This party did not favor restrictions on the number of immigrants, though they did seek to restrict their ability to quickly become voting citizens. For a short period of time, the Know-Nothings had an important presence in Congress and many state legislatures. The first restrictive immigration laws were directed against Asian countries. The first law was the Chinese Exclusion Act of This law essentially prohibited the immigration of Chinese citizens and it stayed in effect until it was removed during World War II.
The latter provision was used to some extent during periods of high unemployment, though as noted above, immigration fell anyway because of the lack of jobs. The desire to restrict immigration to the United States grew over the latter part of the nineteenth century.
This growth was due partly to the high volume and rate of immigration and partly to the changing national origins of the immigrants; more began arriving from southern, central, and eastern Europe. In , Congress set up the Immigration Commission, chaired by Senator William Dillingham, to investigate immigration.
This body issued a famous report, now viewed as flawed, concluding that immigrants from the newer parts of Europe did not assimilate easily and, in general, blaming them for various economic ills.
Attempts at restricting immigration were initially made by proposing a law requiring a literacy test for admission to the United States, and such a law was finally passed in This same law also virtually banned immigration from any country in Asia.
Restrictionists were no doubt displeased when the volume of immigration from Europe resumed its former level after World War I in spite of the literacy test. The movement then turned to explicitly limiting the number of arrivals. The Quota Act of laid the framework for a fundamental change in U. It limited the number of immigrants from Europe to a total of about , per year. In addition, the act assigned Asian countries quotas near zero.
Three years later in , the National Origins Act instituted a requirement that visas be obtained from an American consulate abroad before immigrating, reduced the total European quota to about ,, and changed how the quotas were determined.
Because relatively few individuals immigrated from southern, central, and eastern Europe before , the effect of the law was to drastically reduce the number of individuals allowed to immigrate to the United States from these countries. Yet total immigration to the United States remained fairly high until the Great Depression because neither the nor the law restricted immigration from the Western Hemisphere. Thus, it was the combination of the outbreak of World War I and the subsequent s restrictions that caused the Western Hemisphere to become a more important source of immigrants to the United States after , though it should be recalled the rate of immigration fell to low levels after The last major change in U.
This law abolished the quotas based on national origins. Instead, a series of preferences were established to determine who would gain entry. The most important preference was given to relatives of U. By the twenty-first century, about two-thirds of immigrants came through these family channels. Preferences were also given to professionals, scientists, artists, and workers in short supply. The law kept an overall quota on total immigration for Eastern Hemisphere countries, originally set at ,, and no more than 20, individuals were allowed to immigrate to the United States from any single country.
This law was designed to treat all countries equally. Asian countries were treated the same as any other country, so the virtual prohibition on immigration from Asia disappeared. In addition, for the first time the law also limited the number of immigrants from Western Hemisphere countries, with the original overall quota set at , It is important to note that neither quota was binding because immediate relatives of U.
In addition, the United States has admitted large numbers of refugees at different times from Vietnam, Haiti, Cuba, and other countries. Finally, many individuals enter the United States on student visas, enroll in colleges and universities, and eventually get companies to sponsor them for a work visa. Thus, the total number of legal immigrants to the United States since has always been larger than the combined quotas.
This law has led to an increase in the volume of immigration and, by treating all countries the same, has led to Asia recently becoming a more important source of U. Though features of the law have been modified since it was enacted, this law still serves as the basis for U. The most important modifications occurred in when employer sanctions were adopted for those hiring illegal workers.
On the other hand, the same law also gave temporary resident status to individuals who had lived illegally in the United States since before The latter feature led to very high volumes of legal immigration being recorded in , , and In this section, various characteristics of the immigrant stream arriving at different points in time are discussed.
The following characteristics of immigration are analyzed: gender breakdown, age structure, family vs. Virtually all the information is based on the Passenger Lists, a source discussed above. Data are presented in Table 2 on the gender breakdown and age structure of immigration. The gender breakdown and age structure remain fairly consistent in the period before In most of the period and for most countries, immigrants were typically young single males, young couples, or, especially in the era before the steamship, families.
