Immigration Trends into The United States 1776-Present
A Story Map analyzing which populations migrated to the US, how and when they got here, and why did they decide to leave their homes?
Timeline of The United States' Immigration History
1776- The Birth of a Nation
Thomas Paine- "Common Sense," details the cause for a "New American" as "the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe" (Paine)
1790
May 1790: The Naturalization Act of 1790- allows any free white person of “good character,” who has been living in the United States for two years or longer, to apply for citizenship. Without citizenship, nonwhite residents are denied basic constitutional protections, including the right to vote, own property, or testify in court. (History). August 1790- First US Census
1798
The Alien and Sedition Acts- Acts passed by congress which limited the freedom of speech within the states and additionally severely limited the inflow of immigrants, though they were necessary for the success of a populated new nation.
1815
The English and United States make peace after the War of 1812, consequently, the slow inflow of immigrants becomes a steady gush of Irish immigrants
1845-1849
The Irish Potato Famine causes millions of Irish immigrants to come to the United States
1840-1850's
"A rise in German and Irish immigration, as well as fears that Catholic newcomers were loyal to a foreign entity -- the pope -- and incompatible with American values, spurred a nativist and populist movement and party known as the Know Nothings" (ABC News)
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo- 1848
End to the Mexican-American war, states the Rio Grande as the border between both states, therefore displacing millions of Mexicans in now American land. Granted immediate citizenship; however, by the end of the century most would be displaced from their property and living with their rights unprotected in hostile lands.
1860-1890's
In 1868, the U.S. signed a treaty encouraging Chinese migration; 24 years later, the Chinese Exclusion Act turned away immigrants from what was even then the world's most populous nation. Chinese immigrants in California were instrumental in building the Transcontinental Railroad and shouldered much of the work building the West in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.(ABC News)
1892
The first "alien," Annie Moore, an Irish teenage, is processed in Ellis Island. By the end of this fiscal year, more than 400,000 immigrants would be processed through Ellis Island, primarily of European descent.
1892-1954: Ellis Island
Approximately 12 million people passed through between 1892 and 1954, with three-quarters of them arriving between 1892 and 1924.
1939
First wave of Jewish immigrants flee persecution by sailing into St Louis, however the US turned them away; more than half on board would become victims of the Holocaust.
1948
The US passes a refugee and resettlement law to deal with the influx of Europeans seeking permanent residence in the United States after World War II.
1956-1957
The United States admits roughly 38,000 immigrants from Hungary after a failed uprising against the Soviet Union. They were among the first Cold War refugees.
1960-1962
Roughly 14,000 unaccompanied children flee Castro's communist Cuba to the United States as part of a secret, anti-Communism program: Operation Peter Pan.
1965
The Immigration and Nationality Act: ends the national origin quotas enacted in the 1920s which favored some racial and ethnic groups over others.
It is replaced with a seven-category preference system emphasizing family reunification and skilled immigrants. "Over the next five years, immigration from war-torn regions of Asia, including Vietnam and Cambodia, would more than quadruple. Family reunification became a driving force in U.S. immigration" (History)
1986
Simpson-Mazzoli Act: signed by President Reagan, granted amnesty to more than 3 million immigrants living illegally in the United States.
2001
U.S. Senators on both sides propose the first Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, which would provide a pathway to legal status for "Dreamers", undocumented immigrants brought to the United States illegally by their parents as children. The bill does not pass
2012
President Barack Obama signs Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) which temporarily shields some Dreamers from deportation, but doesn’t provide a path to citizenship.
2017-2021
President Donald Trump issues two executive orders aimed at curtailing travel and immigration from six majority Muslim countries. Under President Trump, legal high skilled immigration drops by more that 49% and refugees and asylum seekers denied in alarming rates: "For FY 2020, the Trump administration established an annual ceiling for refugees 84% lower than the final year of the Obama administration (from 110,000 down to 18,000)." (Forbes)
2021-Present
Biden’s biggest immigration proposal to date would allow more new immigrants into the U.S. while giving millions of unauthorized immigrants who are already in the country a pathway to legal status. Though the Biden administration has made more efforts to raise refugee price ceilings and open immigration for vital high skilled migrants, the relative number of immigration has still remained low and affected by Trump era policies.
