From immigrants were taken to Ellis Island in New York to be 'processed'. They received a medical inspection and if they failed they were sent back to where they came from.
For these immigrants Ellis Island was an 'Island of Tears'. Those who passed were given a landing card and started the search for the American Dream. These new immigrants came from countries such as Italy, Poland, Russia and Lithuania. 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 Between and , a time of rapid industrialization and urbanization, America received more than 20 million immigrants.
Beginning in the s, the majority of arrivals were from Central, Eastern and Southern Europe. In that decade alone, some , Italians migrated to America, and by more than 4 million had entered the United States.
Jews from Eastern Europe fleeing religious persecution also arrived in large numbers; over 2 million entered the United States between and The peak year for admission of new immigrants was , when approximately 1.
Within a decade, the outbreak of World War I caused a decline in immigration. In , Congress enacted legislation requiring immigrants over 16 to pass a literacy test, and in the early s immigration quotas were established. The Immigration Act of created a quota system that restricted entry to 2 percent of the total number of people of each nationality in America as of the national census—a system that favored immigrants from Western Europe—and prohibited immigrants from Asia.
The Bracero Program was a series of diplomatic accords between Mexico and the United States signed in that brought millions of Mexican immigrants to the United States to work on short-term agricultural labor contracts. From to , 4. The program also addressed Depression-era deportations and brought many Mexican Americans, who were largely targeted for deportation at the time, back to the states. In fiscal year , about , immigrants applied for naturalization.
The number of naturalization applications has climbed in recent years, though the annual totals remain below the 1. Generally, most immigrants eligible for naturalization apply to become citizens. However, Mexican lawful immigrants have the lowest naturalization rate overall. Language and personal barriers, lack of interest and financial barriers are among the top reasons for choosing not to naturalize cited by Mexican-born green card holders, according to a Pew Research Center survey.
Mexico is the top origin country of the U. In , roughly More than 1 million immigrants arrive in the U. In , the top country of origin for new immigrants coming into the U.
By race and ethnicity, more Asian immigrants than Hispanic immigrants have arrived in the U. Immigration from Latin America slowed following the Great Recession, particularly for Mexico, which has seen both decreasing flows into the United States and large flows back to Mexico in recent years. Asians are projected to become the largest immigrant group in the U.
New immigrant arrivals have fallen, mainly due to a decrease in the number of unauthorized immigrants coming to the U. The drop in the unauthorized immigrant population can primarily be attributed to more Mexican immigrants leaving the U.
In addition to new arrivals, U. In , the percentage of women giving birth in the past year was higher among immigrants 7. While U. 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.
0コメント