arrival.

In an era without passports, without visas, without the administrative capacity to really enforce the law beyond a certain point,

the expectation, as long as you weren't Chinese, coming to the United States is that you would get in.

And that was only 100 years ago.

And the greatest war the world had known exploded in Europe.

After World War I, the United States shifted from welcoming immigrants to restricting them.

Many Americans feared a wave of displaced European refugees.

And rising xenophobia intensified concerns that these immigrants would threaten national security and the so-called American way of life.

These fears culminated in the Immigration Act of 1924.

Until 1924, American borders were normatively open, and after that they became normatively closed.

You get a large-scale numerical restriction.

And this is the start of the third distinct era of US immigration.

The Immigration Act of 1924 set strict limits on how many immigrants could enter the US from each country.

US immigration is restricted by law to a selective annual quota from each foreign country.

The quotas were based on the 1890 US Census, and the goal was to preserve the proportions of each nationality from over 30 years prior,

which largely restricted immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe.

And immigrants were excluded from not only China, but all of Asia, as well as Africa.

Upon signing the law, President Calvin Coolidge said, America must be kept American.

So that to me is the turning point

because we totally take it for granted that there is a cap on immigration today.

And just by accepting that, we are accepting the logic of the restrictionists.

So in 1933, immigration enforcement was merged with naturalization and became the Immigration and Naturalization Services, or the INS.

They would remain the immigration agency until 2003.

And then in 1940, President Franklin D.

Roosevelt moved the INS from the Department of Labor to the Department of Justice.

And that's a change that will come to redefine immigration in the US.

He does that pretty explicitly with the understanding that things are getting dicey in Europe.

The harvest days of 1939 brought a turn of world events whose effect on US economy no man can yet predict.

The threat of World War II added to the growing notion of immigration as a national security issue.

Immigration was no longer just about managing a workforce.

FDR wrote in his reorganization plan, I am convinced that under existing conditions,

the immigration and naturalization activities can best contribute to the national well-being only

if they are closely integrated with the activities of the Department of Justice.

The INS was now tasked with fingerprinting every immigrant in the US, and organizing internment camps and detention centers for people they considered to be enemy aliens.

So that is people who do not have citizenship, people whose political backgrounds have put them on the United States' radar.

During World War II, the INS detained almost 32,000 German, Italian, and Japanese non-U.S citizens, who were also denied lawyers.

In total, the INS operated as many as 65 incarceration camps in this period.

We want to take a second to thank our Vox members.

This video and reporting is only possible because of their financial support.

And thanks to them, we were able to make this video free for everyone.

Reporting on sensitive topics like this one takes time, care, and real resources.

Support from our members gives us the independence to take on difficult stories, and the responsibility to get them right.

Supporting us on Patreon is how this kind of reporting continues.

Your membership directly funds the work behind stories like this.

And if you're not able to support financially right now, you can still follow us on Patreon for free and stay connected to our reporting.

100

Now, back to the video.

101

Now, there's one region we haven't really discussed so far that's central to this era of change in American immigration.

102

Latin America.

103

It's important to note that the quota system implemented in the 20s never affected Latin America.

104

Agricultural businesses in the Southwest don't want any restriction on the labor supply.

105

Latin America is exempted from these laws.

106

And that sentiment continued through to World War II, when there was a massive labor shortage in the US.

107

The 1942 Bracero program allowed millions of Mexican men to enter the US and work legally on short-term labor contracts.

108

Braceros, in Spanish, this means a man who works with his arms and hands.

109

The program, a partnership with the Mexican government, guaranteed fair wages for the workers.

110

But many employers, especially in Texas, wanted even cheaper labor.

111

So while millions of Mexicans entered the country through legal means in the 40s and 50s, hundreds of thousands of undocumented workers also crossed the border illegally and found work.

112

And so it's in this time that the immigration debate in the US really focuses on the southern border.

113

And in 1954, President Dwight D.

114

Eisenhower implemented Operation Wetback, named after a pejorative slur for Mexican immigrants.

115

The operation used military tactics to pursue its goals, led by INS head and US Army Lieutenant General Joseph Swain.

116

The American Border Patrol struggles against a tense, explosive international problem.

117

Along the sprawling California-Mexico border, thousands of Mexican wetbacks or illegal entrants are sneaking into the United States.

118

The result was one of the largest deportation efforts in US history.

119

The INS completed sweeps of factories and farms, shipping undocumented immigrants back to Mexico in boats, buses, and planes.

