American immigration history can be viewed in four epochs: the colonial period, the mid-nineteenth century, the turn of the twentieth century, and post-1965. Each period brought distinct national groups, races and ethnicities to the United States. During the seventeenth century, approximately 175,000 Englishmen migrated to Colonial America.[11] Over half of all European immigrants to Colonial America during the 17th and 18th centuries arrived as indentured servants.[12] The mid-nineteenth century saw mainly an influx from northern Europe; the early twentieth-century mainly from Southern and Eastern Europe; post-1965 mostly from Latin America and Asia.
Historians estimate that fewer than one million immigrants—perhaps as few as 400,000—crossed the Atlantic during the 17th and 18th centuries.[13] The 1790 Act limited naturalization to "free white persons"; it was expanded to include blacks in the 1860s and Asians in the 1950s.[14] In the early years of the United States, immigration was fewer than 8,000 people a year,[15] including French refugees from the slave revolt in Haiti. After 1820, immigration gradually increased. From 1836 to 1914, over 30 million Europeans migrated to the United States.[16] The death rate on these transatlantic voyages was high, during which one in seven travelers died.[17] In 1875, the nation passed its first immigration law, the Page Act of 1875.[18]
The peak year of European immigration was in 1907, when 1,285,349 persons entered the country.[19] By 1910, 13.5 million immigrants were living in the United States.[20] In 1921, the Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act, followed by the Immigration Act of 1924. The 1924 Act was aimed at further restricting the Southern and Eastern Europeans, especially Jews, Italians, and Slavs, who had begun to enter the country in large numbers beginning in the 1890s.[21] Most of the European refugees fleeing the Nazis and World War II were barred from coming to the United States.[22]
Immigration patterns of the 1930s were dominated by the Great Depression, which hit the U.S. hard and lasted over ten years there. In the final prosperous year, 1929, there were 279,678 immigrants recorded,[23] but in 1933, only 23,068 came to the U.S.[13] In the early 1930s, more people emigrated from the United States than to it.[24] The U.S. government sponsored a Mexican Repatriation program which was intended to encourage people to voluntarily move to Mexico, but thousands were deported against their will.[25] Altogether about 400,000 Mexicans were repatriated.[26] In the post-war era, the Justice Department launched Operation Wetback, under which 1,075,168 Mexicans were deported in 1954.[27]
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart-Cellar Act, abolished the system of national-origin quotas. By equalizing immigration policies, the act resulted in new immigration from non-European nations, which changed the ethnic make-up of the United States.[29] While European immigrants accounted for nearly 60% of the total foreign population in 1970, they accounted for only 15% in 2000.[30] Immigration doubled between 1965 and 1970, and again between 1970 and 1990.[31] In 1990, George H. W. Bush signed the Immigration Act of 1990,[32] which increased legal immigration to the United States by 40%.[33] Appointed by Bill Clinton,[34] the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform recommended reducing legal immigration from about 800,000 people per year to approximately 550,000.[35] While an influx of new residents from different cultures presents some challenges, "the United States has always been energized by its immigrant populations," said President Bill Clinton in 1998. "America has constantly drawn strength and spirit from wave after wave of immigrants [...] They have proved to be the most restless, the most adventurous, the most innovative, the most industrious of people."[36]
An analysis of census data found that nearly eight million immigrants entered the United States from 2000 to 2005, more than in any other five-year period in the nation's history; 3.7 million of them entered illegally.[37][38] Since 1986 Congress has passed seven amnesties for illegal immigrants.[39] In 1986 president Ronald Reagan signed immigration reform that gave amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants in the country.[40] Hispanic immigrants were among the first victims of the late-2000s recession,[41] but since the recession's end in June 2009, immigrants posted a net gain of 656,000 jobs.[42] Over 1 million immigrants were granted legal residence in 2011.[43]
