History of immigration to the United States

Film by Edison Studios showing immigrants disembarking from the steam ferryboat William Myers onto Ellis Island on July 9, 1903.

Main article: Immigration to the United States

The history of immigration to the United States details the movement of people to the United States starting with the first European settlements from around 1600. Beginning around this time, British and other Europeans settled primarily on the east coast. Later Africans were imported as slaves. The United States experienced successive waves of immigration, particularly from Europe. Immigrants sometimes paid the cost of transoceanic transportation by becoming indentured servants after their arrival in the New World. Later, immigration rules became more restrictive; the ending of numerical restrictions occurred in 1965. Recently, cheap air travel has increased immigration from Asia and Latin America.

Attitudes toward new immigrants have cycled between favorable and hostile since the 1790s.

Colonial Era - 1600-1775

Main articles: Colonial history of the United States, British colonization of the Americas, Thirteen Colonies, European colonization of the Americas, Indentured servant, and Nationality law in the American Colonies

In 1607 the first successful English colony settled in Jamestown, Virginia. Once tobacco was found to be a profitable crop, many plantations were established along the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia and Maryland.

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. It brought Northern European immigrants, primarily of British, German, and Dutch extraction. The British ruled from the mid-17th century and were by far the largest group of arrivals, remaining within the British Empire. Over 90% of these early immigrants became farmers.

Large numbers of young men and women came alone as indentured servants. Their passage was paid by employers in the colonies who needed help on the farms or in shops. Indentured servants were provided food, housing, clothing and training but did not receive wages. At the end of the indenture (usually around age 21) they were free to marry and start their own farm.

New England

Seeking religious freedom in the New World, one hundred English Pilgrims established a small settlement near Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. Tens of thousands of English Puritans came to Boston, Massachusetts and adjacent areas from around 1629 to 1640 to create a land dedicated to their religion . The earliest New English colonies, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, were established along the northeast coast. Large scale immigration to this region ended before 1700, though a small but steady trickle of later arrivals continued.

The peak of New English settlement occurred from around 1629 to about 1641, when about 20,000 Puritan settlers arrived mostly from the East Anglian parts of England (Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent, and East Sussex). Over the next 150 years, their "Yankee" descendants largely filled in the New England states and parts of upstate New York.

The New English colonists were the most urban and educated of all their contemporaries, and had many skilled farmers, tradesmen and skilled craftsmen among them. They started the first university, Harvard, in 1635 to train their ministers. They mostly settled in small villages for mutual support (nearly all had their own militias) and common religious activity. Shipbuilding, commerce, agriculture, and fishing were their main source of income. New England's healthy climate (the cold winters killed the mosquitoes and other disease-bearing insects), small widespread villages (minimizing spread of disease), and abundant food supply resulted in the lowest death rate and highest birth rate of any of the colonies. The Eastern and Northern frontier around the initial New England settlements was mainly settled by the descendants of the original New Englanders. Immigration to the New England colonies after 1640 and the start of the English Civil War decreased to less than 1% (about equal to the death rate) in nearly all years prior to 1845. The rapid growth of the New England colonies (approximately 900,000 by 1790) was almost entirely due to the high birth rate (>3%) and low death rate (<1%) per year.

Dutch

The Dutch, primarily driven by the United East Indian Company, first established settlements along the Hudson River in New York starting about 1626. Wealthy Dutch patroons set up large landed estates along the Hudson River and brought in farmers who became renters. Others established rich trading posts to trade with Native Americans and started cities such as New Amsterdam (now New York City) and Albany, New York. After the British took over and renamed the colony New York, Germans (from the Palatine), and Yankees (from New England) began arriving.

Middle colonies

Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware formed the middle colonies. Pennsylvania was settled by Quakers from Britain, followed by Ulster Scots (Northern Ireland) on the frontier and numerous German Protestant sects, including the German Palatines. The earlier colony of New Sweden had small settlements on the lower Delaware River, with immigrants of Swedes and Finns. These colonies were absorbed by 1676.

The middle colonies' were scattered West of New York City (established 1626; taken over by the English in 1664) and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (established 1682). The initially Dutch colony of New York had the most eclectic collection of residents from many different nations and prospered as a major trading and commercial center after about 1700. From around 1680 to 1725, the Pennsylvania colonial center was dominated by the Quakers for decades after they emigrated, mainly from the North Midlands of England. During this time, the main commercial center of Philadelphia was run mostly by prosperous Quakers, supplemented by many small farming and trading communities, with a strong German contingent located in several small towns in the Delaware River valley.

Starting around 1680, when Pennsylvania was founded, many more settlers arrived to the middle colonies. Many Protestant sects were encouraged to settle there for freedom of religion and good, cheap land. Their origins were about 60% British and 33% German. By 1780, New York's population were around 27% descendants of Dutch settlers, about 6% were black, and the remainder were mostly English with a wide mixture of other Europeans. New Jersey, and Delaware had a British majority, with 7-11% German-descendants, about 6% black population, and a small contingent of the Swedish descendants of New Sweden. At this time, nearly all were at least third-generation natives.

Frontier

The colonial frontier was mainly settled from about 1717 to 1775. These were mostly Presbyterian settlers from North England border lands, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, fleeing hard times and religious persecution. The fourth major center of settlement was the Western frontier, located in the Western parts of Pennsylvania and in the South, which was settled during the early to late 18th century by mostly Scots-Irish, Scots, with others mostly from North England border lands. Between 250,000 and 400,000 Scotch-Irish migrated to America in the 18th century. The Scotch-Irish soon became the dominant culture of the Appalachians from Pennsylvania to Georgia. Areas where people reported 'American' ancestry were the places where, historically, northern English, Scottish and Scotch-Irish Protestants settled: in the interior of the South, and the Appalachian region. Scotch-Irish American immigrants, were made up of Scottish that had initially settled in Ireland. They were heavily Presbyterian, largely self-sufficient, and generally hostile to Native Americans and Catholics.[13] They had little interaction with the primarily Catholic, native born Irish culture before immigrating. The Scotch-Irish arrived in large numbers during the early 18th century and they often preferred to settle in the back country and the frontier from Pennsylvania to Georgia, where they mingled with second generation and later English settlers. They enjoyed the very cheap land and independence from established governments common to frontier settlements.

Southern Colonies

The mostly agricultural Southern English colonies initially had very high death rates for new settlers due to malaria, yellow fever, and other diseases as well as skirmishes with Native Americans. Despite this, a steady flow of new settlers, mostly from Central England and the London area, kept up population growth. Initially, the large plantations were mostly owned by friends (mostly minor aristocrats) of the British-appointed governors. Many settlers arrived as indentured servants who had to work off their passage with five to seven years of work for room and board, clothing, and training, but no cash wages. After their terms of indentures expired, most of the indentures settled small farms on the frontier. The Southern colonies were about 55% British, 38% Black, and roughly 7% German. The international slave trade primarily ceased after 1775 and was outlawed in 1808, although some slaves were smuggled in afterwards.