120

The US later claimed that 1.3 million people were deported.

121

So as we get into the 60s and 70s, the immigration service is in kind of a tricky spot.

122

At the height of the civil rights movement in the U.S., President Lyndon B.

123

Johnson signed the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act.

124

The consequential law prioritized family reunification and skills and repealed the longstanding policy of restricting immigration based on race and ethnicity.

125

It was also around this time that Americans started focusing more on undocumented immigrants on the interior of the U.S.

126

The agency is also moving away from just policing the border.

127

There is very much a sort of growing consensus and understanding that undocumented people are living in American communities throughout the U.S.

128

The INS is really stretched thin.

129

They are trying to do interior enforcement or internal operations, not just work that is near the border.

130

The INS's budget in 1975 is $181 million.

131

By the time the agency ends in 2003, the budget has eclipsed $6 billion.

132

And the INS grew this budget by doubling down on immigration as a national security and criminal justice issue.

133

This is an era where there is massive funding and bipartisan support for things like the war on crime, the war on drugs.

134

And so the INS began to explicitly rebrand.

135

They don't want to be known for naturalization.

136

They don't want to be known for, you know, working through asylum hearings.

137

What they want to be known for is law enforcement.

138

In a statement by the Attorney General under President Ronald Reagan in 1986,

139

he refers to the INS as the criminal justice agency charged with the important responsibility for oversight

140

and control of aliens attempting to enter or reside within our borders.

141

Criminal justice agency.

142

Then in 2001, 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists, all non-U.S citizens, used America's temporary immigration system to attack the U.S.

143

And immigration became solidified as a matter of national security.

144

The Department of Homeland Security was created, merging 22 existing agencies and sub-agencies.

145

Under the new DHS, INS and Customs Enforcement were consolidated into ICE.

146

This is explicitly a law enforcement body.

147

And this is a transition that the agency had desired, I think, for decades preceding.

148

So this brings us back to ICE's original claim, that their functional history dates back over 200 years prior to the agency's creation in 2003.

149

I think it's interesting, like, the work that Line is doing, right, the work that Line is doing is to try to push back to people who say, this is only a 20-something-year-old agency, right?

150

They want to suggest that it's foundational to the United States, that it is not alarming, that we've had an agency like this.

151

And in some ways we've had an agency that takes on some of these responsibilities.

152

But immigration being an arm of law enforcement is a much more recent phenomenon.

153

And when people think of ICE today, that's what they think of.

154

This is a way kind of legitimizing ICE, that somehow we've always had ICE.

155

We have had deportation campaigns.

156

We have had, throughout American history, anti-immigrant sentiment and legislation and deportations.

157

But we always haven't had masked ICE agents going into the interior of the United States with guns and breaking down doors,

158

sending immigrants who are captured to third countries.

159

I think it's gradual.

160

I think the story of immigration law is really a story about sort of compounding restrictions on who can come.

161

American immigration has long been deeply tied to race and origin, whether that was Chinese laborers or World War II alien enemies.

162

Today, with a much more powerful agency like ICE, Latino communities have been challenged with the most punitive impacts.

163

We're going to have to have a deportation level

164

that we haven't seen in this country for a long time since Dwight Eisenhower actually...

165

To that extent, there probably will be some, I mean, ICE-like, it may not be called ICE,

166

there will be some kind of institutions that are programs to curtail some immigration.

167

The question is, will we see this kind of enforcement in the interior,

168

this kind of illegal enforcement without judicial warrants going into people's houses and arresting them?

169

The United States is, and always will be, a nation of immigrants.

170

And with that, attention over immigration is partially fundamental to this country's DNA.

171

ICE is the culmination of centuries of shifting immigration rhetoric and enforcement.

172

But at the same time, it's so important to remember that immigration enforcement is not written into the Constitution.

173

Of course, as a historian, I will find certain precedents.

174

Then one could conclude from that one of two things.

175

One is, oh my god, it's always been terrible.

176

Or you could say, well, all of these things have been fought, many of these things have been fought over before.

177

The rights that were won for Americans in the past are vulnerable.

178

They have to, we have to fight to retain them.

179

Christian Poss on how social media algorithms are shaping coverage of ICE, a video with senior correspondent Constance Grady that digs into ICE's recruitment ads,

180

and a recent episode of The Docket where we break down Trump's war on birthright citizenship.

181

So join us on Patreon to get access to more stories like this, stay connected to our reporting, and help fund ambitious journalism.

182

Thanks.

