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Eight brilliant student essays on immigration and unjust assumptions.

Read winning essays from our winter 2019 “Border (In)Security” student writing contest.

For the winter 2019 student writing competition, “Border (In)Security,” we invited students to read the YES! Magazine article “Two-Thirds of Americans Live in the “Constitution-Free Zone” by Lornet Turnbull and respond with an up-to-700-word essay. 

Students had a choice between two writing prompts for this contest on immigration policies at the border and in the “Constitution-free zone,” a 100-mile perimeter from land and sea borders where U.S. Border Patrol can search any vehicle, bus, or vessel without a warrant. They could state their positions on the impact of immigration policies on our country’s security and how we determine who is welcome to live here. Or they could write about a time when someone made an unfair assumption about them, just as Border Patrol agents have made warrantless searches of Greyhound passengers based simply on race and clothing.

The Winners

From the hundreds of essays written, these eight were chosen as winners. Be sure to read the author’s response to the essay winners and the literary gems that caught our eye.

Middle School Winner: Alessandra Serafini

High School Winner: Cain Trevino

High School Winner: Ethan Peter

University Winner: Daniel Fries

Powerful Voice Winner: Emma Hernandez-Sanchez

Powerful Voice Winner: Tiara Lewis

Powerful Voice Winner: Hailee Park

Powerful Voice Winner: Aminata Toure

From the Author Lornet Turnbull

Literary Gems

Middle school winner.

Alessandra Serafini

Brier Terrace Middle School, Brier, Wash.

Broken Promises

“…Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

These words were written by Emma Lazarus and are inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty. And yet, the very door they talk about is no longer available to those who need it the most. The door has been shut, chained, and guarded. It no longer shines like gold. Those seeking asylum are being turned away. Families are being split up; children are being stranded. The promise America made to those in need is broken.

Not only is the promise to asylum seekers broken, but the promises made to some 200 million people already residing within the U.S. are broken, too. Anyone within 100 miles of the United States border lives in the “Constitution-free zone” and can be searched with “reasonable suspicion,” a suspicion that is determined by Border Patrol officers. The zone encompasses major cities, such as Seattle and New York City, and it even covers entire states, such as Florida, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. I live in the Seattle area, and it is unsettling that I can be searched and interrogated without the usual warrant. In these areas, there has been an abuse of power; people have been unlawfully searched and interrogated because of assumed race or religion.

The ACLU obtained data from the Customs and Border Protection Agency that demonstrate this reprehensible profiling. The data found that “82 percent of foreign citizens stopped by agents in that state are Latino, and almost 1 in 3 of those processed are, in fact, U.S. citizens.” These warrantless searches impede the trust-building process and communication between the local population and law enforcement officers. Unfortunately, this lack of trust makes campaigns, such as Homeland Security’s “If You See Something, Say Something,” ineffective due to the actions of the department’s own members and officers. Worst of all, profiling ostracizes entire communities and makes them feel unsafe in their own country.

Ironically, asylum seekers come to America in search of safety. However, the thin veil of safety has been drawn back, and, behind it, our tarnished colors are visible. We need to welcome people in their darkest hours rather than destroy their last bit of hope by slamming the door in their faces. The immigration process is currently in shambles, and an effective process is essential for both those already in the country and those outside of it. Many asylum seekers are running from war, poverty, hunger, and death. Their countries’ instability has hijacked every aspect of their lives, made them vagabonds, and the possibility of death, a cruel and unforgiving death, is real. They see no future for their children, and they are desperate for the perceived promise of America—a promise of opportunity, freedom, and a safe future. An effective process would determine who actually needs help and then grant them passage into America. Why should everyone be turned away? My grandmother immigrated to America from Scotland in 1955. I exist because she had a chance that others are now being denied.

Emma Lazarus named Lady Liberty the “Mother of Exiles.” Why are we denying her the happiness of children? Because we cannot decide which ones? America has an inexplicable area where our constitution has been spurned and forgotten. Additionally, there is a rancorous movement to close our southern border because of a deep-rooted fear of immigrants and what they represent. For too many Americans, they represent the end of established power and white supremacy, which is their worst nightmare. In fact, immigrants do represent change—healthy change—with new ideas and new energy that will help make this country stronger. Governmental agreement on a humane security plan is critical to ensure that America reaches its full potential. We can help. We can help people in unimaginably terrifying situations, and that should be our America.

Alessandra Serafini plays on a national soccer team for Seattle United and is learning American Sign Language outside of school. Her goal is to spread awareness about issues such as climate change, poverty, and large-scale political conflict through writing and public speaking.

  High School Winner

Cain Trevino

North Side High School, Fort Worth, Texas

Xenophobia and the Constitution-Free Zone

In August of 2017, U.S. Border Patrol agents boarded a Greyhound bus that had just arrived at the White River Junction station from Boston. According to Danielle Bonadona, a Lebanon resident and a bus passenger, “They wouldn’t let us get off. They boarded the bus and told us they needed to see our IDs or papers.” Bonadona, a 29-year-old American citizen, said that the agents spent around 20 minutes on the bus and “only checked the IDs of people who had accents or were not white.” Bonadona said she was aware of the 100-mile rule, but the experience of being stopped and searched felt “pretty unconstitutional.”

In the YES! article “Two-Thirds of Americans Live in the ‘Constitution-Free Zone’” by Lornet Turnbull, the author references the ACLU’s argument that “the 100-mile zone violates Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.” However, the Supreme Court upholds the use of immigration checkpoints for inquiries on citizenship status. In my view, the ACLU makes a reasonable argument. The laws of the 100-mile zone are blurred, and, too often, officials give arbitrary reasons to conduct a search. Xenophobia and fear of immigrants burgeons in cities within these areas. People of color and those with accents or who are non-English speakers are profiled by law enforcement agencies that enforce anti-immigrant policies. The “Constitution-free zone” is portrayed as an effective barrier to secure our borders. However, this anti-immigrant zone does not make our country any safer. In fact, it does the opposite.

As a former student from the Houston area, I can tell you that the Constitution-free zone makes immigrants and citizens alike feel on edge. The Department of Homeland Security’s white SUVs patrol our streets. Even students feel the weight of anti-immigrant laws. Dennis Rivera Sarmiento, an undocumented student who attended Austin High School in Houston, was held by school police in February 2018 for a minor altercation and was handed over to county police. He was later picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and held in a detention center. It is unfair that kids like Dennis face much harsher consequences for minor incidents than other students with citizenship.

These instances are a direct result of anti-immigrant laws. For example, the 287(g) program gives local and state police the authority to share individuals’ information with ICE after an arrest. This means that immigrants can be deported for committing misdemeanors as minor as running a red light. Other laws like Senate Bill 4, passed by the Texas Legislature, allow police to ask people about their immigration status after they are detained. These policies make immigrants and people of color feel like they’re always under surveillance and that, at any moment, they may be pulled over to be questioned and detained.

During Hurricane Harvey, the immigrant community was hesitant to go to the shelters because images of immigration authorities patrolling the area began to surface online. It made them feel like their own city was against them at a time when they needed them most. Constitution-free zones create communities of fear. For many immigrants, the danger of being questioned about immigration status prevents them from reporting crimes, even when they are the victim. Unreported crime only places more groups of people at risk and, overall, makes communities less safe.

In order to create a humane immigration process, citizens and non-citizens must hold policymakers accountable and get rid of discriminatory laws like 287(g) and Senate Bill 4. Abolishing the Constitution-free zone will also require pressure from the public and many organizations. For a more streamlined legal process, the League of United Latin American Citizens suggests background checks and a small application fee for incoming immigrants, as well as permanent resident status for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients. Other organizations propose expanding the green card lottery and asylum for immigrants escaping the dangers of their home countries.

Immigrants who come to the U.S. are only looking for an opportunity to provide for their families and themselves; so, the question of deciding who gets inside the border and who doesn’t is the same as trying to prove some people are worth more than others. The narratives created by anti-immigrant media plant the false idea that immigrants bring nothing but crime and terrorism. Increased funding for the border and enforcing laws like 287(g) empower anti-immigrant groups to vilify immigrants and promote a witch hunt that targets innocent people. This hatred and xenophobia allow law enforcement to ask any person of color or non-native English speaker about their citizenship or to detain a teenager for a minor incident. Getting rid of the 100-mile zone means standing up for justice and freedom because nobody, regardless of citizenship, should have to live under laws created from fear and hatred.

Cain Trevino is a sophomore. Cain is proud of his Mexican and Salvadorian descent and is an advocate for the implementation of Ethnic Studies in Texas. He enjoys basketball, playing the violin, and studying c omputer science. Cain plans to pursue a career in engineering at Stanford University and later earn a PhD.  

High School Winner

Ethan Peter

Kirkwood High School, Kirkwood, Mo.