Immigration Trends since 1776
Immigration to the United States is a worldwide process which follows the global economic and political eras. Immigration to the United States can be divided into four primary waves: Frontier Expansion which saw mostly immigrants from Northern and Western Europe, Industrialization which saw primarily immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, an immigration pause in which some immigration still occurred from Western Europe, and finally the post-1965 immigration to present immigration wave primarily from Asia and Latin America.
Trends in Immigration to the United States since 1820
Frontier Expansion (1800 - 1880)
Immigration in the age of frontier expansion primarily occurred from Western and Northern European nations. There was a large wave of Irish and German Catholics due to Catholic persecution in Europe, however this large influx of Catholics challenged Protestant authority in the United States and led to persecution on this side of the Atlantic as well. Immigration at this time, however, was still encouraged by the United States and American corporations because the frontier of the western United States appeared to be endless. Many western states encouraged immigration for the advancement of their agriculture industries. Railroad companies also encouraged immigration out west by developing long-term payment plans and lower travel fares for immigrants who purchased the railroad company’s land. Despite all these incentives, immigrants were mainly encouraged by the economic opportunities in new American cities and many were not skilled farmers looking for arable land. By the end of the 19th century, the American attitude towards immigrants began to shift with the increase of labor unions, rapid urbanization, and immigrants of southern and eastern European origin.
Industrialization (1880 - 1914)
The age of Industrialization in the United States brought with it a new wave of immigration. The rise of the steamship made immigration across the Atlantic a much more feasible journey by shortening the trip from one to three months to merely ten days. Steamship companies also promoted and advertised immigration. Immigration in the new age of industrialization saw a shift from the age of frontier expansion because many of the immigrants now arriving in the early 20th century were from southern and eastern Europe as opposed to the whiter, English-speaking immigrants previously arriving from northern and western Europe. Many immigrants of the new wave were Catholic or Jewish and faced discrimination in the mostly Protestant nation. Labor leader Terence V. Powderly wrote in 1888 in the North American Review that “the population which came previous to 1860 was civilized, that which comes to-day is, in great proportion, semi-barbarous.” In 1991, a publication titled “The New Immigration” in The Nation stated that the new wave of immigration “is not related to us in race or language, but has habits of thought and behavior radically foreign to those which have so far prevailed in the United States.” The tolerance for immigrants had shifted entirely and in the 1920s immigration had slowed dramatically due to quantitative quotas as well as World War I.
Immigration Pause (1920 - 1965)
Between 1920 and 1965, the United States experienced an immigration pause. During this time, immigration to the United States slowed from around one million people a year to 150,000 annually, with some years seeing more people leave than arrive. Immigration slowed during the Great Depression in the 1930s and rose again at the end of World War II as veterans returned with European wives. However, immigration primarily slowed during this period because of the rise of immigration restrictions. A 1917 immigration act required that all immigrants 16 years or older must pass a literacy test in any language upon arrival. The act also increased the tax on immigrants upon arrival. The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 set a series of quotas country-by-country allowing for a 2% increase in the number of immigrants from each nationality according to the 1890 census. This legislation severely restricted immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and completely excluded immigrants from Asia. The act, which was made possible by national security fears from the World Wars, was not revised in Congress until 1952.
