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Immigration history and the history of the United States are completely intertwined.  Following the 'discovery' of the New World by Columbus in 1492, early explorers and other settlers began coming to America.   The earliest permanent settlements in what is now the United States were the American colonies at St. Augustine, Florida (1565), Jamestown, Virginia (1607), and at Plymouth, Massachusetts (1620).  

Before the era of rapid communications and transportation, America encouraged relatively open immigration to settle its empty lands. After certain states passed immigration laws following the Civil War, the Supreme Court in 1875 declared the regulation of immigration a federal responsibility. The Immigration Service was established in 1891 to deal with the big increase in immigration which started in 1880.

The century following 1820 can be divided into 3 great periods of immigration, or "waves." These three have  immigrants coming from primarily three different regions:
1820-1860 - Great Britain, Ireland, and Western Germany.
1860-1890 - The above countries continued to provide, as well as Scandinavian Nations.
1890-1910 - The majority was Austria, Hungary, Italy, and Russia, up until World War 1.

From 1905 until 1914, an average of more than a million aliens entered the U.S. yearly. The outbreak of World
War I reduced immigration from Europe, but mass immigration resumed upon the war's conclusion, and Congress responded with a new immigration policy: the national-origins quota system, passed in 1921 and revised in 1924. Immigration was limited by assigning each nationality a quota based on its representation in past U.S. census figures. Also in 1924, Congress created the U.S. Border Patrol within the Immigration Service.

In 1965, Congress replaced the national origins system with a preference system designed to unite immigrant families and attract skilled immigrants to the United States. This change to national policy responded to changes in the sources of immigration since 1924. The majority of applicants for immigration visas now came from Asia and Latin America rather than Europe. The preference system continued to limit the number of immigration visas available each year, however, and Congress still responded to refugees with special legislation. Not until the Refugee Act of 1980 did the United States have a general policy governing the admission of refugees.

Legal immigration alone in the 1990s likely matched or exceeded the previous historical peak decade of 1901-1910, when 8.8 million legal immigrants were admitted. Adding the settlement of illegal aliens makes the 1990s without doubt the period of greatest immigration in America's history.

1.     Immigration and Naturalization Service: Immigration History

2.     Immigration and Naturalization Service: Immigration Legislation, 1790-1900

3.     Gilder Lehrman History Online: Landmarks in Immigration History

4.     FAIR: History of Immigration Legislation

5.    Peaks/Waves of Immigration

6.    Who were/are the immigrants to the U.S.?

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