I’m an expert on bussing. For the past couple of months, I’ve been a busser at a pizza restaurant near my house. It may not be the most glamorous job, but it pays all right, and, I’ll admit, I’m in it for the money.

I arrive at 5 p.m. and inspect the restaurant to ensure it is in pristine condition for the 6 p.m. wave of guests. As customers come and go, I pick up their dirty dishes, wash off their tables, and reset them for the next guests. For the first hour of my shift, the work is fairly straightforward.

I met another expert on bussing while crossing the border in a church van two years ago. Our van arrived at the border checkpoint, and an agent stopped us. She read our passports, let us through, and moved on to her next vehicle. The Border Patrol agent’s job seemed fairly straightforward.

At the restaurant, 6 p.m. means a rush of customers. It’s the end of the workday, and these folks are hungry for our pizzas and salads. My job is no longer straightforward.

Throughout the frenzy, the TVs in the restaurant buzz about waves of people coming to the U.S. border. The peaceful ebb and flow enjoyed by Border agents is disrupted by intense surges of immigrants who seek to enter the U.S. Outside forces push immigrants to the United States: wars break out in the Middle East, gangs terrorize parts of Central and South America, and economic downturns force foreigners to look to the U.S., drawn by the promise of opportunity. Refugees and migrant caravans arrive, and suddenly, a Border Patrol agent’s job is no longer straightforward.

I turn from the TVs in anticipation of a crisis exploding inside the restaurant: crowds that arrive together will leave together. I’ve learned that when a table looks finished with their dishes, I need to proactively ask to take those dishes, otherwise, I will fall behind, and the tables won’t be ready for the next customers. The challenge is judging who is finished eating. I’m forced to read clues and use my discretion.

Interpreting clues is part of a Border Patrol agent’s job, too. Lornet Turnbull states, “For example, CBP data obtained by ACLU in Michigan shows that 82 percent of foreign citizens stopped by agents in that state are Latino, and almost 1 in 3 of those processed is, in fact, a U.S. citizen.” While I try to spot customers done with their meals so I can clear their part of the table, the Border Patrol officer uses clues to detect undocumented immigrants. We both sometimes guess incorrectly, but our intentions are to do our jobs to the best of our abilities.

These situations are uncomfortable. I certainly do not enjoy interrupting a conversation to get someone’s dishes, and I doubt Border Patrol agents enjoy interrogating someone about their immigration status. In both situations, the people we mistakenly ask lose time and are subjected to awkward and uncomfortable situations. However, here’s where the busser and the Border Patrol officer’s situations are different: If I make a mistake, the customer faces a minor inconvenience. The stakes for a Border Patrol agent are much higher. Mistakenly asking for documentation and searching someone can lead to embarrassment or fear—it can even be life-changing. Thus, Border Patrol agents must be fairly certain that someone’s immigration status is questionable before they begin their interrogation.

To avoid these situations altogether, the U.S. must make the path to citizenship for immigrants easier. This is particularly true for immigrants fleeing violence. Many people object to this by saying these immigrants will bring violence with them, but data does not support this view. In 1939, a ship of Jewish refugees from Germany was turned away from the U.S.—a decision viewed negatively through the lens of history. Today, many people advocate restricting immigration for refugees from violent countries; they refuse to learn the lessons from 1939. The sad thing is that many of these immigrants are seen as just as violent as the people they are fleeing. We should not confuse the oppressed with the oppressor.

My restaurant appreciates customers because they bring us money, just as we should appreciate immigrants because they bring us unique perspectives. Equally important, immigrants provide this country with a variety of expert ideas and cultures, which builds better human connections and strengthens our society.

Ethan Peter is a junior. Ethan writes for his school newspaper, The Kirkwood Call, and plays volleyball for his high school and a club team. He hopes to continue to grow as a writer in the future. 

University Winner

Daniel Fries

Lane Community College, Eugene, Ore.

Detained on the Road to Equality

The United States is a nation of immigrants. There are currently 43 million foreign-born people living in the U.S. Millions of them are naturalized American citizens, and 23 million, or 7.2 percent of the population, are living here without documentation (US Census, 2016). One in seven residents of the United States was not born here. Multiculturalism is, and always has been, a key part of the American experience. However, romantic notions of finding a better life in the United States for immigrants and refugees don’t reflect reality. In modern history, America is a country that systematically treats immigrants—documented or not—and non-white Americans in a way that is fundamentally different than what is considered right by the majority.

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment states,“No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” When a suspected undocumented immigrant is detained, their basic human rights are violated. Warrantless raids on Greyhound buses within 100 miles of the border (an area referred to by some as the “Constitution-free zone”) are clear violations of human rights. These violations are not due to the current state of politics; they are the symptom of blatant racism in the United States and a system that denigrates and abuses people least able to defend themselves.

It is not surprising that some of the mechanisms that drive modern American racism are political in nature. Human beings are predisposed to dislike and distrust individuals that do not conform to the norms of their social group (Mountz, Allison). Some politicians appeal to this suspicion and wrongly attribute high crime rates to non-white immigrants. The truth is that immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans. In fact, people born in the United States are convicted of crimes at a rate twice that of undocumented non-natives (Cato Institute, 2018).

The majority of immigrants take high risks to seek a better life, giving them incentive to obey the laws of their new country. In many states, any contact with law enforcement may ultimately result in deportation and separation from family. While immigrants commit far fewer crimes, fear of violent crime by much of the U.S. population outweighs the truth. For some politicians, it is easier to sell a border wall to a scared population than it is to explain the need for reformed immigration policy. It’s easier to say that immigrants are taking people’s jobs than explain a changing global economy and its effect on employment. The only crime committed in this instance is discrimination.

Human rights are violated when an undocumented immigrant—or someone perceived as an undocumented immigrant—who has not committed a crime is detained on a Greyhound bus. When a United States citizen is detained on the same bus, constitutional rights are being violated. The fact that this happens every day and that we debate its morality makes it abundantly clear that racism is deeply ingrained in this country. Many Americans who have never experienced this type of oppression lack the capacity to understand its lasting effect. Most Americans don’t know what it’s like to be late to work because they were wrongfully detained, were pulled over by the police for the third time that month for no legal reason, or had to coordinate legal representation for their U.S. citizen grandmother because she was taken off a bus for being a suspected undocumented immigrant. This oppression is cruel and unnecessary.

America doesn’t need a wall to keep out undocumented immigrants; it needs to seriously address how to deal with immigration. It is possible to reform the current system in such a way that anyone can become a member of American society, instead of existing outside of it. If a person wants to live in the United States and agrees to follow its laws and pay its taxes, a path to citizenship should be available.

People come to the U.S. from all over the world for many reasons. Some have no other choice. There are ongoing humanitarian crises in Syria, Yemen, and South America that are responsible for the influx of immigrants and asylum seekers at our borders. If the United States wants to address the current situation, it must acknowledge the global factors affecting the immigrants at the center of this debate and make fact-informed decisions. There is a way to maintain the security of America while treating migrants and refugees compassionately, to let those who wish to contribute to our society do so, and to offer a hand up instead of building a wall.

Daniel Fries studies computer science. Daniel has served as a wildland firefighter in Oregon, California, and Alaska. He is passionate about science, nature, and the ways that technology contributes to making the world a better, more empathetic, and safer place.

Powerful Voice Winner

Emma Hernandez-Sanchez

Wellness, Business and Sports School, Woodburn, Ore.

An Emotion an Immigrant Knows Too Well

Before Donald Trump’s campaign, I was oblivious to my race and the idea of racism. As far as I knew, I was the same as everyone else. I didn’t stop to think about our different-colored skins. I lived in a house with a family and attended school five days a week just like everyone else. So, what made me different?

Seventh grade was a very stressful year—the year that race and racism made an appearance in my life. It was as if a cold splash of water woke me up and finally opened my eyes to what the world was saying. It was this year that Donald Trump started initiating change about who got the right to live in this country and who didn’t. There was a lot of talk about deportation, specifically for Mexicans, and it sparked commotion and fear in me.

I remember being afraid and nervous to go out. At home, the anxiety was there but always at the far back of my mind because I felt safe inside. My fear began as a small whisper, but every time I stepped out of my house, it got louder. I would have dreams about the deportation police coming to my school; when I went to places like the library, the park, the store, or the mall, I would pay attention to everyone and to my surroundings. In my head, I would always ask myself, “Did they give us nasty looks?,” “Why does it seem quieter?” “Was that a cop I just saw?” I would notice little things, like how there were only a few Mexicans out or how empty a store was. When my mom went grocery shopping, I would pray that she would be safe. I was born in America, and both my parents were legally documented. My mom was basically raised here. Still, I couldn’t help but feel nervous.