Post-1956 Immigration
The final and current wave of immigration began in 1965, partially spurred by the Civil Rights movement in America which also supported reform to immigration policy. The Hart-Celler Act or The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 abolished the country-by-country quota system and introduced a new immigration policy based on a preference towards immigrants with American relatives, skilled workers, and refugees. This current wave of immigration sees the most immigrants from Latin America and Asia as well as an overall increase in immigrants. There were nearly three times the amount of immigrants from 1965 to 1995 than from the previous 30 years. Immigration from Southeast Asia nearly quadrupled between 1965 and 1970. Between 1965 and 2000, the highest proportion of immigrants came from Mexico at 4.3 million. The current state of immigration affairs is controlled by the Department of Homeland Security which took over immigration regulation at its creation in 2002 following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Economic Impacts of Immigration on the US and Globally
Definition of GDP
What is GDP? | CNBC Explains
US GDP Over Time
GDP per capita
This interactive graph and map from "Our World Through Data" offers a perfect depiction of the United States' constant incline in GDP as well as the world GDP over time. With this map we can compare the GDP of each nation in relation to the United States as a way to explain migratory patterns affected by economic instability in their home countries. Through these parameters we can see that most emigrant countries are normally distributed and have a GDP per capita about the mean, 5-50 thousand, proving that most countries from which immigrants living in America come from have relatively stable GDP's, but as we will see with our case study below, GDP is not always the best indicator.
In Relation to Immigration
The biggest motivation to immigrate to the United States is the nation's relative ability to grow economically over time. Yet, does the constant flow of immigration account for its growth?
Many economist argue, YES, immigration and the steady inflow of a "ready to work" population is more than healthy for the growth of the nation's economic prosperity. The United States, a nation with constant immigration inflow has equally experienced a constant growth in GDP and levels of production and prosperity.
How immigrants and their children affect the US economy | Robert Kaplan | Big Think
Case Study: Resource Extraction and African Underdevelopment: Why GDP Does Not Always Adequately Demonstrate Prosperity
While Forbes describes GDP as "necessary for a country’s inhabitants to improve their standard of living," Patrick Bond goes deeper into the implications of relying on simple GDP when gauging a country's success concerning the prosperity of the individual citizen of the greater state with his article "Resource Extraction and African Underdevelopment." Bond argues that there is bias in GDP, and this bias prevents the adequate distribution of wealth that has accumulated and been looted from "underdeveloped" periphery nations through inadequate compensations to raise up "developed" core countries; a system proliferated by the same elite that benefit from system. While these nations may seem to have a stable GDP, the quality of life is extremely misguided by economic indicators. Because of this, Bond offers GPI as a better indicator of a nations quality of life, inclusive of economic reasons on the micro level. GPI, the Global Peace Index, could serve as a solution to the discrepancies of GDP and better gauge the success of a countries and what could be done to replicate it and prevent migration
While this is more prominent issue outside the United States, causing emigration from their home countries, the same disequilibrium occurs within the United States. The biggest contributors to the stabile incline of US economic superiority are more at risk of being marginalized and taken advantage of while elite outlier populations thrive in the economic conditions necessary to grow their investments with little risk.
Because of this, immigrants add to the greater GDP of the United States, giving it the reputation of the greatest economic power in the world, yet it leaves immigrants suffering with below livable wages and inadequate financial support/advice which leaves them constantly at the bottom of class structures. The work-life balance of production and prosperity is always a hard sacrifice for immigrant populations and often leads to family fragmentation and identity crises within the family unit, issues that can proliferate the cycle of immigrant struggles and inability to thrive.
Immigration's Impact on American Urban Development
American City Life
Between 1870 and 1900, nearly 12 million immigrants arrived in the U.S. These immigrants mostly came through ports like New York and Boston, for Europeans, Los Angeles and San Francisco, for Asians. Most of them remained in the city to work, creating a boom in American urban populations. Before these waves of immigration, America had been a relatively rural nation based on farming and agriculture, with previous waves of immigrants often moving to farms. Pollution, overcrowding, slums, and traffic all become synonymous with city life due to increased immigration. The mass influx of mostly poor immigrants resulted in terrible living conditions in apartment buildings with tiny rooms, no ventilation, and very poor sanitation. These came to be known as tenement houses. Oftentimes families of 4 or 5 would be forced to live in a single room. The drainage and sewer systems in cities were severely inadequate for the rise in population, resulting in human feces filling the streets, causing illness and disease for many. Due to the drastic change in population in such a short period of time, the cities were divided between the poor people living in slums and the rich living in mansions.