📺 Zelfde Kanaal

Sen. Murphy vs. Trump's corruption | Today, Explained

✨ Aanbevolen Video

43 zinnen

The difference between Trump and Obama

IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students

216 zinnen

Why Britain Can't Fix Immigration

IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students

74 zinnen

The main purpose of the service is to: IELTS LISTENING Test 34 Section 2

IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepTOEIC Prep

75 zinnen

Pause AI Development NOW

IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students

106 zinnen

What is History? E.H. Carr

IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepCambridge Exam Prep

5 zinnen

American Beginnings - What is an American? (Crèvecoeur)

IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students

70 zinnen

Thor Heyerdahl very | IELTS LISTENING TEST | SECTION-3

IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students

107 zinnen

Language test and longer residency among tightened citizenship rules | RTÉ News

IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students

38 zinnen

It Keeps Happening

IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students

68 zinnen

How America became a superpower

IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students

41 zinnen

PROOF ALIENS ACTUALLY EXIST

IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students

39 zinnen

Immigrants and American Jobs

TOEFL PrepBusiness EnglishUniversity Students

Woordenschat en spreektips bij deze les

Deze spreekles op niveau B2 is gebaseerd op de video “What was immigration like before ICE?”. Deze woorden komen het vaakst terug: immigration, immigrant, agency, Ice, enforcement. Deze video bevat 182 zinnen en 2606 woorden om na te spreken. Het gesproken deel duurt 16:30. De spreker praat in een natuurlijk tempo van ongeveer 158 woorden per minuut, dicht bij een alledaags gesprek. Slechts 80% van de woorden hoort bij de 3.000 meest gebruikte Engelse woorden, dus de woordenschat is pittig.

Belangrijke woorden in deze video

De 15 moeilijkste woorden uit de video, met uitspraak en betekenis:

Woord	Uitspraak	Betekenis
immigrant zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˈɪmɪɡɹənt/	inwijkeling, ingewekene
restrict werkwoord	/ɹɪˈstɹɪkt/	beperken, begrenzen
naturalization zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˌnæ.tʃə.ɹə.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/	inburgering
deportation zelfstandig naamwoord	/diːˌpɔːˈteɪʃən/	deportatie
restriction zelfstandig naamwoord	/ɹɪˈstɹɪkʃən/	beperking
regulate werkwoord	/ˈɹɛɡ.jə.leɪt/	regelen
explicitly bijwoord		uitdrukkelijk
laborer zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˈleɪ.bɚ.ɹɚ/	arbeider
quota zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˈkwəʊ.tə/	quotum
nationality zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˌnæʃ.əˈnæl.ɪ.ti/	nationaliteit, natie
exclude werkwoord	/ɪksˈkluːd/	uitsluiten, buitensluiten
enforce werkwoord	/ɪnˈfoɹs/	handhaven
citizenship zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˈsɪtɪzənʃɪp/	burgerschap
resolve werkwoord	/ɹɪˈzɑlv/	oplossen
implement werkwoord	/ˈɪmpləmənt/	implementeren, (in de praktijk) toepassen

Phrasal verbs die je zult horen

Woord	Betekenis
break down werkwoord	stukgaan, kapot gaan

Grammatica in deze video

De structuren die de spreker het meest gebruikt, met de exacte woorden uit de video:

Structuur	In de video
Lijdende vorm be + voltooid deelwoord — het gaat om wat er gebeurt, niet om wie het doet	was created · was put · was established
Present perfect have/has + voltooid deelwoord — iets uit het verleden dat nu nog telt	have put · haven't really discussed · has eclipsed
Betrekkelijke bijzinnen who / which + zin — extra informatie over een persoon of ding	people who do · man who works · people who say

Uitspraak om op te letten

De spreker gebruikt 17 samentrekkingen en verkorte vormen, zoals don't, haven't, we're. Spreek ze kort uit, zoals je ze hoort.