After 1630, the initial areas of settlement had been largely cleared of Native Americans by major outbreaks of measles, smallpox, and plague beginning decades before the settlers began arriving in large numbers. The leading killer was smallpox, which arrived in the New World around 1510–1530.

Characteristics

While the 13 colonies differentiated in how they were settled and by whom, they had many commonalities. Nearly all were settled and financed by privately organized British settlers or families using free enterprise without any significant English Royal or Parliamentary government support or input. Nearly all commercial activity was run in small, privately owned businesses with good credit both at home and in England, which was essential since they were often cash poor. Most settlements were nearly independent of British trade since they grew or made nearly everything they needed; the average cost of imports per household was about 5 – 15 pounds per year. Most settlements were created by complete family groups with several generations often present. The population was typically rural, with close to 80% owning the land they lived and farmed on. After 1700, as the Industrial Revolution progressed, more of the population started to move to cities, much like what had happened in Britain. Initially, the Dutch and German Americans primarily spoke dialects brought over from Europe, while English was the main trade language. Governments and laws primarily copied the English. The only major British institution to be abandoned was the aristocracy, noted by nearly universal absence. The settlers generally established their own popularly elected governments and courts on as many levels as they could and were nearly all, within a few years, self-governing, self-supporting, and self replicating. This self ruling pattern became so ingrained that almost all new settlements would have their own government up and running shortly after arrival for the next 200 years.

Irish Catholics

According to the Dictionary of American History,[10] approximately "50,000 to 100,000 Irishmen, over 75 percent of them Catholic, came to United States in the 1600s, while 100,000 more Irish Catholics arrived in the 1700s." Indentured servitude was an especially common way of affording migration, and in the 1740s the Irish made up nine out of ten indentured servants in some colonial regions.

After the colonies were initially settled, their population growth was made up almost entirely of natural growth with foreign-born immigrant populations rarely exceeding 10% (except in isolated instances). The last significant colonies to be settled primarily by immigrants were Pennsylvania (1680s+), the Carolinas (1663+), and Georgia (1732+). Even here the immigrants came mostly from England and Scotland with the exception of a large Germanic contingent to Pennsylvania. Elsewhere internal American migration from other colonies provided nearly all of the settlers for each new colony or state. Populations grew by about 80% at a 3% "natural" annual growth rate sustained over a 20-year interval.

Over half of all new British immigrants in the South initially arrived as indentured servants. They were mostly poor young people who couldn't find work in England and couldn't afford passage to America and. In addition, about 60,000 British convicts were transported to the new British colonies in Georgia in the 18th century. Most of these so-called convicts were guilty of being very poor and out of work. "Serious" criminals were generally executed. Ironically, these "convicts" are often the only immigrants with nearly complete immigration records as other immigrants typically showed up with few or no records.

Other colonies

Spanish

Although Spain set up a few forts in Florida, notably San Agustín (present-day Saint Augustine) in 1565, they sent few settlers to Florida. Spaniards moving north from Mexico founded the San Juan on the Rio Grande in 1598, and Santa Fe in 1607-1608. The settlers were forced to leave temporarily for 12 years (1680–1692) by the Pueblo Revolt before returning.

Spanish Texas lasted between 1690 and 1821 when Texas was governed as a colony separate from New Spain. In 1731, Canary Islanders (or "Isleños") arrived to establish San Antonio. The majority of the few hundred Texan and New Mexican colonizers in the Spanish colonial period were Spaniards and criollos. California, New Mexico, and Arizona all had Spanish settlements. In 1781 Spanish settlers founded Los Angeles.

At the time they joined the U.S., Californios in California numbered about 10,000 and Tejanos in Texas about 4,000. New Mexico had 47,000 Spanish settlers in 1842. Arizona was only thinly settled.

However, not all these settlers were of European descent. As in the rest of the American colonies, new settlements were based on the casta system, and although all could speak Spanish, it was really a melting pot of whites, Natives, and mestizos.

French

In the late 17th century, French expeditions established a foothold on the Saint Lawrence River, Mississippi River, and Gulf Coast. Interior trading posts, forts, and cities were thinly spread throughout Louisiana such as Saint Louis, Baton Rouge, Sault Sainte Marie, Prairie du Rocher, and Sainte-Geneviève. The city of Detroit was the third largest settlement in New France. New Orleans expanded when several thousand French-speaking refugees from the region of Acadia (now Nova Scotia, Canada) made their way to Louisiana following British expulsion, settling largely in the Southwest Louisiana region now called Acadiana. Their descendants are now called Cajun and still dominate the coastal areas. It is estimated that 7,000 European immigrants settled in Louisiana during the 18th century.

Population in 1790

The following were the countries of origin for new arrivals to the United States before 1790. The regions marked with an asterisk were part of Great Britain. The ancestry of the 3.9 million population in 1790 has been estimated by various sources by sampling last names from the 1790 census and assigning them a country of origin. The Irish in the 1790 census were mostly Scotch-Irish. The French were primarily Huguenots. The total U.S. Catholic population in 1790 was probably less than 5%. The Native American population inside territorial U.S. boundaries was less than 100,000.

U.S. historical populations
Country	Immigrants before 1790	Population 1790
Africa	360,000	757,000
England*	230,000	2,100,000
Ulster Scotch-Irish*	135,000	300,000
Germany	103,000	270,000
Scotland*	48,500	150,000
Ireland*	8,000	(Incl. in Scot-Irish)
Netherlands	6,000	100,000
Wales*	4,000	10,000
France	3,000	15,000
Jewish	1,000	2,000
Sweden	500	2,000
Other	50,000	200,000
British total	425,500	2,560,000
Total	950,000	3,900,000

The 1790 population reflected the approximately 50,000 Loyalists, or "Tories", who immigrated to Canada at the end of the American Revolution, and the less than 10,000 others who emigrated to other British possessions including England.

Of the total white population in 1790, about 80% was of British ancestry. In this era the population roughly doubled by natural increase every 25 years. Relentless population expansion pushed the U.S. frontier to the Pacific by 1848. Most immigrants came long distances to settle in the U.S. However, many Irish left Canada for the U.S. in the 1840s. French Canadians who came down from Quebec after 1860 and the Mexicans who came north after 1911 found it easier to move back and forth.

