Immigration demographics in the U.S.

Immigration to 1850

 * Prior to European Colonization it is believed that the Bering Ice Bridges had connected Asia and the Continent of North America at one point. It is believed that this "Bering land bridge" eventually melted around 10,000 years ago.  The people who had come through the Bering Land Bridge are categorized as Native Americans in todays terms.


 * The 1500's was when European immigration began to occur in the United States. These were the British and Spaniards that came over, along with Africans as slaves.


 * The Naturalization Act of 1790 said that "any alien, being a free white person, may be admitted to become a citizen of the United States". Between 1790 and 1849 many Europeans began to immigrate into the United States.


 * In 1848 the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo gave U.S. citizenship 60,000 Mexican residents in California and New Mexico.


 * In 1849 the California Gold Rush caused many people from Mexico, South America, China, Australia, and Europe to immigrate into the United States.


 * Prior to 1850, there was no data on nativity collected for the population of the United States. Data nativity was first collected in the 1850 decennial census.

Major Immigration from 1850 - Present

 * 1850 - 1930: about 5 million Germans immigrated to the United States with a peak in the years between 1881 and 1885 (settled mostly in the Midwest).


 * 1820 - 1930: 3.5 million British immigrated over 4.5 million Irish entered - Famines of the 1940’s.


 * 1840 - 1930: 900,000 French Canadians immigrate to the United States (mainly New England states).


 * At the end of World War II, immigration immediately increased under the official national origins quota system as refugees from war torn Europe began immigrating to the U.S. From 1941-1950, 1,035,000 people immigrated to the U.S.
 * 226,000 from Germany
 * 139,000 from the UK
 * 171,000 from Canada
 * 60,000 from Mexico
 * 57,000 from Italy


 * It can be observed that after acts such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and Immigration Act of 1924 (which was aimed at further restricting the Southern and Eastern Europeans) have been eliminated, a huge increase in those immigrants are reported by the census. Ex. the act of 1968 Eliminated US immigration discrimination based on race, place of birth, sex and residence. It also officially abolished restrictions on Oriental US immigration which is the reason we see an increase of Asian countries immigrating.


 * Recently, in the year 2000, there have been waves of immigrants coming by the millions:
 * Mexico: 7,841,000
 * Philippines: 1,222,000
 * China: 1,391,000
 * India: 1,007,000


 * Cuba, Canada, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Korea, Pakistan, and Vietnam has also been coming in by the hundred Thousands.


 * People of Hispanic and Asian descent are growing in the amount of immigrants that are coming into this country.

Below is a timeline of the top ten countries that immigrated to America in the given years.

Source: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0900547.html For more information on historical policies of immigration in the U.S. see Immigration policy in the U.S. (historical)

Stats
Since 1890, individuals who were born in another country but have at least one parent who is a U.S citizen have been categorized as native rather than foreign born.

In 1850, the foreign born population was at 2.2 million, 9.7 percent of the United States population. Between 1860 and 1920, the foreign born population fluctuated between 13 percent and 15 percent. In 1930, the foreign born population was 14.2 million, 11.6 percent of the population. The increase in the foreign born population between 1850 and 1930 was primarily due to immigration from Europe. By 1950, the foreign born population decreased to 10.3 million, 16.9 percent of the population. It deceased again by 1970 to 9.6 million, 4.7 percent of the population. In 1980, the population increased to 14.1 million, 6.2 percent of the population. It rose again in 1990 to 19.8 million, 7.9 percent of the U.S. population. The increase from the 1970s to the 1990s was due primarily to immigration for Latin America and Asia.

Currently
As of the year 2000, the number of immigrants in the United States was estimated between 28.4 and 31.1 million. According to the U.S. Census of 2000, only 36%, or 11 million, of these immigrants were legally documented. Naturalized citizens totaled 32% (9.9 million), undocumented immigrants totalled 28% (8.5 million), legal nonimmigrants, such as students and temporary workers, totalled 4% (1.3 million).