De “th”-klanken: ethnicity /ɛθˈnɪsɪti/, authorize /ˈɔθəɹaɪz/, birthright /ˈbɝθ.ɹaɪt/, threaten /ˈθɹɛt.n̩/, algorithm /ˈælɡəɹɪðm̩/
De klanken “sh” en “zh”: naturalization /ˌnæ.tʃə.ɹə.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, deportation /diːˌpɔːˈteɪʃən/, restriction /ɹɪˈstɹɪkʃən/, exclusion /ɪksˈkluːʒən/, foundational /faʊnˈdeɪ.ʃə.nəl/
Lange woorden — let op de klemtoon: naturalization /ˌnæ.tʃə.ɹə.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, deportation /diːˌpɔːˈteɪʃən/, foundational /faʊnˈdeɪ.ʃə.nəl/, discriminate /dɪˈskɹɪm.əˌneɪt/, nationality /ˌnæʃ.əˈnæl.ɪ.ti/

Klanken die Nederlandstaligen lastig vinden:

Stemhebbende eindmedeklinker — /b/, /d/, /g/, /z/, /v/ niet verscherpen: exclude /ɪksˈkluːd/, resolve /ɹɪˈzɑlv/, authorize /ˈɔθəɹaɪz/, precede /pɹɪˈsid/, reside /ɹɪˈzaɪd/
/æ/ — opener dan de Nederlandse “e”: naturalization /ˌnæ.tʃə.ɹə.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, nationality /ˌnæʃ.əˈnæl.ɪ.ti/, antebellum /ˌæn.tiˈbɛl.əm/, gradual /ˈɡɹæd͡ʒuəl/, ambitious /æmˈbɪʃ.əs/
/g/ — een harde plofklank, geen Nederlandse “g”: immigrant /ˈɪmɪɡɹənt/, regulate /ˈɹɛɡ.jə.leɪt/, gradual /ˈɡɹæd͡ʒuəl/, integrate /ˈɪn.tɪ.ɡɹeɪt/, gateway /ˈɡeɪtˌweɪ/

Zo oefen je met deze video

Luister de hele video één keer zonder te spreken en noteer de woorden die je niet kent.
Begin op 0,75× snelheid, spreek zin voor zin na en ga terug naar normale snelheid zodra het makkelijk gaat.
Neem jezelf op en vergelijk met het origineel; let daarbij op woorden als immigrant, restrict, naturalization.

Wat is de Shadowing-techniek?

Shadowing is een wetenschappelijk onderbouwde taalleermethode die oorspronkelijk is ontwikkeld voor professionele tolkentraining en gepopulariseerd door polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. De methode is eenvoudig maar krachtig: je luistert naar native Engelse audio en herhaalt het onmiddellijk hardop — als een schaduw die de spreker volgt met slechts 1–2 seconden vertraging. In tegenstelling tot passief luisteren of grammaticadrills, dwingt shadowing je hersenen en mondspieren om echte spraakpatronen tegelijkertijd te verwerken en te reproduceren. Onderzoek toont aan dat het de uitspraaknauwkeurigheid, intonatie, ritme, verbonden spraak, luisterbegrip en spreekvaardigheid aanzienlijk verbetert — waardoor het een van de meest effectieve methoden is voor IELTS Speaking-voorbereiding en echte Engelse communicatie.

Shadowing-techniek: lees de volledige stap-voor-stap-gids →

Shadowing Practice: What was immigration like before ICE? - Learn English Speaking with Video

Sen. Murphy vs. Trump's corruption | Today, Explained

How bite marks made one man a murder suspect | Part 1

Why Latino voters have turned on Trump | America, Actually

Five things you need to know for the 2026 midterms | America, Actually

Why are weddings so damn expensive?

Are headphones destroying our hearing?

How to be less neurotic | The Gray Area

We’re already using AI more than we realize

How to solve problems like a designer

The origin of the '80s aesthetic

Why “Buy one, get one free” isn’t a great deal

How F1 drivers survive their own cars

Why 350°F is the magic number for baking

How did pink become a girly color?

The real reason Boeing's new plane crashed twice

Food waste is the world's dumbest problem

Why AI art struggles with hands

How the rich avoid paying taxes

How Vladimir Putin won Republicans' approval

Zohran Mamdani on his first priorities as NYC mayor (Full video interview)

The difference between Trump and Obama

Why Britain Can't Fix Immigration

The main purpose of the service is to: IELTS LISTENING Test 34 Section 2

Pause AI Development NOW

What is History? E.H. Carr

American Beginnings - What is an American? (Crèvecoeur)

Thor Heyerdahl very | IELTS LISTENING TEST | SECTION-3

Language test and longer residency among tightened citizenship rules | RTÉ News

It Keeps Happening

How America became a superpower

PROOF ALIENS ACTUALLY EXIST

Immigrants and American Jobs

Woordenschat en spreektips bij deze les

Belangrijke woorden in deze video

Phrasal verbs die je zult horen

Grammatica in deze video

Uitspraak om op te letten

Zo oefen je met deze video

Wat is de Shadowing-techniek?