Immigration 1790 to 1849

There was relatively little immigration from 1770 to 1830; while there was significant emigration to Canada, including about 75,000 Loyalists as well as Germans and others looking for better farmland in what is now Ontario. Large scale immigration resumed in the 1830s from Britain, Ireland, Germany, and other parts of Central Europe as well as Scandinavia. Most were attracted by the cheap farmland. Some were artisans and skilled factory workers attracted by the first stage of industrialization. The Irish Catholics were primarily unskilled workers who built a majority of the canals and railroads, settling in urban areas. Many Irish went to the emerging textile mill towns of the Northeast, while others became longshoremen in the growing Atlantic and Gulf port cities. Half the Germans headed to farms, especially in the Midwest (with some to Texas), while the other half became craftsmen in urban areas.

Nativism took the form of political anti-Catholicism directed mostly at the Irish (as well as Germans). It became important briefly in the mid-1850s in the guise of the Know Nothing party. Most of the Catholics and German Lutherans became Democrats, and most of the Protestants joined the new Republican Party. During the Civil War, ethnic communities supported the war and produced large numbers of soldiers on both sides. 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.

Based on available records, 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. Between 1831 and 1840, immigration more than quadrupled to a total of 599,000. 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.

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. The Irish, driven by the Potato Famine (1845–1849), emigrated directly from their homeland to escape poverty and death. The failed revolutions of 1848 brought many intellectuals and activists to exile in the U.S. Bad times and poor conditions in Europe drove people out, while land, relatives, freedom, opportunity, and jobs in the US lured them in.

Population and Foreign Born 1790 to 1849 Census Population, Immigrants per Decade
Census	Population	Immigrants1	Foreign Born	%
1790	3,918,000	60,000
1800	5,236,000	60,000
1810	7,036,000	60,000
1820	10,086,000	60,000
1830	12,785,000	143,000	200,000 2	1.6%
1840	17,018,000	599,000	800,000 2	4.7%
1850	23,054,000	1,713,000	2,244,000	9.7%
1. The total number immigrating in each decade from 1790 to 1820 are estimates. 2. The number of foreign born in 1830 and 1840 decades are extrapolations.

Starting in 1820, some federal records, including ship passenger lists, were kept for immigration purposes, and a gradual increase in immigration was recorded; more complete immigration records provide data on immigration after 1830. Though conducted since 1790, the census of 1850 was the first in which place of birth was asked specifically. The foreign-born population in the U.S. likely reached its minimum around 1815, at approximately 100,000 or 1.4% of the population. By 1815, most of the immigrants who arrived before the American Revolution had died, and there had been almost no new immigration thereafter.

Nearly all population growth up to 1830 was by internal increase; around 98.5% of the population was native-born. By 1850, this shifted to about 90% native-born. The first significant Catholic immigration started in the mid-1840s, shifting the population from about 95% Protestant down to about 90% by 1850.

In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, concluding the Mexican War, extended U.S. citizenship to approximately 60,000 Mexican residents of the New Mexico Territory and 10,000 living in California. An additional approximate 2,500 foreign born California residents also become U.S. citizens.

In 1849, the California Gold Rush attracted 100,000 would-be miners from the Eastern U.S., Latin America, China, Australia, and Europe. California became a state in 1850 with a population of about 90,000.

Immigration 1850 to 1930

"From the Old to the New World" shows German emigrants boarding a steamer in Hamburg and arriving in New York. Harper's Weekly, (New York) November 7, 1874

Demography

Between 1850 and 1930, about 5 million Germans migrated to the United States, peaking between 1881 and 1885 when a million Germans settled primarily in the Midwest. Between 1820 and 1930, 3.5 million British and 4.5 million Irish entered America. Before 1845 most Irish immigrants were Protestants. After 1845, Irish Catholics began arriving in large numbers, largely driven by the Great Famine.

After 1880 larger steam-powered oceangoing ships replaced sailing ships, which resulted in lower fares and greater immigrant mobility. Meanwhile, farming improvements in Southern Europe and the Russian Empire created surplus labor. Young people between the ages of 15 to 30 were predominant among newcomers. This wave of migration, constituting the third episode in the history of U.S. immigration, may be bettered referred to as a flood of immigrants, as nearly 25 million Europeans made the long trip. Italians, Greeks, Hungarians, Poles, and others speaking Slavic languages made up the bulk of this migration. 2.5 to 4 million Jews were among them.

Destinations

Each group evinced a distinctive migration pattern in terms of the gender balance within the migratory pool, the permanence of their migration, their literacy rates, the balance between adults and children, and the like. 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.

Their urban destinations, numbers, and perhaps an antipathy towards foreigners, led to the emergence of a second wave of organized xenophobia. By the 1890s, many Americans, particularly from the ranks of the well-off, white, and native-born, considered immigration to pose a serious danger to the nation's health and security. 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.

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). 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. Active mainly from 1854–56, it strove to curb immigration and naturalization, though its efforts met with little success. 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.

European immigrants joined the Union Army in large numbers, including 177,000 born in Germany and 144,000 born in Ireland. Many Germans could see the parallel between slavery and serfdom in the old fatherland.

Between 1840 and 1930, about 900,000 French Canadians left Quebec to immigrate to the United States and settle, mainly in New England. Considering that the population of Quebec was only 892,061 in 1851, this was a massive exodus. 13.6 million Americans claimed to have French ancestry in the 1980 census. A large portion of them have ancestors who emigrated from French Canada, since immigration from France was low throughout the history of the United States. During the same period almost 4 million other Canadians immigrated to the USA. In the New England states 12% of the population can trace their ancestry to Quebec and 10% from the Maritime Provinces.

Shortly after the U.S. Civil War, some states started to pass their own immigration laws, which prompted the U.S. Supreme Court to rule in 1875 that immigration was a federal responsibility. 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.

In 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. The Chinese Exclusion Act stated that there was a limited amount of immigrants of Chinese descent allowed into the United States for 10 years. The law was renewed in 1892 and 1902.

Prior to 1890, the individual states, rather than the Federal government, regulated immigration into the United States. The Immigration Act of 1891 established a Commissioner of Immigration in the Treasury Department. The Canadian Agreement of 1894 extended U.S. immigration restrictions to Canadian ports.

Late 19th Century broadside advertisement offering cheap farm land to immigrants; few went to Texas after 1860.

The Dillingham Commission was set up by Congress in 1907 to investigate the effects of immigration on the country. The Commission's 40-volume analysis of immigration during the previous three decades led it to conclude that the major source of immigration had shifted from Central, Northern, and Western Europeans to Southern Europeans and Russians. It was, however, apt to make generalizations about regional groups that were subjective and failed to differentiate between distinct cultural attributes.

The 1910s marked the high point of Italian immigration to the United States. Over two million Italians immigrated in those years, with a total of 5.3 million between 1880 and 1920. About a third returned to Italy, after working an average of five years in the U.S.

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. This accounted for around 20% of the total population of the kingdom at that time. They settled mainly in the Midwest, especially Minnesota and the Dakotas. Danes had comparably low immigration rates due to a better economy; after 1900 many Danish immigrants were Mormon converts who moved to Utah.