I knew I shouldn’t have been afraid, but with one look, agents could have automatically thought my family and I were undocumented. Even when the deportation police would figure out that we weren’t undocumented, they’d still figure out a way to deport us—at least that was what was going through my head. It got so bad that I didn’t even want to do the simplest things like go grocery shopping because there was a rumor that the week before a person was taken from Walmart.

I felt scared and nervous, and I wasn’t even undocumented. I can’t even imagine how people who are undocumented must have felt, how they feel. All I can think is that it’s probably ten times worse than what I was feeling. Always worrying about being deported and separated from your family must be hard. I was living in fear, and I didn’t even have it that bad. My heart goes out to families that get separated from each other. It’s because of those fears that I detest the “Constitution-free zone.”

Legally documented and undocumented people who live in the Constitution-free zone are in constant fear of being deported. People shouldn’t have to live this way. In fact, there have been arguments that the 100-mile zone violates the Fourth Amendment, which gives people the right to be protected from unreasonable searches and seizures of property by the government. Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently upheld these practices.

One question that Lornet Turnbull asks in her YES! article “Two-Thirds of Americans Live in the ‘Constitution-Free Zone’” is, “How should we decide who is welcome in the U.S and who is not?” Instead of focusing on immigrants, how about we focus on the people who shoot up schools, rape girls, exploit women for human sex trafficking, and sell drugs? These are the people who make our country unsafe; they are the ones who shouldn’t be accepted. Even if they are citizens and have the legal right to live here, they still shouldn’t be included. If they are the ones making this country unsafe, then what gives them the right to live here?

I don’t think that the Constitution-free zone is an effective and justifiable way to make this country more “secure.” If someone isn’t causing any trouble in the United States and is just simply living their life, then they should be welcomed here. We shouldn’t have to live in fear that our rights will be taken away. I believe that it’s unfair for people to automatically think that it’s the Hispanics that make this country unsafe. Sure, get all the undocumented people out of the United States, but it’s not going to make this country any safer. It is a society that promotes violence that makes us unsafe, not a race.

Emma Hernandez-Sanchez is a freshman who is passionate about literature and her education. Emma wan ts to inspire others to be creative and try their best. She enjoys reading and creating stories that spark imagination. 

  Powerful Voice Winner

Tiara Lewis

Columbus City Preparatory Schools for Girls,

Columbus, Ohio

Hold Your Head High and Keep Those Fists Down

How would you feel if you walked into a store and salespeople were staring at you? Making you feel like you didn’t belong. Judging you. Assuming that you were going to take something, even though you might have $1,000 on you to spend. Sometimes it doesn’t matter. This is because people will always judge you. It might not be because of your race but for random reasons, like because your hair is black instead of dirty blonde. Or because your hair is short and not long. Or just because they are having a bad day. People will always find ways to bring you down and accuse you of something, but that doesn’t mean you have to go along with it.

Every time I entered a store, I would change my entire personality. I would change the way I talked and the way I walked. I always saw myself as needing to fit in. If a store was all pink, like the store Justice, I would act like a girly girl. If I was shopping in a darker store, like Hot Topic, I would hum to the heavy metal songs and act more goth. I had no idea that I was feeding into stereotypes.

When I was 11, I walked into Claire’s, a well-known store at the mall. That day was my sister’s birthday. Both of us were really happy and had money to spend. As soon as we walked into the store, two employees stared me and my sister down, giving us cold looks. When we went to the cashier to buy some earrings, we thought everything was fine. However, when we walked out of the store, there was a policeman and security guards waiting. At that moment, my sister and I looked at one another, and I said, in a scared little girl voice, “I wonder what happened? Why are they here?”

Then, they stopped us. We didn’t know what was going on. The same employee that cashed us out was screaming as her eyes got big, “What did you steal?” I was starting to get numb. Me and my sister looked at each other and told the truth: “We didn’t steal anything. You can check us.” They rudely ripped through our bags and caused a big scene. My heart was pounding like a drum. I felt violated and scared. Then, the policeman said, “Come with us. We need to call your parents.” While this was happening, the employees were talking to each other, smiling. We got checked again. The police said that they were going to check the cameras, but after they were done searching us, they realized that we didn’t do anything wrong and let us go about our day.

Walking in the mall was embarrassing—everybody staring, looking, and whispering as we left the security office. This made me feel like I did something wrong while knowing I didn’t. We went back to the store to get our shopping bags. The employees sneered, “Don’t you niggers ever come in this store again. You people always take stuff. This time you just got lucky.” Their faces were red and frightening. It was almost like they were in a scary 3D movie, screaming, and coming right at us. I felt hurt and disappointed that someone had the power within them to say something so harsh and wrong to another person. Those employees’ exact words will forever be engraved in my memory.

In the article, “Two-Thirds of Americans Live in the ‘Constitution-Free Zone’,” Lornet Turnbull states, “In January, they stopped a man in Indio, California, as he was boarding a Los Angeles-bound bus. While questioning this man about his immigration status, agents told him his ‘shoes looked suspicious,’ like those of someone who had recently crossed the border.” They literally judged him by his shoes. They had no proof of anything. If a man is judged by his shoes, who else and what else are being judged in the world?

In the novel  To Kill a Mockingbird , a character named Atticus states, “You just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don’t you let’em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change.” No matter how much you might try to change yourself, your hairstyle, and your clothes, people will always make assumptions about you. However, you never need to change yourself to make a point or to feel like you fit in. Be yourself. Don’t let those stereotypes turn into facts.

Tiara Lewis is in the eighth grade. Tiara plays the clarinet and is trying to change the world— one essay at a time. She is most often found curled up on her bed, “Divergent” in one hand and a cream-filled doughnut in the other.

Hailee Park

 Wielding My Swords

If I were a swordsman, my weapons would be my identities. I would wield one sword in my left hand and another in my right. People expect me to use both fluently, but I’m not naturally ambidextrous. Even though I am a right-handed swordsman, wielding my dominant sword with ease, I must also carry a sword in my left, the heirloom of my family heritage. Although I try to live up to others’ expectations by using both swords, I may appear inexperienced while attempting to use my left. In some instances, my heirloom is mistaken for representing different families’ since the embellishments look similar.

Many assumptions are made about my heirloom sword based on its appearance, just as many assumptions are made about me based on my physical looks. “Are you Chinese?” When I respond with ‘no,’ they stare at me blankly in confusion. There is a multitude of Asian cultures in the United States, of which I am one. Despite what many others may assume, I am not Chinese; I am an American-born Korean.

“Then… are you Japanese?” Instead of asking a broader question, like “What is your ethnicity?,” they choose to ask a direct question. I reply that I am Korean. I like to think that this answers their question sufficiently; however, they think otherwise. Instead, I take this as their invitation to a duel.

They attack me with another question: “Are you from North Korea or South Korea?” I don’t know how to respond because I’m not from either of those countries; I was born in America. I respond with “South Korea,” where my parents are from because I assume that they’re asking me about my ethnicity. I’m not offended by this situation because I get asked these questions frequently. From this experience, I realize that people don’t know how to politely ask questions about identity to those unlike them. Instead of asking “What is your family’s ethnicity?,” many people use rude alternatives, such as “Where are you from?,” or “What language do you speak?”

When people ask these questions, they make assumptions based on someone’s appearance. In my case, people make inferences like:

“She must be really good at speaking Korean.”

“She’s Asian; therefore, she must be born in Asia.”

“She’s probably Chinese.”

These thoughts may appear in their heads because making assumptions is natural. However, there are instances when assumptions can be taken too far. Some U.S. Border Patrol agents in the “Constitution-free zone” have made similar assumptions based on skin color and clothing. For example, agents marked someone as an undocumented immigrant because “his shoes looked suspicious, like those of someone who had recently crossed the border.”

Another instance was when a Jamaican grandmother was forced off a bus when she was visiting her granddaughter. The impetus was her accent and the color of her skin. Government officials chose to act on their assumptions, even though they had no solid proof that the grandmother was an undocumented immigrant. These situations just touch the surface of the issue of racial injustice in America.

When someone makes unfair assumptions about me, they are pointing their sword and challenging me to a duel; I cannot refuse because I am already involved. It is not appropriate for anyone, including Border Patrol agents, to make unjustified assumptions or to act on those assumptions. Border Patrol agents have no right to confiscate the swords of the innocent solely based on their conjectures. The next time I’m faced with a situation where racially ignorant assumptions are made about me, I will refuse to surrender my sword, point it back at them, and triumphantly fight their ignorance with my cultural pride.

Hailee Park is an eighth grader who enjoys reading many genres. While reading, Hailee recognized the racial injustices against immigrants in America, which inspired her essay. Hailee plays violin in her school’s orchestra and listens to and composes music. 

Aminata Toure

East Harlem School, New York City, N.Y.