Share of the population living in urbanized areas
Ethnic Communities
The incredible immigration numbers unfortunately intense divisions in American cities. Many americans felt threatened by the new immigrants taking their jobs or were completely discriminatory towards minority groups. Immigrant groups started to settle in cities where their former country mates had before them in an attempt to preserve their culture, feel safe and more at home, creating ethnic communities. Chinatowns, Little Tokyos, Italys, and other ethnic communities sprouted in cities across the United States.
Chinatowns
Chinese immigrants came to work in the mines during the gold rush, becoming essential in building the railroads in the western United States, and worked in garment factories in the cities. San Francisco’s Chinatown, a 30 block area in downtown, is the oldest Chinatown in the U.S. and has become an iconic tourist attraction for the city, filled with restaurants, bars, shops, and of course the famous gate. Similar enclaves developed in Los Angeles and New York City, which has long been the largest Chinatown in the U.S. and the largest concentration of Chinese people outside of mainland China. Chinese immigrants particularly tended to group together when settling due to intense racial discrimination, resulting in Chinatowns becoming extremely self-sufficient with various governing bodies and businesses that provided employment, security, and health benefits for the citizens.
Little Italys
Italian neighborhoods such as Little Italy in New York City and the North End in Boston have shared similar histories to that of Chinatowns, acting as a real community and enclave for incoming immigrants and now, still distinct ethnic neighborhoods, stand as major tourist attractions with Italian shops and restaurants.
Immigration Restrictions 1921
International immigration, or the lack thereof, played a critical role in the suburbanization movement in America after 1945. In 1921, the United States government passed legislation that severely restricted the immigration of low-skilled workers from around the world. Around the same time, in response to the oppressive Jim Crow laws , millions of Black Southerners migrated to Northern cities and filled the empty jobs the immigrants had left. Between 1910 and 1970, over six million black southerners moved out of the south to the rest of the country, a phenomenon known as the Great Migration. Another phenomenon developed in response to this, “white flight”, when white families started moving outside the city to newly constructed suburban communities when black people moved into their neighborhoods.
Great Migration, 1910-1970
Suburbanization Post WWII
At the end of WWII, the U.S. faced a serious housing crisis due to returning military deployments, immigrants, and refugees. In 1945, experts estimated a shortage of 5 million homes nationwide. The solution was a federal and private partnership of constructing new homes and subsidizing home ownership through low-interest mortgage rates - for white families. These luxuries were not offered to Black, Latino, or Asian families, who were systematically denied homeownership in the new, perfect, white suburbs. As the people moved to the suburbs, so did money and investment. By the early 1950s retail, commercial and even corporate headquarters began to move away from the cities to the suburbs. With the rise of American suburbia, American cities faced equal decline. Old industrial centers that launched the U.S. into the industrial era in the 19th century, were being located to larger facilities in the suburbs on cheaper land. This urban job loss leads to unemployment, lower tax revenue, decline in education, infrastructure and other public services. Suburbanization also led to racialization between the suburbs and cities. The suburbs were a welcoming place for whites including the first immigrant nations such as Poles, Italians, and even Jews, while blatantly excluding African Americans and Latinos.
America's Highway System
Cincinnati, Ohio Highways
The White Flight movement led to the development of the highway system, which has played an instrumental role in the spatial design of cities and oppression of minority communities. The highways were constructed to allow white people who lived in the suburbs to easily access the downtown cities for work and pleasure, and an equally easy escape route. The highways were strategically constructed in the middle of predominantly black and minority communities, giving an excuse to destroy housing and fragmenting the neighborhoods themselves. If you look at maps of most American cities, like Minneapolis, Kansas City, Cincinnati , etc, the freeways run straight through black and immigrant neighborhoods, fracturing their political and economic abilities. The destruction of various neighborhoods lead to overcrowding in others, increasing crime rates. Continuing with the theme discussed in class of people in power designing maps, the people in power were white, and designed American cities with efforts of segregating black people and minorities from white people. The construction of freeways in the 50s, 60s, and 70s disproportionately targeted black areas; there was a planned highway, Interstate-78, that was set to destroy the ethnic communities in Lower Manhattan including Chinatown, Little Italy, and the Lower East side. Thankfully, it was protested by local residents and local government officials and was never built. As you can see in the map below, Downtown Kansas City is completely boxed in by freeways, disconnecting it from the surrounding areas of the city. The main entrances to the Downtown area are via the highways, which spread into the suburbs.