In the year 2000: 8.1% from other various countries
 * 30% of the foreign born U.S. population came from Mexico
 * 25.5% came from Asia
 * 15.3% from Europe
 * 9.9% from the Caribbean
 * 6.6% from South America

Large increases have been seen recently in the number of Africans immigrating to the U.S. This number jumped from 400,000 in 1990 to 700,000 in 2000.



According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2006 American Community Survey, there were 37,547,789 foreign born in the United States, representing 12.5 percent of the total U.S. population. The statistics for foreign born were:
 * White: 45.3%
 * Black or African American: 7.8%
 * Asian: 23.4%
 * Other: 21.6%
 * Two or more races/mixed: 1.2%


 * Children
 * The amount of children (under age 18) in the U.S. who are immigrants equals 3.8%.
 * 15.5% of all the children in the U.S. are born to immigrant parents.
 * In California, 49% of all the children are born to immigrant parents.

Of the 37.5 million foreign born in the U.S. in 2006, 44.1 percent entered the country prior to 1990, 30.5 percent between 1990 and 1999, and 25.3 percent in 200 or later.

Immigration: Documented
Between 1990-2000, the number of legally documented immigrants came from:
 * Asia- 40%
 * Latin America- 24%
 * Europe/Canada- 20%
 * Mexico- 12%

Four out of ten of all undocumented immigrants start out as documented, usually as students or visitors, but stay longer after their visa expires making them undocumented. To learn more about visas see Immigration policy in the U.S. (current)

Immigration: Undocumented
In January 2006, there were an estimated 11.6 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S., a total of 40 percent of the foreign born population. The unauthorized population is estimated to be growing at 515,000 people per year. Undocumented Immigrants: Top Statistics: The highest population growth has been noted to be between 2000 and 2006. The Indian undoucument population has grown an estimated 125%, Brazil is second growing an estimated 110% and Honduras is third growing an estimated 75%.
 * Mexico: 6.6 million (57%)
 * El Salvador: 510,000 (4%)
 * Guatemala: 430,000 (4%)
 * Philippines: 280,000 (2%)
 * Honduras: 280,000 (2%)

The number of undocumented workers varies depending on the source. The graph below shows the statistics from the year 2003 to present time- estimations ranged from 7 million undocument immigrants to 20 million.



(SOURCES: US CENSUS BUREAU, US CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES, PEW HISPANIC CENTER, US BORDER PATROL UNION LOCAL 2544, BEAR STEARNS ASSET MANAGEMENT; RICH CLABAUGH - STAFF)

Immigration: Green Card Holders
A green card is a document obtained by a foreign national who has been granted the right to live and work permanently in the United States.

According to the U.S. Depertment of Homeland Security, the number of people obtaining green cards, or permanent resident status for various years between 1820 and 2007 are :
 * 1820- 8,385
 * 1840- 84,066
 * 1860- 153,640
 * 1880- 457,257
 * 1900- 448,572
 * 1920- 430,001
 * 1940- 70,756
 * 1960- 265,398
 * 1980- 524,295
 * 2000- 841,002
 * 2007- 1,052,415

To get another view on the number of green cards obtained for various years, the information on the number of people obtaining permanent resident status is broken down by region of birth of the individual: For year 1998:
 * Africa- 40,585
 * Asia- 219,371
 * Europe- 90,572
 * North America- 252,503
 * Oceania- 3,922
 * South America- 45,281
 * Unknown- 972
 * Total= 653,206

For year 2002:
 * Africa- 60,101
 * Asia- 340,494
 * Europe- 173,524
 * North America- 402,949
 * Oceania- 5,515
 * South America- 74,151
 * Unknown- 2,622
 * Total= 1,059,356

For year 2007:
 * Africa- 94,711
 * Asia- 383,508
 * Europe- 120,821
 * North America- 339,355
 * Oceania- 6,101
 * South America- 106,525
 * Unknown- 1,394
 * Total= 1,052,415