We Are Still Dreaming

As a young Muslim American woman, I have been labeled things I am not: a terrorist, oppressed, and an ISIS supporter. I have been accused of planning 9/11, an event that happened before I was born. Lately, in the media, Muslims have been portrayed as supporters of a malevolent cause, terrorizing others just because they do not have the same beliefs. I often scoff at news reports that portray Muslims in such a light, just as I scoff at all names I’ve been labeled. They are words that do not define me. 

In a land where labels have stripped immigrants of their personalities, they are now being stripped of something that makes them human: their rights. The situation described in Lornet Turnbull’s article, “Two-Thirds of Americans are Living in the ‘Constitution-Free Zone’,” goes directly against the Constitution, the soul of this country, something that asserts that we are all equal before the law. If immigrants do not have protection from the Constitution, is there any way to feel safe?

Although most insults are easy to shrug off, they are still threatening. I am ashamed when I feel afraid to go to the mosque. Friday is an extremely special day when we gather together to pray, but lately, I haven’t been going to the mosque for Jummah prayers. I have realized that I can never feel safe when in a large group of Muslims because of the widespread hatred of Muslims in the United States, commonly referred to as Islamophobia. Police surround our mosque, and there are posters warning us about dangerous people who might attack our place of worship because we have been identified as terrorists.

I wish I could tune out every news report that blasts out the headline “Terrorist Attack!” because I know that I will be judged based on the actions of someone else. Despite this anti-Muslim racism, what I have learned from these insults is that I am proud of my faith. I am a Muslim, but being Muslim doesn’t define me. I am a writer, a student, a dreamer, a friend, a New Yorker, a helper, and an American. I am unapologetically me, a Muslim, and so much more. I definitely think everyone should get to know a Muslim. They would see that some of us are also Harry Potter fans, not just people planning to bomb the White House.

Labels are unjustly placed on us because of the way we speak, the color of our skin, and what we believe in—not for who we are as individuals. Instead, we should all take more time to get to know one another. As Martin Luther King Jr. said in his “I Have a Dream” speech, we should be judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin. To me, it seems Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream is a dream that should be a reality. But, for now, we are dreaming.

Aminata Toure is a Guinean American Muslim student. Aminata loves spoken-word poetry and performs in front of hundreds of people at her school’s annual poetry slam. She loves writing, language, history, and West African food and culture. Aminata wants to work at the United Nations when she grows up.

From the Author 

Dear Alessandra, Cain, Daniel, Tiara, Emma, Hailee, Aminata and Ethan,

I am moved and inspired by the thought each of you put into your responses to my story about this so-called “Constitution-free zone.” Whether we realize it or not, immigration in this country impacts all of us— either because we are immigrants ourselves, have neighbors, friends, and family who are, or because we depend on immigrants for many aspects of our lives—from the food we put on our tables to the technology that bewitches us. It is true that immigrants enrich our society in so many important ways, as many of you point out.

And while the federal statute that permits U.S. Border Patrol officers to stop and search at will any of the 200 million of us in this 100-mile shadow border, immigrants have been their biggest targets. In your essays, you highlight how unjust the law is—nothing short of racial profiling. It is heartening to see each of you, in your own way, speaking out against the unfairness of this practice.

Alessandra, you are correct, the immigration system in this country is in shambles. You make a powerful argument about how profiling ostracizes entire communities and how the warrantless searches allowed by this statute impede trust-building between law enforcement and the people they are called on to serve.

And Cain, you point out how this 100-mile zone, along with other laws in the state of Texas where you attended school, make people feel like they’re “always under surveillance, and that, at any moment, you may be pulled over to be questioned and detained.” It seems unimaginable that people live their lives this way, yet millions in this country do.

You, Emma, for example, speak of living in a kind of silent fear since Donald Trump took office, even though you were born in this country and your parents are here legally. You are right, “We shouldn’t have to live in fear that our rights will be taken away.”

And Aminata, you write of being constantly judged and labeled because you’re a Muslim American. How unfortunate and sad that in a country that generations of people fled to search for religious freedom, you are ashamed at times to practice your own. The Constitution-free zone, you write, “goes directly against the Constitution, the soul of this country, something that asserts that we are all equal before the law.”

Tiara, I could personally relate to your gripping account of being racially profiled and humiliated in a store. You were appalled that the Greyhound passenger in California was targeted by Border Patrol because they claimed his shoes looked like those of someone who had walked across the border: “If a man is judged by his shoes,” you ask, “who else and what else are getting judged in the world?”

Hailee, you write about the incorrect assumptions people make about you, an American born of Korean descent, based solely on your appearance and compared it to the assumptions Border Patrol agents make about those they detain in this zone.

Daniel, you speak of the role of political fearmongering in immigration. It’s not new, but under the current administration, turning immigrants into boogiemen for political gain is currency. You write that “For some politicians, it is easier to sell a border wall to a scared population than it is to explain the need for reformed immigration policy.”

And Ethan, you recognize the contributions immigrants make to this country through the connections we all make with them and the strength they bring to our society.

Keep speaking your truth. Use your words and status to call out injustice wherever and whenever you see it. Untold numbers of people spoke out against this practice by Border Patrol and brought pressure on Greyhound to change. In December, the company began offering passengers written guidance—in both Spanish and English—so they understand what their rights are when officers board their bus. Small steps, yes, but progress nonetheless, brought about by people just like you, speaking up for those who sometimes lack a voice to speak up for themselves.

With sincere gratitude,

Lornet Turnbull

Lornet Turnbull is an editor for YES! and a Seattle-based freelance writer. Follow her on Twitter  @TurnbullL .

We received many outstanding essays for the Winter 2019 Student Writing Competition. Though not every participant can win the contest, we’d like to share some excerpts that caught our eye:

After my parents argued with the woman, they told me if you can fight with fists, you prove the other person’s point, but when you fight with the power of your words, you can have a much bigger impact. I also learned that I should never be ashamed of where I am from. —Fernando Flores, The East Harlem School, New York City, N.Y.

Just because we were born here and are privileged to the freedom of our country, we do not have the right to deprive others of a chance at success. —Avalyn Cox, Brier Terrace Middle School, Brier, Wash.

Maybe, rather than a wall, a better solution to our immigration problem would be a bridge. —Sean Dwyer, Lane Community College, Eugene, Ore.

If anything, what I’ve learned is that I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to change our world. I don’t know how to make a difference, how to make my voice heard. But I have learned the importance of one word, a simple two-letter word that’s taught to the youngest of us, a word we all know but never recognize: the significance of ‘we.’ —Enna Chiu, Highland Park High School, Highland Park, N.J.

Not to say the Border Patrol should not have authorization to search people within the border, but I am saying it should be near the border, more like one mile, not 100. —Cooper Tarbuck, Maranacook Middle School, Manchester, Maine.

My caramel color, my feminism, my Spanish and English language, my Mexican culture, and my young Latina self gives me the confidence to believe in myself, but it can also teach others that making wrong assumptions about someone because of their skin color, identity, culture, looks or gender can make them look and be weaker. —Ana Hernandez, The East Harlem School, New York City, N.Y.

We don’t need to change who we are to fit these stereotypes like someone going on a diet to fit into a new pair of pants. —Kaylee Meyers, Brier Terrace Middle School, Brier, Wash.

If a human being with no criminal background whatsoever has trouble entering the country because of the way he or she dresses or speaks, border protection degenerates into arbitrariness. —Jonas Schumacher, Heidelberg University of Education, Heidelberg, Germany

I believe that you should be able to travel freely throughout your own country without the constant fear of needing to prove that you belong here . —MacKenzie Morgan, Lincoln Middle School, Ypsilanti, Mich.

America is known as “the Land of Opportunity,” but this label is quickly disappearing. If we keep stopping those striving for a better life, then what will become of this country? —Ennyn Chiu, Highland Park Middle School, Highland Park, N.J.

The fact that two-thirds of the people in the U.S. are living in an area called the “Constitution-free zone” is appalling. Our Constitution was made to protect our rights as citizens, no matter where we are in the country. These systems that we are using to “secure” our country are failing, and we need to find a way to change them. —Isis Liaw, Brier Terrace Middle School, Brier, Wash.

I won’t let anyone, especially a man, tell me what I can do, because I am a strong Latina. I will represent where I come from, and I am proud to be Mexican. I will show others that looks can be deceiving. I will show others that even the weakest animal, a beautiful butterfly, is tough, and it will cross any border, no matter how challenging the journey may be. —Brittany Leal, The East Harlem School, New York City, N.Y.

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What the data says about immigrants in the U.S.

The United States has long had more immigrants than any other country. In fact, the U.S. is home to one-fifth of the world’s international migrants . These immigrants have come from just about every country in the world.

Pew Research Center regularly publishes research on U.S. immigrants . Based on this research, here are answers to some key questions about the U.S. immigrant population.