KC Highway Map
Case Study: Mexican-American Border- What Conditions Does the Immigrant Go Through?
Legal Routes
First off let's look at legal immigrants, they often arrive in the United States by taking two distinct routes. The first route starts with a visit to the American Embassy in Mexico, where they submit paperwork to go through immigration and can gain the correct visas needed. The other option is the Visa Waiver Program, which allows certain citizens of Mexico to travel to the United States without having to obtain a visa prior to their arrival, as long as they meet certain criteria. This program is mainly used for Mexicans who are travelling to the United States for leisure trips or business purposes. Both of these routes allow Mexican immigrants to legally travel and enter the United States, ensuring proper documentation and complying with all immigration regulations. All legal Mexican immigrants must pass through one of the major border ports of entry when entering the United States, such as the San Ysidro port of entry in San Diego, the El Paso port of entry in Texas, and the Otay Mesa port of entry in California. The other popular entry points are the Calexico East port of entry in California, the Nogales port of entry in Arizona, and the Presidio port of entry in Texas. Depending on the route they take, they will have to go through the proper immigration checkpoints at each port of entry.
Illegal Routes
Illegal Mexican immigrants often take dangerous routes to cross the border, such as travelling on the so-called “bestia” (beast), a term used to describe the freight train that travels through Mexico and Central America. Many illegal immigrants travel on this train in search of a better life, risking their lives to cross the border unannounced. As there is no official checkpoint or document check, this route is extremely dangerous, as migrants can easily be targeted by criminals, fall off the freight train, and sometimes even die while travelling. Many migrants have died while attempting to cross the border illegally. The train carries no safety measures, and the journey can take up to several days, leading to exhaustion and dehydration. Even when they reach the US, they must avoid the authorities to remain undetected, often hiding in remote areas or forests. This puts them at risk of violent attacks, robbery and exploitation, as they are unable to protect themselves. Additionally, the freight train can be very overcrowded, leading to fights and injuries among passengers. All of these risks further endanger the lives of illegal immigrants who attempt to cross the border using the bestia.
Crossing the border on foot is another dangerous route taken by many illegal Mexican immigrants. This journey can often take days or weeks, depending on their location and the route they take. Travelling on foot leaves them exposed to extreme weather conditions, such as extreme heat or cold, and puts them at risk of physical exhaustion and dehydration. Additionally, they may be attacked by criminals, face violence and robbery, or be intercepted by border patrol agents. The terrain can also be treacherous, leading to injury and death, as well as the probability of getting lost in the desert. These dangers make crossing the border on foot one of the most difficult and dangerous routes taken by illegal Mexican immigrants. Illegal Mexican immigrants who choose to cross the border on foot often rely on people known as ‘coyotes’ or ‘antojitos’ to guide them. These people are typically locals or former migrants who have experience crossing the border and can provide valuable information and guidance to those attempting to do the same. They offer their services for a fee, leading groups of immigrants on the journey and helping them evade authorities. Although some coyotes can be reliable, many are not and on the cartel payroll, many have no regard for the safety of the migrants and may not accurately assess the risks involved in the journey, which can lead to further danger and death.
Solution
As illegal Mexican immigrant crossings remain one of the most dangerous journeys, it is important to find ways to reduce the risk of death and exploitation. Improving access to legal pathways for migration could help reduce the number of people attempting to cross illegally, thus reducing deaths. Additionally, providing more humanitarian aid on both sides of the border, such as food and medical assistance, could also help mitigate some of these dangers. Finally, increasing law enforcement efforts to protect those crossing the border and punish those who target them could also reduce deaths. Ultimately, addressing the root causes of migration and reforming immigration policies could ultimately provide a more long-term solution to this issue.