In this Rosh Hashana greeting card from the early 1900s, Russian Jews, packs in hand, gaze at the American relatives beckoning them to the United States. Over two million Jews fled the pogroms of the Russian Empire to the safety of the U.S. from 1881-1924.

Mulberry Street, along which Manhattan's Little Italy is centered. Lower East Side, circa 1900.

Over two million Central Europeans, mainly Catholics and Jews, immigrated between 1880 and 1924. People of Polish ancestry are the largest Central European ancestry group in the United States after Germans. Immigration of Eastern Orthodox ethnic groups was much lower.

Lebanese and Syrian immigrants started to settle in large numbers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The vast majority of the immigrants from Lebanon and Syria were Christians, but smaller numbers of Jews, Muslims, and Druze also settled. Many lived in New York City and Boston. 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.

From 1880 to 1924, around two million Jews moved to the United States, mostly seeking better opportunity in America and fleeing the pogroms of the Russian Empire. After 1934 Jews, along with any other above-quota immigration, were usually denied access to the United States.

Congress passed a literacy requirement in 1917 to curb the influx of low-skilled immigrants from entering the country.

Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act in 1921, followed by the Immigration Act of 1924, which was aimed at further restricting the Southern Europeans and Russians who had begun to enter the country in large numbers beginning in the 1890s. This ultimately resulted in precluding all "extra" immigration to the United States, including Jews fleeing Nazi German persecution.

The Immigration Act of 1924 set quotas for European immigrants so that no more than 2% of the 1890 immigrant stocks were allowed into America.

New Immigration

The Sunday magazine of the New York World appealed to Immigrants with this 1906 cover page celebrating their arrival at Ellis Island

"New immigration" was a term from the late 1880s that came from the influx of Catholic and Jewish immigrants from Italy and Russia (areas that previously sent few immigrants).

Nativists feared the new arrivals lacked the political, social, and occupational skills needed to successfully assimilate into American culture. 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. A major proposal was to impose a literacy test, whereby applicants had to be able to read and write in their own language before they were admitted.

Catholicism became a leading denomination 1860-1910. St. John Cantius, one of Chicago's "Polish Cathedrals" was one of the churches these new immigrants founded.

Immigration 1930 to 2000

Restriction proceeded piecemeal over the course of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but immediately after the end of World War I (1914–1918) and into the early 1920s, Congress changed the nation's basic policy about immigration. 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. A complicated piece of legislation, it essentially gave preference to immigrants from Central, Northern and Western Europe, severely limiting the numbers from Russia and Southern Europe, and declared all potential immigrants from Asia unworthy of entry into the United States.

The legislation excluded the Western Hemisphere from the quota system, and the 1920s ushered in the penultimate era of U.S. immigration history. Immigrants could and did move quite freely from Mexico, the Caribbean (including Jamaica, Barbados, and Haiti), and other parts of Central and South America. This era, which reflected the application of the 1924 legislation, lasted until 1965. During those 40 years, the United States began to admit, case by case, limited numbers of refugees. 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 Russia, 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.

Equal Nationality Act of 1934

This law allowed foreign-born children of American mothers and alien fathers who had entered America before age 18 and lived in America for five years to apply for American citizenship for the first time. It also made the naturalization process quicker for the alien husbands of American wives. This law equalized expatriation, immigration, naturalization, and repatriation between women and men. However, it was not applied retroactively, and was modified by later laws, such as the Nationality Act of 1940.

Tydings–McDuffie Act

In 1934, the Tydings–McDuffie Act provided independence of the Philippines on July 4, 1946. Until 1965, national origin quotas strictly limited immigration from the Philippines. In 1965, after revision of the immigration law, significant Filipino immigration began, totaling 1,728,000 by 2004.

Postwar immigration

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. In 1946, The War Brides Act was extended to include the fiancés of American soldiers. In 1946, the Luce-Celler Act extended the right to become naturalized citizens to newly freed Filipinos and Asian Indians. The immigration quota was set at 100 people per year.

At the end of World War II, "regular" immigration almost immediately increased under the official national origins quota system as refugees from war torn Europe began immigrating to the U.S. After the war, there were jobs for nearly everyone who wanted one, when most women employed during the war went back into the home. From 1941 to 1950, 1,035,000 people immigrated to the U.S., including 226,000 from Germany, 139,000 from the UK, 171,000 from Canada, 60,000 from Mexico and 57,000 from Italy.

The Displaced Persons (DP) Act of 1948 finally allowed the displaced people of World War II to start immigrating. Some 200,000 Europeans and 17,000 orphans displaced by World War II were initially allowed to immigrate to the United States outside of immigration quotas. President Harry S. Truman signed the first DP act on June 25, 1948, allowing entry for 200,000 DPs, then followed with the more accommodating second DP act on June 16, 1950, allowing entry for another 200,000. This quota, including acceptance of 55,000 Volksdeutschen',' required sponsorship for all immigrants. The American program was the most notoriously bureaucratic of all the DP programs and much of the humanitarian effort was undertaken by charitable organizations, such as the Lutheran World Federation as well as other ethnic groups. 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.

1950s

In 1950, after the start of the Korean War, the Internal Security Act barred admission 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."

In 1950, the invasion of South Korea by North Korea started the Korean War and left a war-ravaged Korea behind. There was little U.S. immigration due to the national origin quotas of the immigration law. Significant Korean immigration began in 1965 after revision of the law, totaling 848,000 by 2004.

In 1952, the McCarran Walter Immigration Act 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. This exempted the spouses and children of U.S. citizens and people born in the Western Hemisphere from the quota. In 1953, the Refugee Relief Act extended refugee status to non-Europeans.

In 1954, Operation Wetback forced the return of thousands of illegal immigrants to Mexico. Between 1944 and 1954, "the decade of the wetback," the number of illegal immigrants coming from Mexico increased by 6,000 percent. It is estimated that before Operation Wetback got under way, more than a million workers had crossed the Rio Grande illegally. Cheap labor displaced native agricultural workers, and increased violation of labor laws and discrimination encouraged criminality, disease, and illiteracy. According to a study conducted in 1950 by the President's Commission on Migratory Labor in Texas, the Rio Grande Valley cotton growers were paying approximately half of the wages paid elsewhere in Texas. The United States Border Patrol aided by municipal, county, state, federal authorities, and the military, began a quasi-military operation of the search and seizure of all illegal immigrants. Fanning out from the lower Rio Grande Valley, Operation Wetback moved Northward. Initially, illegal immigrants were repatriated through Presidio because the Mexican city across the border, Ojinaga, had rail connections to the interior of Mexico by which workers could be quickly moved on to Durango. The forces used by the government were relatively small, perhaps no more than 700 men, but were augmented by border patrol officials who hoped to scare illegal workers into fleeing back to Mexico. Ships became a preferred mode of transport because they carried illegal workers farther from the border than buses, trucks, or trains. It is difficult to estimate the number of illegal immigrants that left due to the operation—most voluntarily. The INS claimed as many as 1,300,000, though the number officially apprehended did not come anywhere near this total. The program was ultimately abandoned due to questions surrounding the ethics of its implementation. Citizens of Mexican descent complained of police stopping all "Mexican looking" people and utilizing extreme "police-state" methods including deportation of American-born children who were citizens by law.