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to answer common questions about immigration to the United States and the U.S. immigrant population.

The data in this analysis comes mainly from Center tabulations of Census Bureau microdata from decennial censuses and American Community Survey (IPUMS USA). This analysis also features estimates of the U.S. unauthorized immigrant population . The estimates presented in this research for 2022 are the Center’s latest.

How many people in the U.S. are immigrants?

The U.S. foreign-born population reached a record 46.1 million in 2022. Growth accelerated after Congress made U.S. immigration laws more permissive in 1965. In 1970, the number of immigrants living in the U.S. was less than a quarter of what it is today.

Immigrants today account for 13.8% of the U.S. population. This is a roughly threefold increase from 4.7% in 1970. However, the immigrant share of the population today remains below the record 14.8% in 1890 .

Where are U.S. immigrants from?

Mexico is the top country of birth for U.S. immigrants. In 2022, roughly 10.6 million immigrants living in the U.S. were born there, making up 23% of all U.S. immigrants. The next largest origin groups were those from India (6%), China (5%), the Philippines (4%) and El Salvador (3%).

By region of birth, immigrants from Asia accounted for 28% of all immigrants. Other regions make up smaller shares:

• Latin America (27%), excluding Mexico but including the Caribbean (10%), Central America (9%) and South America (9%)
• Europe, Canada and other North America (12%)
• Sub-Saharan Africa (5%)
• Middle East and North Africa (4%)

How have immigrants’ origin countries changed in recent decades?

Before 1965, U.S. immigration law favored immigrants from Northern and Western Europe and mostly barred immigration from Asia. The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act opened up immigration from Asia and Latin America. The Immigration Act of 1990 further increased legal immigration and allowed immigrants from more countries to enter the U.S. legally.

Since 1965, about 72 million immigrants have come to the United States from different and more countries than their predecessors:

• From 1840 to 1889, about 90% of U.S. immigrants came from Europe, including about 70% from Germany, Ireland and the United Kingdom.
• Almost 90% of the immigrants who arrived from 1890 to 1919 came from Europe. Nearly 60% came from Italy, Austria-Hungary and Russia-Poland.
• Since 1965, about half of U.S. immigrants have come from Latin America, with about a quarter from Mexico alone. About another quarter have come from Asia. Large numbers have come from China, India, the Philippines, Central America and the Caribbean.

The newest wave of immigrants has dramatically changed states’ immigrant populations . In 1980, German immigrants were the largest group in 19 states, Canadian immigrants were the largest in 11 states and Mexicans were the largest in 10 states. By 2000, Mexicans were the largest group in 31 states.

Today, Mexico remains the largest origin country for U.S. immigrants. However, immigration from Mexico has slowed since 2007 and the Mexican-born population in the U.S. has dropped. The Mexican share of the U.S. immigrant population dropped from 29% in 2010 to 23% in 2022.

Where are recent immigrants coming from?

In 2022, Mexico was the top country of birth for immigrants who arrived in the last year, with about 150,000 people. India (about 145,000) and China (about 90,000) were the next largest sources of immigrants. Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil and Canada each had about 50,000 to 60,000 new immigrant arrivals.

The main sources of immigrants have shifted twice in the 21st century. The first was caused by the Great Recession (2007-2009). Until 2007, more Hispanics than Asians arrived in the U.S. each year. From 2009 to 2018, the opposite was true.

Since 2019, immigration from Latin America – much of it unauthorized – has reversed the pattern again. More Hispanics than Asians have come each year.

What is the legal status of immigrants in the U.S.?

Most immigrants (77%) are in the country legally. As of 2022:

• 49% were naturalized U.S. citizens.
• 24% were lawful permanent residents.
• 4% were legal temporary residents.
• 23% were unauthorized immigrants .

From 1990 to 2007, the unauthorized immigrant population more than tripled in size, from 3.5 million to a record high of 12.2 million. From there, the number slowly declined to about 10.2 million in 2019.

In 2022, the number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. showed sustained growth for the first time since 2007, to 11.o million.

As of 2022, about 4 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. are Mexican. This is the largest number of any origin country, representing more than one-third of all unauthorized immigrants. However, the Mexican unauthorized immigrant population is down from a peak of almost 7 million in 2007, when Mexicans accounted for 57% of all unauthorized immigrants.

The drop in the number of unauthorized immigrants from Mexico has been partly offset by growth from other parts of the world, especially Asia and other parts of Latin America.

The 2022 estimates of the unauthorized immigrant population are our latest comprehensive estimates. Other partial data sources suggest continued growth in 2023 and 2024 .

Who are unauthorized immigrants?

Virtually all unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. entered the country without legal permission or arrived on a nonpermanent visa and stayed after it expired.

A growing number of unauthorized immigrants have permission to live and work in the U.S. and are temporarily protected from deportation. In 2022, about 3 million unauthorized immigrants had these temporary legal protections. These immigrants fall into several groups:

• Temporary Protected Status (TPS): About 650,000 immigrants have TPS as of July 2022. TPS is offered to individuals who cannot safely return to their home country because of civil unrest, violence, natural disaster or other extraordinary and temporary conditions.
• Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA): Almost 600,000 immigrants are beneficiaries of DACA. This program allows individuals brought to the U.S. as children before 2007 to remain in the U.S.
• Asylum applicants: About 1.6 million immigrants have pending applications for asylum in the U.S. as of mid-2022 because of dangers faced in their home country. These immigrants can stay in the U.S. legally while they wait for a decision on their case.
• Other protections: Several hundred thousand individuals have applied for special visas to become lawful immigrants. These types of visas are offered to victims of trafficking and certain other criminal activities.

In addition, about 500,000 immigrants arrived in the U.S. by the end of 2023 under programs created for Ukrainians (U4U or Uniting for Ukraine ) and people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela ( CHNV parole ). These immigrants mainly arrived too late to be counted in the 2022 estimates but may be included in future estimates.

Do all lawful immigrants choose to become U.S. citizens?

Immigrants who are lawful permanent residents can apply to become U.S. citizens if they meet certain requirements. In fiscal year 2022, almost 1 million lawful immigrants became U.S. citizens through naturalization . This is only slightly below record highs in 1996 and 2008.

Most immigrants eligible for naturalization apply for citizenship, but not all do. Top reasons for not applying include language and personal barriers, lack of interest and not being able to afford it, according to a 2015 Pew Research Center survey .

Where do most U.S. immigrants live?

In 2022, most of the nation’s 46.1 million immigrants lived in four states: California (10.4 million or 23% of the national total), Texas (5.2 million or 11%), Florida (4.8 million or 10%) and New York (4.5 million or 10%).

Most immigrants lived in the South (35%) and West (33%). Another 21% lived in the Northeast and 11% were in the Midwest.

In 2022, more than 29 million immigrants – 63% of the nation’s foreign-born population – lived in just 20 major metropolitan areas. The largest populations were in the New York, Los Angeles and Miami metro areas. Most of the nation’s unauthorized immigrant population (60%) lived in these metro areas as well.

How many immigrants are working in the U.S.?

In 2022, over 30 million immigrants were in the U.S. workforce. Lawful immigrants made up the majority of the immigrant workforce, at 22.2 million. An additional 8.3 million immigrant workers are unauthorized. This is a notable increase over 2019 but about the same as in 2007 .

The share of workers who are immigrants increased slightly from 17% in 2007 to 18% in 2022. By contrast, the share of immigrant workers who are unauthorized declined from a peak of 5.4% in 2007 to 4.8% in 2022. Immigrants and their children are projected to add about 18 million people of working age between 2015 and 2035. This would offset an expected decline in the working-age population from retiring Baby Boomers.

How educated are immigrants compared with the U.S. population overall?

On average, U.S. immigrants have lower levels of education than the U.S.-born population. In 2022, immigrants ages 25 and older were about three times as likely as the U.S. born to have not completed high school (25% vs. 7%). However, immigrants were as likely as the U.S. born to have a bachelor’s degree or more (35% vs. 36%).

Immigrant educational attainment varies by origin. About half of immigrants from Mexico (51%) had not completed high school, and the same was true for 46% of those from Central America and 21% from the Caribbean. Immigrants from these three regions were also less likely than the U.S. born to have a bachelor’s degree or more.

On the other hand, immigrants from all other regions were about as likely as or more likely than the U.S. born to have at least a bachelor’s degree. Immigrants from South Asia (72%) were the most likely to have a bachelor’s degree or more.

How well do immigrants speak English?

About half of immigrants ages 5 and older (54%) are proficient English speakers – they either speak English very well (37%) or speak only English at home (17%).

Immigrants from Canada (97%), Oceania (82%), sub-Saharan Africa (76%), Europe (75%) and South Asia (73%) have the highest rates of English proficiency.

