2. From 1950 to 1960, the U.S. had 2,515,000 new immigrants with 477,000 arriving from Germany, 185,000 from Italy, 52,000 from the Netherlands, 203,000 from the UK, 46,000 from Japan, 300,000 from Mexico, and 377,000 from Canada. The failed 1956 Hungarian Revolution, before being crushed by the Soviets, forged a temporary hole in the Iron Curtain that allowed a burst of refugees to escape, with 245,000 Hungarian families being admitted by 1960. The Irish Catholics were primarily unskilled workers who built a majority of the canals and railroads, settling in urban areas. [31], Nativism took the form of political anti-Catholicism directed mostly at the Irish (as well as Germans). [43] The Canadian Agreement of 1894 extended U.S. immigration restrictions to Canadian ports. Archdeacon, Thomas J. Interior trading posts, forts and cities were thinly spread. However, many Irish left Canada for the United States in the 1840s. [65] This was facilitated by the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, which gave permanent resident status to Cubans physically present in the United States for one year if they entered after January 1, 1959. Immigration of Eastern Orthodox ethnic groups was much lower. This Act virtually ended Chinese immigration for nearly a century. [citation needed], Their urban destinations, numbers, and perhaps an antipathy towards foreigners, led to the emergence of the second wave of organized xenophobia. The Irish, driven by the Great Famine (18451849), emigrated directly from their homeland to escape poverty and death. Immigration Historiography at the Crossroads., Gerber, David A. ", "The Metrics of the Physician Brain Drain. Often stereotyped and discriminated against, many immigrants suffered verbal and physical abuse because they were "different." Initially, the Dutch and German settlers spoke languages brought over from Europe, but English was the main language of commerce. The 1790 census recorded 3.9 million inhabitants (not counting American Indians). Meagher, Timothy J. [33], After 1880, larger steam-powered oceangoing ships replaced sailing ships, which resulted in lower fares and greater immigrant mobility. Most were from Mexico. [39], In 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Vecoli, Rudolph J. Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany before World War II, Jewish Holocaust survivors after the war, non-Jewish displaced persons fleeing Communist rule in Central Europe and the Soviet Union, Hungarians seeking refuge after their failed uprising in 1956, and Cubans after the 1960 revolution managed to find haven in the United States when their plight moved the collective conscience of America, but the basic immigration law remained in place. [citation needed], In 1950, after the start of the Korean War, the Internal Security Act barred admission of Communists, who might engage in activities "which would be prejudicial to the public interest, or would endanger the welfare or safety of the United States."

[66], In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) was passed, creating, for the first time, penalties for employers who hired illegal immigrants.

Scots-Irish American immigrants, were made up of people from the southernmost counties of Scotland who had initially settled in Ireland. [60], The Displaced Persons Act of 1948 finally allowed the displaced people of World War II to start immigrating. Several West African regions were the home to most African immigrants. The communities established by these immigrants became known as Little Canada. New Orleans expanded when several thousand French-speaking refugees from the region of Acadia made their way to Louisiana following British expulsion, settling largely in the Southwest Louisiana region now called Acadiana. [44][45], The 1910s marked the high point of Italian immigration to the United States. Indentured servants were provided food, housing, clothing and training but they did not receive wages. The Act sought to prevent illegal immigration by expanding the number of Border Patrol agents and allowing the Attorney General to obtain resources from other federal agencies. However there were a few efforts, such as the Galveston Movement, to redirect immigrants to other ports and disperse some of the settlement to other areas of the country. The rapid growth of the New England colonies (approximately 900,000 by 1790) was almost entirely due to the high birth rate (>3%) and the low death rate (<1%) per year. [72] IIRIRA also delegated law enforcement capabilities to state and local officers via 287(g) agreements.

Considering the fact that the population of Quebec was only 892,061 in 1851,[citation needed] this was a massive exodus.