For particular countries, such as Ireland, a large number of the immigrants were single women Cohn, This period saw the immigration of a large number of single males who planned to work for a period of months or years and return to their homeland, a development made possible by the steamship shortening the voyage and reducing its cost Nugent, The characteristics of the immigrant stream since have been somewhat different. Males have comprised less than one-half of all immigrants. In addition, the percentage of immigrants over age 45 has increased at the expense of those between the ages of 14 and Sources : Historical Statistics Table 3 presents data on the percentage of immigrants who did not report an occupation and the percentage breakdown of those reporting an occupation.
The percentage not reporting an occupation declined through The small percentages between and are a reflection of the large number of single males who arrived during this period. As is apparent, the classification scheme for occupations has changed over time. Though there is no perfect way to correlate the occupation categories used in the different time periods, skilled workers comprised about one-fourth of the immigrant stream through The immigration of farmers was important before the Civil War but declined steadily over time.
The percentage of laborers has varied over time, though during some time periods they comprised one-half or more of the immigrants. The highest percentages of laborers occurred during good years for the U. Commercial workers, mainly merchants, were an important group of immigrants very early when immigrant volume was low, but their percentage fell substantially over time.
Professional workers were always a small part of U. Since , these workers have comprised a larger percentage of immigrants reporting an occupation. Since , the Department of Homeland Security has combined the Professional and Executive categories.
The skill level of the immigrant stream is important because it potentially affects the U. Before turning to this issue, a number of comments can be made concerning the occupational skill level of the U. First, skill levels fell substantially in the period before the Civil War.
Though the data are not as complete, immigration during the colonial period was almost certainly at least this skilled. Second, the less-skilled percentage did not change dramatically late in the nineteenth century when the source of immigration changed from northwest Europe to other parts of Europe. The second figure is, however, similar to that during the period. Third, the restrictions on immigration imposed during the s had a sizable effect on the skill level of the immigrant stream.
Fourth, a deterioration in immigrant skills appears in the numbers in the s and s, and then an improvement appears since Both changes may be an illusion.. These changes are, however, due to the amnesty for illegal immigrants resulting from the law.
Two caveats, however, should be noted. First, the illegal immigrants can not, of course, be ignored. Second, the skill level of the U. Thus, relative to the U. Turning to the twenty-first century, the percentage of the legal immigrant stream in the highest-skilled category appears to have increased. This conclusion is also not certain because the changes that occurred in how occupations were categorized beginning in make a straightforward comparison potentially inexact.
This uncertainty is increased by the growing percentage of immigrants for which no occupation is reported. It is not clear whether a larger percentage of those arriving actually did not work recall that a growing percentage of legal immigrants are somewhat older or if more simply did not list an occupation. Overall, detecting changes in the skill level of the legal immigrant stream since about is fraught with difficulty. Though immigration has effects on the country from which the immigrants leave, this section only examines the effects on the United States, mainly those occurring over longer periods of time.
Over short periods of time, sizeable and potentially negative effects can occur in a specific area when there is a huge influx of immigrants. A large number of arrivals in a short period of time in one city can cause school systems to become overcrowded, housing prices and welfare payments to increase, and jobs to become difficult to obtain. Yet most economists believe the effects of immigration over time are much less harmful than commonly supposed and, in many ways, are beneficial.
The following longer-term issues are discussed: the effects of immigration on the overall wage rate of U. Determining the effects of immigration on the United States is complex and virtually none of the conclusions presented here are without controversy.
Immigration is popularly thought to lower the overall wage rate in the United States by increasing the supply of individuals looking for jobs. This effect may occur in an area over a fairly short period of time.
Wages will not fall if the immigrants bring sufficient amounts of other resources with them, such as capital, or cause the amount of other resources in the economy to increase sufficiently.
For example, historically the large-scale immigration from Europe contributed to rapid westward expansion of the United States during most of the nineteenth century. The westward expansion, however, increased the amounts of land and natural resources that were available, factors that almost certainly kept immigration from lowering wage rates.