Immigrants from Mexico (36%) and Central America (35%) have the lowest proficiency rates.

Immigrants who have lived in the U.S. longer are somewhat more likely to be English proficient. Some 45% of immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for five years or less are proficient, compared with 56% of immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for 20 years or more.

Spanish is the most commonly spoken language among U.S. immigrants. About four-in-ten immigrants (41%) speak Spanish at home. Besides Spanish, the top languages immigrants speak at home are English only (17%), Chinese (6%), Filipino/Tagalog (4%), French or Haitian Creole (3%), and Vietnamese (2%).

Note: This is an update of a post originally published May 3, 2017.

• Immigrant Populations
• Immigration & Migration
• Unauthorized Immigration

Mohamad Moslimani is a former research analyst focusing on race and ethnicity at Pew Research Center .

Jeffrey S. Passel is a senior demographer at Pew Research Center .

What we know about unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S.

Cultural issues and the 2024 election, latinos’ views on the migrant situation at the u.s.-mexico border, u.s. christians more likely than ‘nones’ to say situation at the border is a crisis, how americans view the situation at the u.s.-mexico border, its causes and consequences, most popular.

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• | May 23, 2018

The Benefits of Immigration: Addressing Key Myths

• Daniel Griswold
• Download Publication PDF

America’s historical openness to immigration has enriched its culture, expanded economic opportunity, and enhanced its influence in the world. Immigrants complement native-born workers and raise general productivity through innovation and entrepreneurship. Immigrants continue to integrate successfully into American society.

America is a nation of immigrants. That is not a cliché but a simple fact. Almost all Americans today either immigrated themselves or descended from immigrants, whether from England and Germany in the colonial era, Ireland, Eastern Europe, and Scandinavia in the 19th and early 20th centuries, or Latin America and Asia in more recent decades. Today one out of every four people residing in the United States are either first- or second-generation immigrants. Immigration has enriched the United States throughout its history, economically as well as culturally and socially.

Contrary to what some of our leaders and pundits tell us, immigrants strengthen the US economy by filling key jobs in important industries, starting businesses, filing patents, creating new products, and keeping America demographically younger. A large majority of immigrants embrace America’s culture of freedom and opportunity. Immigration is both a sign and a source of American dynamism. US immigration policy should move toward welcoming more hard-working immigrants to build a stronger US economy.

Facts about Immigration

Immigrants come to the United States because of the freedom and opportunity it offers. They come to work and build a better life for themselves and their families. Immigrants fill niches in the labor market, typically at the higher and lower ends of the skill spectrum, where the supply of native-born workers tends to fall short of demand by US employers. Without immigrants our economy would be less productive and dynamic.

• Immigrants boost America’s economic growth and raise the general productivity of American workers by providing much-needed skills. Immigrant workers allow important sectors of the economy to expand, attracting investment and creating employment opportunities for native-born Americans. A recent study by the International Monetary Fund concluded, “Immigration significantly increases GDP per capita in advanced economies.”
• Immigrants fuel entrepreneurship. Immigrants are more likely to start a business than native-born Americans, whether it’s a corner shop or high-tech startup. Among startup companies that were valued at more than $1 billion in 2016, half were founded by immigrants. Among Fortune 500 companies, 40 percent were founded by immigrants or their children.
• Immigrants generate new products, ideas, and innovation. Immigrants make up 17 percent of the US workforce, while filing one-third of the patents and accounting for more than one-third of US workers with a PhD in one of the STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering, and math. One study found, “More than half of the high-skilled technology workers and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley are foreign born.”
• Without immigrants and their children, the United States would soon begin to experience demographic decline. The number of US-born workers with US-born parents is already declining, and will shrink by eight million from 2015 to 2035. Immigrants extend the sustainability of federal retirement programs by slowing the rise in the ratio of retirees to workers. Without a growing workforce, the US economy would begin to lose its dynamism and leadership role in the global economy.
• Three-quarters of immigrants in the United States reside here legally. The number of unauthorized immigrants has stabilized in recent years at 11 to 12 million. Most illegal immigrants arriving today enter the country legally but then overstay their visas; thus, a wall on the US-Mexican border will not stop most illegal immigration. The most cost-effective policy for reducing illegal immigration remains the expansion of opportunities for legal entry and work.

Five Myths and Realities of Immigration

1. Myth: America is being flooded with mass immigration.

Reality: The rate of US immigration today is well below its historical average and below that of many other advanced nations.

• According to the Census Bureau, the number of foreign-born residents of the United States was 43.7 million in 2016, or 13.5 percent of the total US population. Although growing in recent decades, the immigrant share of the US population is still below its peak of nearly 15 percent in 1910. In many other developed nations, such as Canada and Australia, the foreign-born are a much higher share of the population than in the United States.
• More importantly, the rate of net migration to the United States today is far below what it has been in previous historical periods. The United States accepts about 1.1 million permanent legal immigrants per year, which is a high number in nominal terms but is historically modest as a share of the US population. The current annual US net migration rate (both legal and illegal, minus emigration), is 3.3 per 1,000 US residents. That is less than half of the US migration rate in the peak years of the Great Atlantic Migration from 1880 to 1910 and below the historical US average since 1820 of 4.3 per 1,000.

2. Myth: Immigrants depress wages and take jobs from Americans.

Reality: There is no evidence that immigrants cause higher unemployment among Americans or depress average wages.

• Immigrants typically complement American workers rather than compete directly with them for jobs. As immigrants supply labor, they also increase demand for housing and other goods and services, creating employment opportunities for native-born workers. This is why, over time, there is no correlation between immigration and the general unemployment rate. In fact, the number of jobs and the size of the workforce tend to grow together.
• For those same reasons, empirical studies have found that immigration has only a small and generally positive impact on average wages. A study cited in the 2017 National Academy of Sciences report on the economic consequences of immigration found that the only native demographic group negatively impacted is adults without a high school diploma. The wage impact on this group is small, in the range of 1 to 2 percent, and the size of this group has declined to less than 10 percent of the working-age population. Evidence also shows that as immigrants move in, native-born Americans tend to stay in school longer and upgrade their education, raising their productivity and wages. For more than 90 percent of American workers, immigration either raises wages or has no impact.

3. Myth: Immigrants increase the danger of crime and terrorism.

Reality: Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes or to be incarcerated than native-born Americans. The risks from immigrant terrorism are relatively low compared to other dangers. 

• Immigrants are less prone to crime for a number of reasons. After surveying the available evidence, a major 2015 study on immigrant integration by the National Academy of Sciences concluded, “Far from immigration increasing crime rates, studies demonstrate that immigrants and immigration are associated inversely with crime. Immigrants are less likely than the native born to commit crimes, and neighborhoods with greater concentrations of immigrants have much lower rates of crime and violence than comparable nonimmigrant neighborhoods.”
• Foreign-born terrorists have committed deadly attacks on US soil, most tragically on September 11, 2001. But the terrorists responsible for the deaths that day were temporary visitors in the United States on nonimmigrant tourist and student visas. Terrorist acts by permanent immigrants are much less of a theat. According to research by Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute, from 1975 to 2017, “. . . the chance of being murdered in a terrorist attack committed by a chain immigrant or a diversity visa recipient was about 1 in 723 million per year,” a risk far lower than death by domestic homicide.

4. Myth: Immigrants impose a fiscal burden on US taxpayers.

Reality: Most immigrants pay more in taxes over their lifetimes than they consume in government benefits.

• Immigrants on average are net contributors to government. Immigrants tend to produce more of a fiscal surplus, or less of a deficit, than similarly educated native-born Americans because they are eligible for fewer government benefit programs. The children of immigrants are also more beneficial for government budgets than the children of native-born Americans because they tend to achieve higher levels of education, earnings, and tax paying.
• Higher-skilled immigrants are especially beneficial to government finances. According to the 2017 National Academy of Sciences report, an immigrant arriving in the United States at age 25 with a four-year college degree will, over his or her lifetime, pay $514,000 more in taxes than government services consumed (at net present value). An immigrant with an advanced degree will pay a surplus of almost $1 million. Immigrants without a high school diploma impose a lifetime cost on government of $109,000, but the cost is much smaller than that of a native-born adult without a high school diploma.

5. Myth: Immigrants are no longer assimilating into American culture.

Reality: As with immigrant waves before them, today’s immigrants and their children are learning English and assimilating into American society.

• Immigrants are acquiring proficiency in English at comparable rates to immigrants in the past. Second- and third-generation immigrants are overwhelmingly fluent in English. As the 2015 National Academy of Sciences report concluded, “Today’s immigrants are learning English at the same rate or faster than earlier immigrant waves.”
• In other important ways, immigrants are adapting to and integrating into American society. The 2015 National Academy of Sciences report also found that immigrants are more optimistic than native-born Americans about achieving the American Dream. Rates of intermarriage between native-born Americans and immigrants have been rising, including among ethnic and racial minorities.