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, bringing in 245,000 new Hungarian families by 1960. 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 new arrivals from the Netherlands, 203,000 from the UK, 46,000 from Japan, 300,000 from Mexico, and 377,000 from Canada.

The 1959 Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro drove the upper and middle classes to exile, and 409,000 families emigrated to the U.S. by 1970. 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.

Hart-Celler Act

This all changed with passage of the Hart-Celler Act in 1965, a by-product of the civil rights revolution and a jewel in the crown of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs. The measure had not been intended to stimulate immigration from Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere in the developing world. 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 that labored under very small quotas in the 1924 law. The law replaced the quotas with preferential categories based on family relationships and job skills, giving particular preference to potential immigrants with relatives in the United States and with occupations deemed critical by the U.S. Department of Labor. After 1970, however, 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.

1980s

In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) was passed, creating, for the first time, penalties for employers who hired illegal immigrants. IRCA, as proposed in Congress, was projected to give amnesty to about 1,000,000 workers in the country illegally. In practice, amnesty for about 3,000,000 immigrants already in the United States was granted. Most were from Mexico. Legal Mexican immigrant family numbers were 2,198,000 in 1980, 4,289,000 in 1990 (includes IRCA), and 7,841,000 in 2000. Adding another 12,000,000 illegal immigrants of which about 80% are thought to be Mexicans would bring the Mexican family total to over 16,000,000—about 16% of the Mexican population.

Immigration summary since 1830

The top ten birth countries of the foreign born population since 1830, according to the U.S. Census, are shown below. 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. The 1830 numbers are from immigration statistics as listed in the 2004 Year Book of Immigration Statistics. *The 1830 numbers list un-naturalized foreign citizens and does not include naturalized foreign born. The 1850 census is the first census that asks for place of birth. The historical census data can be found online in the Virginia Library Geostat Center Population numbers are in thousands.

Country/Year	1830*	1850	1880	1900	1930	1960	1970	1980	1990	2000
Austria						305	214
Bohemia			85
Canada	2	148	717	1,180	1,310	953	812	843	745	678
China			104							1,391
Cuba							439	608	737	952
Czechoslovakia					492
Dominican Republic										692
El Salvador										765
France	9	54	107
Germany	8	584	1,967	2,663	1,609	990	833	849	712
Hungary						245
India										2,000
Ireland	54	962	1,855	1,615	745	339
Italy				484	1,790	1,257	1,009	832	581
Korea								290	568	701
Mexico	11	13			641	576	760	2,199	4,298	7,841
Netherlands	1	10
Norway		13	182	336
Pakistan										724
Philippines								501	913	1,222
Poland					1,269	748	548	418
Russia/Soviet Union				424	1,154	691	463	406
Sweden			194	582	595
Switzerland	3	13	89
United Kingdom	27	379	918	1,168	1,403	833	686	669	640
Vietnam									543	863
Total Foreign Born	108*	2,244	6,679	10,341	14,204	10,347	9,619	14,079	19,763	31,100
% Foreign Born	0.8%*	9.7%	13.3%	13.6%	11.6%	5.8%	4.7%	6.2%	7.9%	11.1%
Native Born	12,677	20,947	43,476	65,653	108,571	168,978	193,591	212,466	228,946	250,321
% Native Born	99.2%	90.3%	86.7%	86.4%	88.4%	94.2%	95.3%	94%	92.1%	88.9%
Total Population	12,785	23,191	50,155	75,994	122,775	179,325	203,210	226,545	248,709	281,421
	1830	1850	1880	1900	1930	1960	1970	1980	1990	2000

Persons Obtaining Legal Permanent Resident Status Fiscal Years 1820 to 2010

Year		Year		Year
1820	8,385	1885	395,346	1950	249,187
1825	10,199	1890	455,302	1955	237,790
1830	23,322	1895	258,536	1960	265,398
1835	45,374	1900	448,572	1965	296,697
1840	84,066	1905	1,026,499	1970	373,326
1845	114,371	1910	1,041,570	1975	385,378
1850	369,980	1915	326,700	1980	524,295
1855	200,877	1920	430,001	1985	568,149
1860	153,640	1925	294,314	1990	1,535,872
1865	248,120	1930	241,700	1995	720,177
1870	387,203	1935	34,956	2000	841,002
1875	227,498	1940	70,756	2005	1,122,257
1880	457,257	1945	38,119	2010	1,042,625

Source: US Department of Homeland Security, Persons Obtaining Legal Permanent Resident Status: Fiscal Years 1820 to 2010

Historical foreign-born population by state

Foreign-Born Population By U.S. State As a % of the Total Population (1850-2010)

