Key Events in the History of U.S. Immigration

 

This graph shows that the population of immigrants in the U.S. has fluctuated over time.  There was a steady increase until the 1910s, when World War I happened.  Europeans were the only major demographic immigrating to the U.S. during the pre-WWI period.  After WWI, national quotas reduced immigrant traffic to the U.S., along with the US Border Patrol, established by Congress in 1924 (Newbold, 168-169).  As we can see from the graph, bureaucratic efforts to reduce immigration were successful, with all ethnic groups showing declines through the 1920s.  Immigrant population bottomed out during the 1930s, as the Great Depression contributed even more to limiting immigration. 

It began to increase again after World War II, with the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1952 (ibid. 169).  This Act gave priority to immigrants with needed job skills and family members of US Citizens.  More significant increases happened once the quotas were lifted in 1965 (ibid. 169).  These quotas had favored white Europeans, which is why we see from the graph other groups starting to increase sharply, especially from the Americas, Asia, and Africa.  As the economy steadily grew during the Postwar period, so did the population of immigrants.  By the 1990s, it had surpassed the population of immigrants in 1910, with far more ethnic diversity compared to the mostly European population of the early century. 

Currently, no other ethnic group has even come close to the record 8 million European immigrants seen in 1910.  However, projections from the graph indicate that Asian and American hemisphere immigrants may surpass 8 million in the coming decades.  This trend relies on laws maintaining course through the Trump era, which seems unlikely at this point.