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• February 13, 2018
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• March 16, 2017

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The U.S. Immigration Debate

• The United States is home to more foreign-born residents than any other country in the world. In 2022, immigrants composed almost 14 percent of the U.S. population.
• Congress has failed for decades to agree on how to address immigration challenges, leaving many policy questions up to the courts and executive branch.
• President Joe Biden has reversed many of the Donald Trump administration’s restrictive policies, even while implementing his own in response to a historic influx of migrants.

Introduction

Immigration has been a touchstone of the U.S. political debate for decades, as policymakers have weighed economic, security, and humanitarian concerns. However, Congress has continued to disagree on comprehensive immigration reform, effectively moving some major policy decisions into the executive and judicial branches of government and fueling debate in the halls of state and municipal governments.

Former President Donald Trump has put efforts to reshape asylum, border, and deportation policy at the center of his political movement. President Joe Biden had pledged to reverse Trump’s first-term actions and reform the system, but the end of pandemic-related border restrictions and a historic surge in migration have complicated his plans.

What is the immigrant population in the United States?

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Immigrants composed an estimated 13.9 percent of the U.S. population in 2022, amounting to roughly 46 million people out of a total of almost 335 million, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released in April 2024. Together, immigrants and their U.S.-born children made up about 27 percent of U.S. inhabitants, per the Current Population Survey. Though the share of the population that is foreign born has steadily risen since 1970, when there were fewer than ten million immigrants in the country, recent figures still fall below the record high of 14.8 percent in 1890. 

As of 2022, Mexico was the top country of origin for U.S. immigrants, with Mexicans constituting 23 percent of the total immigrant population. Other major countries of origin include India (6 percent); China, including Hong Kong and Macau (5 percent); and the Philippines (4 percent).

Undocumented immigration. The U.S. government estimated the undocumented population to be some eleven million people in 2022. This total represents a slight decrease from 11.8 million before the 2008 economic crisis [PDF], which led some immigrants to return to their home countries and discouraged others from coming to the United States. In fiscal year 2023 (FY 2023), Customs and Border Protection (CBP) apprehended nearly 2.5 million people trying to illegally cross the southern U.S. border, a record high.

Until 2013, almost all of those trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border were Mexican citizens, and most were individuals seeking work. Between 2013 and 2021, most immigrants came from Asia, particularly China and India. Mexico has since regained its status as the top country of origin, and Central Americans have made up an increasingly larger share of migrants at the southern U.S. border. Generally, they are coming not for work but to make asylum claims, and many of them are unaccompanied children. Some of these immigrants have different legal rights from Mexican nationals in the United States: Under a 2008 anti–human trafficking law, unaccompanied minors from noncontiguous countries have a right to a hearing before being deported to their home countries. The increase in Central American migration has strained the U.S. immigration system. At the end of FY 2023, there were nearly 2.8 million cases pending in immigration courts, the most on record.

Though many of the policies that aim to reduce unlawful immigration focus on enforcement at the border, individuals who arrive in the United States legally and overstay their visas comprise a significant portion of the undocumented population. A Center for Migration Studies report found that, between 2010 and 2018, individuals who overstayed their visas far outnumbered those who arrived by crossing the border illegally.

Legal immigration. The United States granted more than one million individuals [PDF] legal permanent residency in FY 2022, close to pre-pandemic levels. Some 58 percent of them were admitted on the basis of family reunification. Other categories included: employment-based preferences (27 percent), refugees (3 percent), diversity (4 percent), and asylees (5 percent). As of late 2023, more than four million applicants were on the State Department’s waiting list [PDF] for family- and employer-related immigrant visas, nearly a third of whom were from Mexico.

Hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals work legally in the United States under various types of nonimmigrant visas. In FY 2023, the United States granted more than  265,000 visas for high-skilled workers  [PDF], known as H1B visas, and over 310,000 visas for temporary workers in agriculture and other industries, or H2A visas. H1B visas are capped at 85,000 per fiscal year, with exceptions for certain fields .

Immigrants made up 18.6 percent of the U.S. civilian workforce [PDF] in 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, up from 18.1 percent the previous year. Compared to those born in the United States, greater shares of immigrants worked in service fields (21.8 percent of all foreign-born people); production, transportation, and material moving (15.2 percent); and natural resources, construction, and maintenance (13.8 percent). 

How do Americans feel about immigration?

A February 2024 poll by Gallup showed that 28 percent of surveyed Americans considered immigration to be the top problem facing the United States. In a separate Gallup poll conducted that same month, the majority of respondents felt that illegal immigration was a “critical” threat to U.S. national security.

A Pew Research Center poll conducted in April found that some 60 percent of the registered voters surveyed believed that undocumented immigrants currently in the United States should be allowed to stay, with 36 percent of respondents saying that undocumented immigrants should have the opportunity to apply for citizenship. In addition, a large majority of Americans still consider immigration to be overall good for the country.

How has Congress tried to address the issue?

The most recent push for an immigration policy overhaul was in 2013, following a decade in which Congress debated numerous immigration reforms, some considered comprehensive and others piecemeal. (Comprehensive immigration reform refers to omnibus legislation that attempts to address the following issues: demand for high- and low-skilled labor, the legal status of the millions of undocumented immigrants living in the country, border security, and interior enforcement.) The last major legislation to make it through Congress was under President Ronald Reagan in 1986, when his administration granted legal amnesty to some three million undocumented residents; in 1990, President George H.W. Bush further expanded legal immigration by increasing the cap for immigrant visas from 270,000 to 700,000, though he lowered the quota to 675,000 after several years. In 2007, President George W. Bush worked with congressional Democrats to reach a compromise on a new comprehensive bill, but it ultimately failed to win enough support in the Senate.

President Barack Obama pressed hard for a comprehensive bill that would pair a path to legalization for undocumented residents with stronger border security provisions. The Democrat-led Senate passed this legislation in 2013, but the bill stalled in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Both Presidents Trump and Biden put forward their own plans, which were not seriously considered by Congress.  

What was the Obama administration’s approach?

With legislation thwarted, Obama focused on executive action, a tactic that his successors continued. In 2012, his administration began a program known as DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals , which offered renewable, two-year deportation deferrals and work permits to undocumented immigrants who had arrived in the United States as children and had no criminal records. 

Obama characterized the move as a “ stopgap measure ” and urged Congress to pass the DREAM Act , or Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors—legislation first introduced in 2001 that would have benefited many of the same people. Since then, more than 830,000 people have participated in DACA, and it’s estimated that almost 1.2 million more were eligible as of 2023. Obama attempted to extend similar benefits to undocumented parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents through a program known as Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA), but the Supreme Court effectively killed it in 2016.

In 2014, Obama also grappled with a surge of more than sixty thousand unaccompanied minors at the southern border, mostly from Central America. He directed $750 million in aid to the region to improve conditions there. Meanwhile, his administration faced criticism for its enforcement policies, including detaining children in poor conditions and overseeing the deportation of more people— approximately three million —than either the Bill Clinton or George W. Bush administrations had.

What was the Trump administration’s approach?

Immigration remains a signature issue for Trump. He blames previous administrations for failing to secure the southern border, and in his first term, he advocated for sharply reducing both legal and illegal immigration. He repeatedly used executive action to reshape asylum, deportation, and border policy.

Border security and enforcement . Trump vowed to expand the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, which he claimed would stop drugs and gangs from entering the country. He was unsuccessful in securing funding from Congress, leading to a federal government shutdown in 2019 and a subsequent declaration of a national emergency , which allowed him to divert funds to build the wall.

Other enforcement measures under Trump included increasing border personnel; sending thousands of active-duty troops to the border; threatening Mexico with tariffs if it did not increase its own border enforcement; and attempting to cut federal funding to so-called sanctuary cities, or jurisdictions that refuse to enforce federal immigration directives.

Trump also ratcheted up previous administrations’ deterrence efforts. He implemented a zero-tolerance policy, under which authorities arrested and prosecuted everyone caught crossing the southern border without authorization. This caused thousands of family separations , since by law children must be held apart from parents facing criminal prosecution. (Presidents Bush and Obama likewise faced criticism for child detention, but they did not make separations a matter of policy.)

DACA . Trump sought to end DACA, calling it unconstitutional. The move spurred multiple legal challenges and, in June 2020, the Supreme Court blocked Trump’s plan . A December 2020 federal court ruling forced the Trump administration to resume accepting new applicants.