State/Territory	1850	1860	1870	1880	1890	1900	1910	1920	1930	1940	1950	1960	1970	1980	1990	2000	2010
United States of America	9.7%	13.2%	14.4%	13.3%	14.8%	13.6%	14.7%	13.2%	11.6%	8.8%	6.9%	5.4%	4.7%	6.2%	7.9%	11.1%	12.9%
Alabama	1.0%	1.3%	1.0%	0.8%	1.0%	0.8%	0.9%	0.8%	0.6%	0.4%	0.4%	0.5%	0.5%	1.0%	1.1%	2.0%	3.5%
Alaska												3.6%	2.6%	4.0%	4.5%	5.9%	6.9%
Arizona			60.1%	39.7%	31.5%	19.7%	23.9%	24.1%	15.1%	7.8%	6.3%	5.4%	4.3%	6.0%	7.6%	12.8%	13.4%
Arkansas	0.7%	0.8%	1.0%	1.3%	1.3%	1.1%	1.1%	0.8%	0.6%	0.4%	0.5%	0.4%	0.4%	1.0%	1.1%	2.8%	4.5%
California	23.5%	38.6%	37.5%	33.9%	30.3%	24.7%	24.7%	22.1%	18.9%	13.4%	10.0%	8.5%	8.8%	15.1%	21.7%	26.2%	27.2%
Colorado		7.8%	16.6%	20.5%	20.4%	16.9%	16.2%	12.7%	9.6%	6.4%	4.6%	3.4%	2.7%	3.9%	4.3%	8.6%	9.8%
Connecticut	10.4%	17.5%	21.1%	20.9%	24.6%	26.2%	29.6%	27.4%	23.9%	19.3%	14.8%	10.9%	8.6%	8.6%	8.5%	10.9%	13.6%
Delaware	5.7%	8.2%	7.3%	6.5%	7.8%	7.5%	8.6%	8.9%	7.1%	5.6%	4.1%	3.3%	2.9%	3.2%	3.3%	5.7%	8.0%
District of Columbia	9.5%	16.6%	12.3%	9.6%	8.1%	7.2%	7.5%	6.7%	6.3%	5.3%	5.3%	5.1%	4.4%	6.4%	9.7%	12.9%	13.5%
Florida	3.2%	2.4%	2.6%	3.7%	5.9%	4.5%	5.4%	5.6%	4.8%	4.1%	4.7%	5.5%	8.0%	10.9%	12.9%	16.7%	19.4%
Georgia	0.7%	1.1%	0.9%	0.7%	0.7%	0.6%	0.6%	0.6%	0.5%	0.4%	0.5%	0.6%	0.7%	1.7%	2.7%	7.1%	9.7%
Hawaii												10.9%	9.8%	14.2%	14.7%	17.5%	18.2%
Idaho			52.6%	30.6%	20.7%	15.2%	13.1%	9.4%	7.3%	4.7%	3.4%	2.3%	1.8%	2.5%	2.9%	5.0%	5.5%
Illinois	13.1%	19.0%	20.3%	19.0%	22.0%	20.1%	21.4%	18.7%	16.3%	12.3%	9.1%	6.8%	5.7%	7.2%	8.3%	12.3%	13.7%
Indiana	5.6%	8.8%	8.4%	7.3%	6.7%	5.6%	5.9%	5.2%	4.4%	3.2%	2.5%	2.0%	1.6%	1.9%	1.7%	3.1%	4.6%
Iowa	10.9%	15.7%	17.1%	16.1%	17.0%	13.7%	12.3%	9.4%	6.8%	4.6%	3.2%	2.0%	1.4%	1.6%	1.6%	3.1%	4.6%
Kansas		11.8%	13.3%	11.1%	10.4%	8.6%	8.0%	6.3%	4.3%	2.9%	2.0%	1.5%	1.2%	2.0%	2.5%	5.0%	6.5%
Kentucky	3.2%	5.2%	4.8%	3.6%	3.2%	2.3%	1.8%	1.3%	0.8%	0.6%	0.5%	0.6%	0.5%	0.9%	0.9%	2.0%	3.2%
Louisiana	13.2%	11.4%	8.5%	5.8%	4.4%	3.8%	3.2%	2.6%	1.8%	1.2%	1.1%	0.9%	1.1%	2.0%	2.1%	2.6%	3.8%
Maine	5.5%	6.0%	7.8%	9.1%	11.9%	13.4%	14.9%	14.0%	12.6%	9.9%	8.2%	6.2%	4.3%	3.9%	3.0%	2.9%	3.4%
Maryland	8.8%	11.3%	10.7%	8.9%	9.0%	7.9%	8.1%	7.1%	5.9%	4.5%	3.7%	3.0%	3.2%	4.6%	6.6%	9.8%	13.9%
Massachusetts	16.5%	21.1%	24.2%	24.9%	29.4%	30.2%	31.5%	28.3%	25.1%	19.9%	15.4%	11.2%	8.7%	8.7%	9.5%	12.2%	15.0%
Michigan	13.8%	19.9%	22.6%	23.7%	26.0%	22.4%	21.3%	19.9%	17.6%	13.1%	9.5%	6.8%	4.8%	4.5%	3.8%	5.3%	6.0%
Minnesota	32.5%	34.1%	36.5%	34.3%	35.9%	28.9%	26.2%	20.4%	15.2%	10.6%	7.1%	4.2%	2.6%	2.6%	2.6%	5.3%	7.1%
Mississippi	0.8%	1.1%	1.4%	0.8%	0.6%	0.5%	0.5%	0.5%	0.4%	0.3%	0.4%	0.4%	0.4%	0.9%	0.8%	1.4%	2.1%
Missouri	11.2%	13.6%	12.9%	9.8%	8.8%	7.0%	7.0%	5.5%	4.2%	3.0%	2.3%	1.8%	1.4%	1.7%	1.6%	2.7%	3.9%
Montana			38.7%	29.4%	32.6%	27.6%	25.2%	17.4%	14.1%	10.1%	7.4%	4.5%	2.8%	2.3%	1.7%	1.8%	2.0%
Nebraska		22.0%	25.0%	21.5%	19.1%	16.6%	14.8%	11.6%	8.7%	6.2%	4.4%	2.9%	1.9%	2.0%	1.8%	4.4%	6.1%
Nevada		30.1%	44.2%	41.2%	32.1%	23.8%	24.1%	20.7%	16.6%	10.0%	6.7%	4.6%	3.7%	6.7%	8.7%	15.8%	18.8%
New Hampshire	4.5%	6.4%	9.3%	13.3%	19.2%	21.4%	22.5%	20.6%	17.8%	13.9%	10.9%	7.4%	5.0%	4.4%	3.7%	4.4%	5.3%
New Jersey	12.2%	18.3%	20.9%	19.6%	22.8%	22.9%	26.0%	23.5%	21.0%	16.8%	13.2%	10.1%	8.9%	10.3%	12.5%	17.5%	21.0%
New Mexico	3.5%	7.2%	6.1%	6.7%	7.3%	7.0%	7.1%	8.3%	5.7%	2.9%	2.6%	2.3%	2.2%	4.0%	5.3%	8.2%	9.9%
New York	21.2%	25.8%	26.0%	23.8%	26.2%	26.1%	30.2%	27.2%	25.9%	21.6%	17.4%	13.6%	11.6%	13.6%	15.9%	20.4%	22.2%
North Carolina	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.4%	0.5%	0.6%	1.3%	1.7%	5.3%	7.5%
North Dakota					44.6%	35.4%	27.1%	20.4%	15.5%	11.6%	7.8%	4.7%	3.0%	2.3%	1.5%	1.9%	2.5%
Ohio	11.0%	14.0%	14.0%	12.3%	12.5%	11.0%	12.6%	11.8%	9.8%	7.5%	5.6%	4.1%	3.0%	2.8%	2.4%	3.0%	4.1%
Oklahoma					4.4%	2.6%	2.4%	2.0%	1.3%	0.9%	0.8%	0.9%	0.8%	1.9%	2.1%	3.8%	5.5%
Oregon	7.7%	9.8%	12.8%	17.5%	18.3%	15.9%	16.8%	13.7%	11.6%	8.3%	5.6%	4.0%	3.2%	4.1%	4.9%	8.5%	9.8%
Pennsylvania	13.1%	14.8%	15.5%	13.7%	16.1%	15.6%	18.8%	16.0%	12.9%	9.9%	7.5%	5.3%	3.8%	3.4%	3.1%	4.1%	5.8%
Rhode Island	16.2%	21.4%	25.5%	26.8%	30.8%	31.4%	33.0%	29.0%	25.0%	19.5%	14.4%	10.0%	7.8%	8.9%	9.5%	11.4%	12.8%
South Carolina	1.3%	1.4%	1.1%	0.8%	0.5%	0.4%	0.4%	0.4%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.5%	0.6%	1.5%	1.4%	2.9%	4.7%
South Dakota		36.7%	34.0%	38.3%	27.7%	22.0%	17.3%	13.0%	9.5%	6.9%	4.7%	2.7%	1.6%	1.4%	1.1%	1.8%	2.7%
Tennessee	0.6%	1.9%	1.5%	1.1%	1.1%	0.9%	0.9%	0.7%	0.5%	0.4%	0.4%	0.4%	0.5%	1.1%	1.2%	2.8%	4.5%
Texas	8.3%	7.2%	7.6%	7.2%	6.8%	5.9%	6.2%	7.8%	6.2%	3.7%	3.6%	3.1%	2.8%	6.0%	9.0%	13.9%	16.4%
Utah	18.0%	31.7%	35.4%	30.6%	25.5%	19.4%	17.6%	13.2%	9.5%	6.0%	4.5%	3.6%	2.8%	3.5%	3.4%	7.1%	8.0%
Vermont	10.7%	10.4%	14.3%	12.3%	13.3%	13.0%	14.0%	12.6%	12.0%	8.8%	7.6%	6.0%	4.2%	4.1%	3.1%	3.8%	4.4%
Virginia	1.6%	2.2%	1.1%	1.0%	1.1%	1.0%	1.3%	1.4%	1.0%	0.9%	1.1%	1.2%	1.6%	3.3%	5.0%	8.1%	11.4%
Washington		27.1%	21.0%	21.0%	25.8%	21.5%	22.4%	19.6%	16.3%	12.1%	8.3%	6.3%	4.6%	5.8%	6.6%	10.4%	13.1%
West Virginia			3.9%	3.0%	2.5%	2.3%	4.7%	4.2%	3.0%	2.2%	1.7%	1.3%	1.0%	1.1%	0.9%	1.1%	1.2%
Wisconsin	36.2%	35.7%	34.6%	30.8%	30.8%	24.9%	22.0%	17.5%	13.2%	9.2%	6.3%	4.3%	3.0%	2.7%	2.5%	3.6%	4.5%
Wyoming			38.5%	28.1%	24.6%	18.8%	19.9%	13.7%	10.3%	6.8%	4.6%	2.9%	2.1%	2.0%	1.7%	2.3%	2.8%

