Immigration to the United States

United States citizenship and immigration
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A welcome notice to new immigrants
Naturalization ceremony at Oakton High School in Fairfax County, Virginia, December 2015
Immigrants to the United States take the Oath of Allegiance at a naturalization ceremony at the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, September 2010.
Population growth rate with and without migration in the U.S.

Immigration to the United States has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of its history. In absolute numbers, the United States has by far the highest number of immigrants in the world, with 50,661,149 people as of 2019.[1][2] This represents 19.1% of the 244 million international migrants worldwide, and 14.4% of the United States' population. In 2018, there were almost 90 million immigrants and U.S.-born children of immigrants in the United States, accounting for 28% of the overall U.S. population.[3]

According to the 2016 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, the United States admitted a total of 1.18 million legal immigrants (618k new arrivals, 565k status adjustments) in 2016.[4] Of these, 48% were the immediate relatives of United States citizens, 20% were family-sponsored, 13% were refugees or asylum seekers, 12% were employment-based preferences, 4.2% were part of the Diversity Immigrant Visa program, 1.4% were victims of a crime (U1) or their family members were (U2 to U5),[5] and 1.0% who were granted the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) for Iraqis and Afghans employed by the United States Government.[4] The remaining 0.4% included small numbers from several other categories, including 0.2% who were granted suspension of deportation as an immediate relative of a citizen (Z13);[6] persons admitted under the Nicaraguan and Central American Relief Act; children born after the issuance of a parent's visa; and certain parolees from the former Soviet Union, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam who were denied refugee status.[4]

Between 1921 and 1965, policies such as the national origins formula limited immigration and naturalization opportunities for people from areas outside Northwestern Europe. Exclusion laws enacted as early as the 1880s generally prohibited or severely restricted immigration from Asia, and quota laws enacted in the 1920s curtailed Southern and Eastern European immigration. The civil rights movement led to the replacement[7] of these ethnic quotas with per-country limits for family-sponsored and employment-based preference visas.[8] Between 1970 and 2007, the number of first-generation immigrants living in the United States quadrupled from 9.6 million to 38.1 million residents.[9][10] Census estimates show 45.3 million foreign born residents in the United States as of March 2018 and 45.4 million in September 2021, the lowest three-year increase in decades.[11]

In 2017, out of the U.S. foreign-born population, some 45% (20.7 million) were naturalized citizens, 27% (12.3 million) were lawful permanent residents, 6% (2.2 million) were temporary lawful residents, and 23% (10.5 million) were unauthorized immigrants.[12] The United States led the world in refugee resettlement for decades, admitting more refugees than the rest of the world combined.[13]

Some research suggests that immigration is beneficial to the United States economy. With few exceptions, the evidence suggests that on average, immigration has positive economic effects on the native population, but it is mixed as to whether low-skilled immigration adversely affects low-skilled natives. Studies also show that immigrants have lower crime rates than natives in the United States.[14][15][16] The economic, social, and political aspects of immigration have caused controversy regarding such issues as maintaining ethnic homogeneity, workers for employers versus jobs for non-immigrants, settlement patterns, impact on upward social mobility, crime, and voting behavior.

  1. ^ "International Migrant Stock 2019 Documentation" (PDF). United Nations. Archived (PDF) from the original on June 5, 2023. Retrieved April 28, 2023.
  2. ^ "UN_MigrantStockTotal_2019". Archived from the original on March 8, 2021. Retrieved April 28, 2023.
  3. ^ "Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States". Migration Policy Institute. March 14, 2019. Archived from the original on February 9, 2021. Retrieved June 21, 2019.
  4. ^ a b c "Table 7. Persons Obtaining Lawful Permanent Resident Status By Type And Detailed Class Of Admission: Fiscal Year 2016–2016 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics". DHS.gov. United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS). December 18, 2017. Archived from the original on April 3, 2020. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
  5. ^ "Green Card for a Victim of a Crime (U Nonimmigrant)". www.uscis.gov. May 23, 2018. Retrieved July 30, 2019.
  6. ^ "INS Class of Admission Codes" (PDF). www.hplct.org. Retrieved July 30, 2019.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference american-gatekeeping was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ "Per Country Limit". U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Archived from the original on January 21, 2016. in 1965.
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference migrationinformation was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference google1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ "Monthly Census Bureau Data Shows Big Increase in Foreign-Born". November 2, 2021. Archived from the original on December 17, 2021. Retrieved December 17, 2021.
  12. ^ "Key findings about U.S. immigrants". Pew Research Center. June 17, 2019. Archived from the original on February 27, 2020. Retrieved April 28, 2023.
  13. ^ Jens Manuel Krogstad (October 7, 2019). "Key facts about refugees to the U.S." Pew Research Center. Archived from the original on October 6, 2021. Retrieved April 28, 2023.
  14. ^ The Integration of Immigrants into American Society. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. doi:10.17226/21746. ISBN 978-0-309-37398-2. Archived from the original on April 2, 2020. Retrieved June 23, 2018. Americans have long believed that immigrants are more likely than natives to commit crimes and that rising immigration leads to rising crime ... This belief is remarkably resilient to the contrary evidence that immigrants are in fact much less likely than natives to commit crimes.
  15. ^ Doleac, Jennifer (February 14, 2017). "Are immigrants more likely to commit crimes?". Econofact. Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Archived from the original on February 16, 2017.
  16. ^ * Graif, Corina; Sampson, Robert J. (July 15, 2009). "Spatial Heterogeneity in the Effects of Immigration and Diversity on Neighborhood Homicide Rates". Homicide Studies. 13 (3): 242–60. doi:10.1177/1088767909336728. ISSN 1088-7679. PMC 2911240. PMID 20671811.