Immigration to the United States

thumb|Legal immigration to the United States over time

thumb|Welcome notice to new immigrants

Immigration has been a major source of population growth and cultural change in the United States throughout much of its history. As of January 2025, the United States has the largest immigrant population in the world in absolute terms, with 53.3 million foreign-born residents, representing 15.8% of the total U.S. population—both record highs. While the United States represented about 4% of the total global population in 2024, 17% of all international migrants resided in the United States. In March 2025, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimated that approximately 18.6 million illegal immigrants resided in the United States. In 2024, immigrants and their U.S.-born children number more than 93 million people, or 28% of the total U.S. population. 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), and 1.0% who were granted the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) for Iraqis and Afghans employed by the United States Government. 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. 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.

thumb|[[Naturalization ceremony at Oakton High School in Fairfax County, Virginia, December 2015]]

thumb|Immigrants to the United States take the [[Oath of Allegiance (United States)|Oath of Allegiance at a naturalization ceremony at the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, September 2010.]]

thumb|Population growth rate with and without migration in the U.S.

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 unlawful residents. The United States led the world in refugee resettlement for decades, admitting more refugees than the rest of the world combined.

Causes of migration include poverty, crime, 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.

History

thumb|An 1887 illustration of immigrants on an ocean steamer passing the [[Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor]]

Due to its history the United States can be described as an immigration country. American immigration history can be viewed in four epochs: the colonial period, the mid-19th century, the start of the 20th century, and post-1965. Each period brought distinct national groups, races, and ethnicities to the United States.

Colonial period

During the 17th century, more than 170,000 English people migrated to the modern United States. From 1700 to 1775, between 350,000 and 500,000 Europeans immigrated: estimates vary in sources. Regarding English settlers of the 18th century, one source says 52,000 English migrated during the period of 1701 to 1775, although this figure is likely too low. 400,000–450,000 of the 18th-century migrants were Scots, Scots-Irish from Ulster, Germans, Swiss, and French Huguenots. Over half of all European immigrants to Colonial America during the 17th and 18th centuries arrived as indentured servants. From 1770 to 1775 (the latter year being when the American Revolutionary War began), 7,000 English, 15,000 Scots, 13,200 Scots-Irish, 5,200 Germans, and 3,900 Irish Catholics migrated to the Thirteen Colonies. According to Butler (2000), up to half of English migrants in the 18th century may have been young, single men who were well-skilled, trained artisans, like the Huguenots. Based on scholarly analysis, English was the largest single ancestry in all U.S. states at the time of the first census in 1790, ranging from a high of 82% in Massachusetts to a low of 35.3% in Pennsylvania, where Germans accounted for 33.3%.

Origins of immigrant stock in 1790

The Census Bureau published preliminary estimates of the origins of the colonial American population by scholarly classification of the names of all White heads of families recorded in the 1790 census in a 1909 report entitled A Century of Population Growth.

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:left"

! colspan="1" rowspan="2" style="text-align:center; background-color:#C8E5EE;" |State or Territory|| colspan="2" style="text-align:center; background-color:#C8E5EE;" |English|| colspan="2" style="text-align:center; background-color:#C8E5EE;" |Scotch|| colspan="2" style="text-align:center; background-color:#C8E5EE;" |Scotch-Irish|| colspan="2" style="text-align:center; background-color:#C8E5EE;" |Irish|| colspan="2" style="text-align:center; background-color:#C8E5EE;" |German|| colspan="2" style="text-align:center; background-color:#C8E5EE;" |Dutch|| colspan="2" style="text-align:center; background-color:#C8E5EE;" |French|| colspan="2" style="text-align:center; background-color:#C8E5EE;" |Swedish|| colspan="2" style="text-align:center; background-color:#C8E5EE;" |Spanish|| colspan="2" style="text-align:center; background-color:#C8E5EE;" |Other|| colspan="1" rowspan="2" style="text-align:center; background-color:#C8E5EE;" |Total