See also

General

• • Anglo
• History of immigration to Canada
• Hyphenated American
• Guest Worker Program
• Melting pot
• Race and ethnicity in the United States

Ethnic groups

• European Americans
  • Emigration from Europe
  • American Jews
  • Albanian Americans
  • Austrian Americans
  • Belgian Americans
  • Bosnian Americans
  • British Americans
    • English Americans
    • Scottish Americans
    • Welsh Americans
  • Bulgarian Americans
  • Croatian Americans
  • Czech Americans
  • Danish Americans
  • Dutch Americans
  • Estonian Americans
  • Finnish Americans
  • Flemish Americans
  • French Americans
  • German Americans
  • Greek Americans
  • Hungarian Americans
  • Icelandic Americans
  • Irish Americans
  • Italian Americans
  • Latvian Americans
  • Lithuanian Americans
  • Norwegian Americans
  • Pennsylvania Dutch, refers to German immigrants in colonial Pennsylvania
  • Portuguese Americans
  • Polish Americans
  • Romanian Americans
  • Russian Americans
  • Scandinavian Americans
  • Serbian Americans
  • Slovak Americans
  • Slovenian Americans
  • Spanish Americans
  • Swedish Americans
    • Swedish emigration to the United States
  • Swiss Americans
  • Turkish Americans
  • Ukrainian Americans
• African immigration to the United States
  • Central Africans in the United States
  • Horn Africans in the United States
  • North Africans in the United States
  • Southeast Africans in the United States
  • Southern Africans in the United States
  • West Africans in the United States
• Asian immigration to the United States
  • Asian Americans
  • Filipino Americans
  • Chinese Americans
  • Indian Americans
  • Korean Americans
  • Japanese Americans
  • Vietnamese Americans

Bibliography

• Barkan, Elliott Robert. And Still They Come: Immigrants and American Society, 1920 to the 1990s (1996), by leading historian
• Barkan, Elliott Robert, ed. A Nation of Peoples: A Sourcebook on America's Multicultural Heritage (1999), 600pp; essays by scholars on 27 groups
• Barone, Michael. The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again (2006)
• Bayor, Ronald H., ed. The Oxford Handbook of American Immigration and Ethnicity(2015)
• Bodnar, John. The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America (1985)
• Dassanowsky, Robert, and Jeffrey Lehman, eds. Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America (2nd ed. 3 vol 2000), anthropological approach to 150 culture groups; 1974pp
• Gjerde, Jon, ed. Major Problems in American Immigration and Ethnic History (1998) primary sources and excerpts from scholars.
• Levinson, David and Melvin Ember, eds. American Immigrant Cultures 2 vol (1997) covers all major and minor groups
• Meier, Matt S. and Gutierrez, Margo, eds. The Mexican American Experience: An Encyclopedia (2003) (ISBN 0-313-31643-0)
• Thernstrom, Stephan, ed. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (1980) (ISBN 0-674-37512-2), the standard reference, covering all major groups and most minor groups
• Yans-McLaughlin, Virginia ed. Immigration Reconsidered: History, Sociology, and Politics (1990)

Recent migrations

• Borjas, George J. "Does Immigration Grease the Wheels of the Labor Market?" Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2001
• Hernández, Kelly Lytle. "The Crimes and Consequences of Illegal Immigration: A Cross-Border Examination of Operation Wetback, 1943 to 1954," Western Historical Quarterly, 37 (Winter 2006), 421–44.
• Kemp, Paul. Goodbye Canada? (2003), from Canada to U.S.
• Khadria, Binod. The Migration of Knowledge Workers: Second-Generation Effects of India's Brain Drain, (2000)
• Mullan, Fitzhugh. "The Metrics of the Physician Brain Drain." New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 353:1810–1818 October 27, 2005 Number 17
• Odem, Mary and William Brown. Living Across Borders: Guatemala Migrants in the U.S. South Southern Spaces, 2011.
• Palmer, Ransford W. In Search of a Better Life: Perspectives on Migration from the Caribbean Praeger, 1990.
• Skeldon, Ronald, and Wang Gungwu; Reluctant Exiles? Migration from Hong Kong and the New Overseas Chinese 1994.
• Smith, Michael Peter, and Adrian Favell. The Human Face of Global Mobility: International Highly Skilled Migration in Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific, (2006)