[22] About 7,000 French-speaking immigrants settled in Louisiana during the 18th century. An additional approximate 2,500 foreign-born California residents also became U.S. citizens. Lederhendler, Eli. Meier, Matt S. and Gutierrez, Margo, eds. The INS claimed as many as 1,300,000, though the number officially apprehended did not come anywhere near this total. Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act in 1921, followed by the Immigration Act of 1924, which supplanted earlier acts to effectively ban all immigration from Asia and set quotas for the Eastern Hemisphere so that no more than 2% of nationalities as represented in the 1890 census were allowed to immigrate to America. [58], In 1945, the War Brides Act allowed foreign-born wives of U.S. citizens who had served in the U.S. Armed Forces to immigrate to the United States. Wealthy Dutch patroons set up large landed estates along the Hudson River and brought in farmers who became renters. Immigration to the United States, 1851 to 1900, Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress, To the president of the United States, and to the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress assembled [Protest against ill-treatment of the Chinese. The city of Detroit was the third-largest settlement in New France. Nearly all population growth up to 1830 was by internal increase; around 98% of the population was native-born. After 1970, following an initial influx from European countries, immigrants from places like Korea, China, India, the Philippines, and Pakistan, as well as countries in Africa became more common. A group of Gaelic-speaking Scottish Highlanders created a settlement at Cape Fear in North Carolina, which remained culturally distinct until the mid-18th century, at which point it was swallowed up by the dominant English-origin culture. The earliest New English colonies, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, were established along the northeast coast. [21] California, New Mexico and Arizona all had Spanish settlements. [citation needed], Irish and German Catholic immigration was opposed in the 1850s by the Nativist/Know Nothing movement, originating in New York in 1843 as the American Republican Party (not to be confused with the modern Republican Party). Blank entries mean that the country did not make it into the top ten for that census, not that there is no data from that census. 2.5 to 4 million Jews were among them. The British ruled from the mid-17th century and they were by far the largest group of arrivals, remaining within the British Empire. s. l., 1885], Chinese Immigrants at the San Francisco Custom House, National Expansion and Reform, 1815 - 1880, Immigration to the United States, 1851-1900, Great Depression and World War II, 1929-1945. Jewish settlers from several European countries. [10] Between 250,000 and 400,000 Scots-Irish migrated to America in the 18th century. These included about 207,000 Irish, starting to emigrate in large numbers following Britain's easing of travel restrictions, and about 152,000 Germans, 76,000 British, and 46,000 French, constituting the next largest immigrant groups of the decade. In 1893 a group formed the Immigration Restriction League, and it, along with other similarly inclined organizations, began to press Congress for severe curtailment of foreign immigration. The last significant colonies to be settled primarily by immigrants were Pennsylvania (post-1680s), the Carolinas (post-1663), and Georgia (post-1732). By 1815, most of the immigrants who arrived before the American Revolution had died, and there had been almost no new immigration thereafter. The total U.S. Catholic population in 1790 was probably less than 5%. Along with an additional quota of 200,000 granted in 1953 and more in succeeding years, a total of nearly 600,000 refugees were allowed into the country outside the quota system, second only to Israel's 650,000. During this period, Chinese migrants illegally entered the United States through the loosely guarded U.S.-Canadian border.[41]. These colonies were absorbed by 1676. "From the World to the Village and the Beginning to the End and After: Research Opportunities in Irish American History", Obinna, Denise N. "Lessons in Democracy: America's Tenuous History with Immigrants.". Throughout the late 1800s, most immigrants arriving in New York entered at the Castle Garden depot near the tip of Manhattan.

"American Immigration and Ethnic History: Moving the Field Forward, Staying the Course", Gabaccia, Donna. This law allowed foreign-born children of American mothers and alien fathers who had entered America before the age of 18 and had lived in America for five years to apply for American citizenship for the first time. Nearly all were settled and financed by privately organized British settlers or families using free enterprise without any significant Royal or Parliamentary government support. Riots broke out in New York City and other Irish and German strongholds in 1863 when a draft was instituted, particularly in light of the provision exempting those who could afford payment.[32].

After 1845, Irish Catholics began arriving in large numbers, largely driven by the Great Famine. "From Field to Factory: The Historiography of Slovak Immigration to the United States". Tens of thousands of English Puritans arrived, mostly from the East Anglian parts of England (Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex), as well as Kent and East Sussex.,[3] and settled in Boston, Massachusetts and adjacent areas from around 1629 to 1640 to create a land dedicated to their religion. [49], Over two million Central Europeans, mainly Catholics and Jews, immigrated between 1880 and 1924. Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (Hart-Celler Act), 1990s: Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996, Historical foreign-born population by state, David Head, "Slave Smuggling by Foreign Privateers: The Illegal Slave Trade and the Geopolitics of the Early Republic.".

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 affirmed the national-origins quota system of 1924 and limited total annual immigration to one-sixth of one percent of the population of the continental United States in 1920, or 175,455. [67] Its passing helped to strengthen U.S. immigration laws, restructured immigration law enforcement, and sought to limit immigration by addressing undocumented migration. "The New Filiopietism, or Toward a New History of Jewish Immigration to America", Lee, Erika. ", Gerber, David A. With the onset of hard economic times in the 1870s, European immigrants and Americans began to compete for the jobs traditionally reserved for the Chinese. Fragomen Jr, Austin T. "The illegal immigration reform and immigrant responsibility act of 1996: An overview.".