Immigrants also increase the amounts of other resources in the economy through running their own businesses, which both historically and in recent times has occurred at a greater rate among immigrants than native workers. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the westward frontier had been settled. Congress outlawed the importation of enslaved people to the United States as of , but the practice continued.
The U. Civil War resulted in the emancipation of approximately 4 million enslaved people. Although the exact numbers will never be known, it is believed that , to , Africans were brought to America and sold into slavery between the 17th and 19th centuries. Another major wave of immigration occurred from around to The majority of these newcomers hailed from Northern and Western Europe. Approximately one-third came from Ireland, which experienced a massive famine in the midth century.
Typically impoverished, these Irish immigrants settled near their point of arrival in cities along the East Coast. Between and , some 4. Also in the 19th century, the United States received some 5 million German immigrants.
Many of them journeyed to the present-day Midwest to buy farms or congregated in such cities as Milwaukee, St. Louis and Cincinnati. In the national census of , more Americans claimed German ancestry than any other group. During the mids, a significant number of Asian immigrants settled in the United States. Lured by news of the California gold rush, some 25, Chinese had migrated there by the early s. The new arrivals were often seen as unwanted competition for jobs, while many Catholics—especially the Irish—experienced discrimination for their religious beliefs.
In the s, the anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic American Party also called the Know-Nothings tried to severely curb immigration, and even ran a candidate, former U. Following the Civil War, the United States experienced a depression in the s that contributed to a slowdown in immigration. One of the first significant pieces of federal legislation aimed at restricting immigration was the Chinese Exclusion Act of , which banned Chinese laborers from coming to America. Californians had agitated for the new law, blaming the Chinese, who were willing to work for less, for a decline in wages.
For much of the s, the federal government had left immigration policy to individual states. However, by the final decade of the century, the government decided it needed to step in to handle the ever-increasing influx of newcomers.
More than 12 million immigrants entered the United States through Ellis Island during its years of operation from to Asylees and refugees, migrants who flee their countries due to danger or persecution, make up a small segment of immigrants.
In , there were 61, refugees and asylees who settled in the US, down In , there were That same year the naturalized population overtook the number of immigrants without citizenship for the first time. Check out the immigration issues page to explore more data on the foreign-born population. Keep up with the latest data and most popular content. Issues Data Reports. Coronavirus Climate.
Education Look at the data on educational progress and challenges. Healthcare From health insurance to prescription drug prices, the cost of healthcare has been a political issue for decades. Immigration Find data on a range of immigration issues, including information on asylum seekers, DACA, visas, plus border security.
Race in America Data shines a spotlight on racial inequities in American life. Since the creation of the federal Refugee Resettlement Program in , about 3 million refugees have been resettled in the U. In fiscal , a total of 30, refugees were resettled in the U. Texas, Washington, New York and California resettled more than a quarter of all refugees admitted in fiscal California had the largest immigrant population of any state in , at Texas, Florida and New York had more than 4 million immigrants each.
In , most immigrants lived in just 20 major metropolitan areas, with the largest populations in the New York, Los Angeles and Miami metro areas. These top 20 metro areas were home to Immigrants in the U.
In , immigrants were over three times as likely as the U. However, immigrants were just as likely as the U. Immigrants from Mexico and Central America are less likely to be high school graduates than the U. On the other hand, immigrants from every region except Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America were as likely as or more likely than U.
In , about 29 million immigrants were working or looking for work in the U. Lawful immigrants made up the majority of the immigrant workforce, at An additional 7. They alone account for 4. During the same period, the overall U.
Immigrants are projected to drive future growth in the U. As the Baby Boom generation heads into retirement, immigrants and their children are expected to offset a decline in the working-age population by adding about 18 million people of working age between and The longer immigrants have lived in the U.
Among immigrants ages 5 and older, Spanish is the most commonly spoken language. Around , immigrants were deported from the U.
Overall, the Obama administration deported about 3 million immigrants between and , a significantly higher number than the 2 million immigrants deported by the Bush administration between and
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