Historical studies

• Alexander, June Granatir. Daily Life in Immigrant America, 1870-1920: How the Second Great Wave of Immigrants Made Their Way in America (2nd ed. Ivan R. Dee, 2009) 332 pp.
• Archdeacon, Thomas J. Becoming American: An Ethnic History (1984)
• Bankston, Carl L. III and Danielle Antoinette Hidalgo, eds. Immigration in U.S. History (2006)
• Bergquist, James M. Daily Life in Immigrant America, 1820-1870: How the First Great Wave of Immigrants Made Their Way in America (2nd ed. Ivan R. Dee, 2009) 329 pp.
• Cohn, Raymond L. Mass Migration under Sail: European Immigration to the Antebellum United States (2009) 254 pp.; emphasis on economic issues
• Daniels, Roger. Coming to America 2nd ed. (2002) ISBN 0-06-050577-X
• Daniels, Roger. Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants Since 1882 (2005)
• Eltis, David; Coerced and Free Migration: Global Perspectives (2002) emphasis on migration to Americas before 1800
• Glynn, Irial: Emigration Across the Atlantic: Irish, Italians and Swedes compared, 1800-1950 , European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2011, retrieved: June 16, 2011.
• Handlin, Oscar. The Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great Migrations That Made the American People (1951), classic interpretive history; Pulitzer prize for history
• Hoerder, Dirk and Horst Rössler, eds. Distant Magnets: Expectations and Realities in the Immigrant Experience, 1840-1930 1993. 312pp
• Hourwich, Isaac. Immigration and Labor: The Economic Aspects of European Immigration to the United States (1912), argues immigrants were beneficial to natives by pushing them upward
• Jenks, Jeremiah W. and W. Jett Lauck, The Immigrant Problem (1912; 6th ed. 1926) based on 1911 Immigration Commission report, with additional data
• Kulikoff, Allan; From British Peasants to Colonial American Farmers (2000), details on colonial immigration
• LeMay, Michael, and Elliott Robert Barkan. U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Laws and Issues: A Documentary History (1999)
• Miller, Kerby M. Emigrants and Exiles (1985), influential scholarly interpretation of Irish immigration
• Motomura, Hiroshi. Americans in Waiting: The Lost Story of Immigration and Citizenship in the United States (2006), legal history
• Wittke, Carl. We Who Built America: The Saga of the Immigrant (1939), 552pp good older history that covers major groups

Historiography

• Archdeacon, Thomas J. "Problems and Possibilities in the Study of American Immigration and Ethnic History", International Migration Review Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring, 1985), pp. 112–134 in JSTOR
• Diner, Hasia. "American Immigration and Ethnic History: Moving the Field Forward, Staying the Course", Journal of American Ethnic History, Summer 2006, Vol. 25 Issue 4, pp 130–141
• Gabaccia, Donna. "Immigrant Women: Nowhere at Home?" Journal of American Ethnic History Vol. 10, No. 4 (Summer, 1991), pp. 61–87 in JSTOR
• Gabaccia, Donna R. "Do We Still Need Immigration History?", Polish American Studies Vol. 55, No. 1 (Spring, 1998), pp. 45–68 in JSTOR
• Gerber, David A. "Immigration Historiography at the Crossroads." Reviews in American History v39#1 (2011): 74-86. in Project MUSE
• Gerber, David A. "What's Wrong with Immigration History?" Reviews in American History v 36 (December 2008): 543-56.
• Gjerde, Jon. "New Growth on Old Vines—The State of the Field: The Social History of Ethnicity and Immigration in the United States", Journal of American Ethnic History 18 (Summer 1999): 40-65. in JSTOR
• Harzig, Christiane, and Dirk Hoerder. What is Migration History (2009) excerpt and text search
• Joranger, Terje, and Mikael Hasle. "A Historiographical Perspective on the Social History of Immigration to and Ethnicity in the United States", Swedish-American Historical Quarterly, Jan 2009, Vol. 60 Issue 1, pp 5–24
• Jung, Moon-Ho. "Beyond These Mythical Shores: Asian American History and the Study of Race", History Compass, March 2008, Vol. 6 Issue 2, pp 627–638
• Kazal, Russell A. "Revisting Assimilation: The Rise, Fall, and Reappraisal of a Concept in American Ethnic History", American Historical Review Vol. 100, No. 2 (Apr., 1995), pp. 437–471 in JSTOR
• Kenny, Kevin. "Twenty Years of Irish American Historiography", Journal of American Ethnic History, Summer 2009, Vol. 28 Issue 4, pp 67–75
• Lederhendler, Eli. "The New Filiopietism, or Toward a New History of Jewish Immigration to America", American Jewish History, March 2007, Vol. 93 Issue 1, pp 1–20
• Meagher, Timothy J. "From the World to the Village and the Beginning to the End and After: Research Opportunities in Irish American History", Journal of American Ethnic History, Summer 2009, Vol. 28 Issue 4, pp 118–135 in JSTOR
• Persons, Stow. Ethnic Studies in Chicago, 1905-1945 (1987), on Chicago school of sociology
• Ross, Dorothy. The Origins of American Social Science (1992), pp 143–71, 303-89 on early sociological studies
• Rothman, David J. "The Uprooted: Thirty Years Later", Reviews in American History 10 (September 1982): 311-19, on influence of Oscar Handlin in JSTOR
• Stolarik, M. Mark. "From Field to Factory: The Historiography of Slovak Immigration to the United States", International Migration Review, Spring 1976, Vol. 10 Issue 1, pp 81–102 in JSTOR
• Vecoli, Rudolph J. "Contadini in Chicago: A Critique of The Uprooted", Journal of American History 5 (December 1964): 404-17, critique of Handlin in JSTOR
• Vecoli, Rudolph J. "'Over the Years I Have Encountered the Hazards and Rewards that Await the Historian of Immigration,' George M. Stephenson and the Swedish American Community", Swedish American Historical Quarterly 51 (April 2000): 130-49.
• Weinberg, Sydney Stahl, et al. "The Treatment of Women in Immigration History: A Call for Change" Journal of American Ethnic History Vol. 11, No. 4 (Summer, 1992), pp. 25–69 in JSTOR

Primary sources

• U.S. Immigration Commission, Reports of the Immigration Commission (1911) complete set of reports
  • Abstracts of Reports, 2 vols. (1911); summary of the full 42-volume report; see also Jenks and Lauck
  • Reports of the Immigration Commission: Statements (1911) text of statements pro and con