In 1875, the nation passed its first immigration law, the Page Act of 1875, also known as the Asian Exclusion Act, outlawing the importation of Asian contract laborers, any Asian woman who would engage in prostitution, and all people considered to be convicts in their own countries.

By the early 18th century, the involuntary migration of African slaves was a significant component of the immigrant population in the Southern colonies. New Amsterdam/New York had the most diverse residents from different nations and prospered as a major trading and commercial center after about 1700. [72] Illegal entry into the U.S. was made more difficult by cooperation between federal and local law enforcement, in addition to stiffening penalties for illegal entry and racketeering activities which included alien smuggling and document fraud. Stolarik, M. Mark. The foreign-born population in the U.S. likely reached its minimum around 1815, at approximately 100,000 or 1% of the population. Areas where 20th century censuses reported mostly 'American' ancestry were the places where, historically, northern English, Scottish and Scots-Irish Protestants settled: in the interior of the South, and the Appalachian region. Half the Germans headed to farms, especially in the Midwest (with some to Texas), while the other half became craftsmen in urban areas. Once tobacco was found to be a profitable cash crop, many plantations were established along the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia and Maryland.

[55][57], In 1934, the TydingsMcDuffie Act provided independence of the Philippines on July 4, 1946. Dassanowsky, Robert, and Jeffrey Lehman, eds. They were about 60% British and 33% German. Governments and laws mainly copied English models. This raised the issue of whether the U.S. was still a "melting pot," or if it had just become a "dumping ground," and many old-stock Americans worried about negative effects on the economy, politics, and culture. [citation needed], If one excludes enslaved Africans, there was relatively little immigration from 1770 to 1830; while there was significant emigration from the U.S. to Canada, including about 75,000 Loyalists as well as Germans and others looking for better farmland in what is now Ontario. [75] Under IIRIRA, the mandatory detention of broad groups of immigrants occurred, including those who had legal residence status but upon removal could have their status be removed after committing violent crimes. population. Population from U.S. 1790 Census. Colonial era immigrants often repaid the cost of transoceanic transportation by becoming indentured servants where the new employer paid the ship's captain. ", Living Across Borders: Guatemala Migrants in the U.S. South, Emigration Across the Atlantic: Irish, Italians and Swedes compared, 18001950. The bill was so limiting that the number of immigrants coming to the U.S. between 1921 and 1922 decreased by nearly 500,000. LeMay, Michael, and Elliott Robert Barkan. The 1850 census is the first census that asks for place of birth. Among those whose ancestry was from outside of British Isles, Germans were 9%, Dutch 3.4%, French 2.1% and Swedish 0.25%; blacks made up 19.3% (or 762,000) of the U.S. At the time the former Spanish colonies joined the United States, Californios in California numbered about 10,000 and Tejanos in Texas about 4,000. Recent debates focus on the Southern border, and on the status of "dreamers" who have lived almost their entire life in the U.S. after being brought in without papers as children.

[50] The great majority came through Ellis Island in New York, thus making the Northeast a major target of settlement.

Relief and access to federal services were also redefined for immigrants as IIRIRA reiterated the 1996 Welfare Reform Act's tier system between citizens, legal immigrants, refugees, and illegal immigrants which determined public benefits eligibility. French Canadians who moved south from Quebec after 1860, and the Mexicans who came north after 1911, found it easier to move back and forth.

Provisions were also made to improve infrastructure and barriers along the U.S. border area. Rather, by doing away with the racially-based quota system, its authors had expected that immigrants would come from "traditional" societies such as Italy, Greece, and Portugal, places subject to very small quotas in the 1924 Act.

In addition, the expansion of a railroad system in Europe made it easier for people to reach oceanic ports to board ships. ", George J. Borjas, "The economics of immigration.".

Nativists feared the new arrivals lacked the political, social, and occupational skills needed to successfully assimilate into American culture. Thus began the first and longest era of immigration, lasting until the American Revolution in 1775; during this time settlements grew from initial English toe-holds from the New World to British America.

Relentless population expansion pushed the U.S. frontier to the Pacific by 1848. In 1965, after revision of the immigration law, significant Filipino immigration began, totaling 1,728,000 by 2004. The National Origins Formula of 1921 (and its final form in 1924) not only restricted the number of immigrants who might enter the United States but also assigned slots according to quotas based on national origins.

In the late 17th century, French expeditions established a foothold on the Saint Lawrence River, Mississippi River and Gulf Coast. [52], Restriction proceeded piecemeal over the course of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but immediately after the end of World War I (191418) and into the early 1920s, Congress changed the nation's basic policy about immigration. [46][47] About half returned to Italy, after working an average of five years in the U.S.[48], About 1.5 million Swedes and Norwegians immigrated to the United States within this period, due to opportunity in America and poverty and religious oppression in united Sweden-Norway. Abramitzky, Ran, and Leah Boustan. The history of immigration to the United States details the movement of people to the United States, from the colonial era to the present.

While the thirteen colonies differed in how they were settled and by whom, they had many similarities. Most settlements were largely independent of British trade, since they grew or manufactured nearly everything they needed; the average cost of imports per household was 515 pounds sterling per year. The first significant Catholic immigration started in the mid-1840s, shifting the population from about 95% Protestant down to about 90% by 1850. It brought Northern European immigrants, primarily of British, German, and Dutch extraction.

In the 1920s and 1930s, a large number of these immigrants set out West, with Detroit getting a large number of Middle Eastern immigrants, as well as many Midwestern areas where the Arabs worked as farmers. By excluding all Chinese laborers from entering the country, the Chinese Exclusion Act severely curtailed the number of immigrants of Chinese descent allowed into the United States for 10 years. The 1790 population reflected the loss of approximately 46,000 Loyalists, or "Tories", who immigrated to Canada at the end of the American Revolution, 10,000 who went to England and 6,000 to the Caribbean. Social tensions were also part of the immigrant experience. [70] IIRIRA provided limited exceptions to this rule when an "alien demonstrates to the satisfaction of the Attorney General either the existence of changed circumstances which materially affect the applicant's eligibility for asylum or extraordinary circumstances relating to the delay in filing the application. [4], The New English colonists were the most urban and educated of all their contemporaries, and they had many skilled farmers, tradesmen and craftsmen among them. Germany in this time period consisted of a large number of separate countries, the largest of which was Prussia. Immigration totaled 8,385 in 1820, with immigration totals gradually increasing to 23,322 by the year 1830; for the 1820s decade immigration more than doubled to 143,000. With economic competition came dislike and even racial suspicion and hatred. Though conducted since 1790, the census of 1850 was the first in which place of birth was asked specifically. But they shared one overarching characteristic: they flocked to urban destinations and made up the bulk of the U.S. industrial labor pool, making possible the emergence of such industries as steel, coal, automotive, textile, and garment production, enabling the United States to leap into the front ranks of the world's economic giants. "The Treatment of Women in Immigration History: A Call for Change", This page was last edited on 18 July 2022, at 05:22.

IRCA, as proposed in Congress, was projected to give amnesty to about 1,000,000 workers in the country illegally. [77] Population numbers are in thousands. 13.6 million Americans claimed to have French ancestry in the 1980 census. The legislation excluded Latin America from the quota system. "Immigration in American economic history.". Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey: English translations of 120,000 pages of newspaper articles from Chicago's foreign language press from 1855 to 1938. Even here, the immigrants came mostly from England and Scotland, with the exception of Pennsylvania's large Germanic contingent. [5], The Dutch colonies, organized by the United East Indian Company, were first established along the Hudson River in present-day New York state starting about 1626. Between 1841 and 1850, immigration nearly tripled again, totaling 1,713,000 immigrants, including at least 781,000 Irish, 435,000 Germans, 267,000 British, and 77,000 French. [73] In addition, IIRIRA also redefined financial self-sufficiency guidelines of sponsors who previously did not have to meet an income requirement to sponsor an immigrant. In 1946, the LuceCeller Act extended the right to become naturalized citizens to those from the newly independent nation of The Philippines and to Asian Indians, the immigration quota being set at 100 people per year per country. It is difficult to estimate the number of illegal immigrants that left due to the operationmost voluntarily. While large-scale immigration created many social tensions, it also produced a new vitality in the cities and states in which the immigrants settled. Many immigrants wanted to move to communities established by previous settlers from their homelands. During the Civil War, ethnic communities supported the war and produced large numbers of soldiers on both sides. New England's healthy climate (the cold winters killed the mosquitoes and other disease-bearing insects), small widespread villages (minimizing the spread of disease), and an abundant food supply resulted in the lowest death rate and the highest birth rate of any of the colonies. The only major British institution to be abandoned was the aristocracy, which was almost totally absent. There were few prominent leaders, and the largely middle-class and Protestant membership fragmented over the issue of slavery, most often joining the Republican Party by the time of the 1860 presidential election. It was empowered by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by Catholic immigrants, who were often regarded as hostile to American values and controlled by the Pope in Rome.

Initially, the plantations established in these colonies were mostly owned by friends (mostly minor aristocrats and gentry) of the British-appointed governors. During the 1870s and 1880s, the vast majority of these people were from Germany, Ireland, and England - the principal sources of immigration before the Civil War.