Travel bans and refugee cap . Trump aimed to sharply reduce the number of refugees and other immigrants granted legal entry into the United States. In 2017, he instituted a ban on immigration and travel from several Muslim-majority countries, including Iran, Somalia, and Yemen. The original order was rejected by the courts, but the Supreme Court upheld a more limited version. Trump also lowered the cap on the number of refugees the United States accepts each year to less than fifteen thousand for FY 2021—the lowest figure in the history of the U.S. refugee program . Additionally, he ended temporary protected status (TPS)—a program that allows migrants from certain crisis-stricken nations to live and work in the United States for a limited period—for several countries.

Asylum policy . Trump implemented new restrictions on asylum seekers. In 2018, the administration began “metering” asylum applications, or only accepting a limited number [PDF] each day. The next year, it launched the Migrant Protection Protocols , also known as the “Remain in Mexico” program, which required asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases were processed in U.S. courts. At the same time, it sought “safe third country” agreements with several Latin American countries, which would have allowed U.S. authorities to send asylum seekers who traveled through those countries back there. Only an agreement with Guatemala was implemented before that country terminated it in 2021. Additionally, the Trump administration invoked Title 42, previously a rarely used public health law, to deny asylum on health-related grounds amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Comprehensive reform effort . Like his immediate predecessors, Trump proposed broad immigration reform . His would have created a merit-based system to replace the current one,  which prioritizes family reunification. It also included an expansion of the border wall and an employment verification system known as E-Verify, but it did not address the status of current undocumented residents. Congress ultimately did not take up the proposal.

What has been Biden’s approach?

Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, Biden campaigned on overturning almost all of Trump’s immigration policies. Since then, the Biden administration has reduced immigration enforcement within the United States, ended the travel bans, expanded green-card access for certain undocumented immigrants, and ended the controversial Title 42 policy, though it did initially maintain many pandemic-related restrictions. The administration also initially halted construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, though it has since moved forward with plans to build additional sections; expanded TPS protections; terminated the Remain in Mexico program (with Supreme Court approval); and raised the refugee cap to 125,000 for fiscal years 2022–24. 

However, Biden’s efforts to undo Trump-era policies have been challenged by a historic influx of migrants at the southern border. The record surge in border crossings has prompted the administration to implement several new restrictions since 2023, including a so-called transit ban allowing the government to deny asylum to migrants who did not previously apply for protection in a third country. In addition, the administration can temporarily bar asylum requests when the number of illegal crossings exceeds a certain threshold; since the start of 2024, illegal crossings have slowed . 

Meanwhile, Biden has worked with Latin American leaders to increase aid to refugee populations, improve border management, and better coordinate emergency responses, even as his own comprehensive immigration reform bill and other border security legislation have failed in Congress. His administration has also launched efforts to accelerate the reunification of migrant families, including by reinstating the Central American Minors (CAM) program, which reunites children in the so-called Northern Triangle countries with their parents in the United States, and by creating a family-reunification task force. Additionally, Biden has pledged to invest $4 billion to address the drivers of migration from Central America, and he has sought to revive DACA; the Department of Homeland Security continues to accept and process renewal requests amid ongoing legal challenges to the program.

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How are state and local authorities handling these issues?

States vary widely in how they treat unauthorized immigrants. Some, including California and Massachusetts, allow undocumented immigrants to apply for drivers’ licenses, receive in-state tuition at universities, and obtain other benefits. At the other end of the spectrum are states such as Texas, where the legislature passed a law [PDF] mandating that local governments and law enforcement agencies cooperate with federal immigration officers.

The federal government is generally responsible for enforcing immigration laws, but it delegates some immigration-related duties to state and local law enforcement. However, the degree to which local officials are obliged to cooperate with federal authorities is a subject of intense debate: dozens of counties across thirteen states are home to so-called sanctuary cities that limit cooperation with immigration enforcement.

The degree to which local officials are obliged to cooperate with federal authorities is a subject of intense debate.

President Trump decried these sanctuary jurisdictions and reinstated a controversial Obama-era program known as Secure Communities, in which the FBI shares fingerprints of suspects collected by state and local law enforcement with federal immigration authorities. Under the program, state and local agencies also hand over individuals presumed to be in the country illegally. Biden terminated the program shortly after taking office. 

A range of court rulings during the Trump era increased pressure on states. In 2018, the Justice Department launched a lawsuit against California over sanctuary jurisdictions, which was ultimately dismissed by the Supreme Court. It filed similar suits against New Jersey and Washington, and a federal court ruled in 2020 that the Trump administration could withhold federal funding from sanctuary jurisdictions, including New York City. Under Biden, the Justice Department reversed this stance, leading the Supreme Court to dismiss several pending cases .

The ongoing border crisis has driven increasing controversy over local responses. After Trump called on states to deploy National Guard contingents to the southern border, several governors refused. Others, including Texas’s Greg Abbott, embraced Trump’s views, continuing to expand the border wall and seeking to boost the role of state and local law enforcement in carrying out federal immigration policy. In the Biden era, Abbott has sought to impose stronger enforcement at the Texas-Mexico border despite federal opposition. The governor signed a law in December 2023 making it a state crime to cross the border into Texas illegally and authorizing law enforcement to arrest and deport migrants. The bill remains on hold amid legal challenges; several other states are attempting to enact similar legislation.

Recommended Resources

This CFR Backgrounder explains who is responsible for securing the U.S. border.

This timeline traces changes to U.S. postwar immigration policy.

The Washington Post ’s Eduardo Porter and Youyou Zhou argue that the United States’ efforts to limit immigration a century ago actually helped diversify the country .

In this CFR webinar, experts discuss how immigration is shaping political conversations ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

On this episode of The President’s Inbox , the American Immigration Council’s Dara Lind breaks down the situation at the southern border .

The Migration Policy Institute’s Muzaffar Chishti, Kathleen Bush-Joseph, and Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh look at Biden’s immigration record at his term’s three-year mark.

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Emily Lieberman, Nathalie Bussemaker, Samuel Parmer, and Danielle Renwick contributed to this Backgrounder. Will Merrow created the graphics.

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The Debate in the United States over Immigration

These essays examine economic, political, social, and legal issues related to immigration into the United States—from compelling arguments for limited immigration to forceful arguments for open borders. They assess the benefits and costs of immigration and its impact on education, social welfare, and health care.

With the annual number of immigrants to the United States at an all-time high, the debate over immigration has reached a fevered pitch. Do today's immigrants come to this country just to go on welfare? Will immigration forever change America's ethnic, cultural, and political landscape? Some see unrestrained immigration as the lifeblood of the world's most successful society, while others have called for closing the borders entirely. After the introduction, which examines the historical debate over immigration, the book looks at the current spectrum of economic, political, social, and legal issues related to immigration into the United States—from compelling arguments for limited immigration to forceful arguments for open borders. As part of the program on American Institutions and Economic Performance, leading scholars and business experts convened at the Hoover Institution in October 1996. Amid swirling controversy over passage of California's Proposition 187, which denies welfare benefits to illegal immigrants, conference participants discussed current state and federal immigration policies and the strengths and weaknesses of proposed changes. Presented here is a powerful cross section of papers from that conference, each covering a major aspect of the overall immigration issue. The distinguished participants offer assessments of the benefits and costs of immigration, along with its impact on education, social welfare, and health care, and then presents appraisals of the widely publicized subject of undocumented immigration and employer sanctions. With immigration becoming a personal issue for millions of Americans, The Debate in the United States over Immigration illuminates fundamental, individual truths crucial to making policy decisions that will ultimately best serve American society.

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101 Immigration Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Immigration has been a hot-button issue in recent years, with debates raging over border security, refugee resettlement, and the economic impact of immigration. If you're tasked with writing an essay on immigration, you may be struggling to come up with a topic that is both interesting and relevant. To help you get started, we've compiled a list of 101 immigration essay topic ideas and examples to inspire your writing.

• The history of immigration in the United States
• The impact of immigration on American culture
• Immigration policies and their effects on immigrant communities
• The economic benefits of immigration
• The social challenges faced by immigrants
• The role of immigration in the labor market
• Immigration and crime rates
• The ethics of border enforcement
• The challenges faced by undocumented immigrants
• The impact of immigration on public health
• The experience of refugee resettlement
• The impact of immigration on education
• Immigration and the environment
• The politics of immigration reform
• The role of immigration in shaping national identity
• The impact of immigration on urban development
• Immigration and globalization
• The impact of immigration on family dynamics
• The role of immigration in the spread of disease
• The impact of immigration on social welfare programs
• Immigration and human trafficking
• The impact of immigration on rural communities
• Immigration and the criminal justice system
• The impact of immigration on housing markets
• The role of immigration in international relations
• Immigration and national security
• The impact of immigration on healthcare systems
• Immigration and labor rights
• The impact of immigration on income inequality
• The role of immigration in shaping political ideologies
• Immigration and climate change
• The impact of immigration on technology and innovation
• Immigration and economic development
• The role of immigration in addressing demographic challenges
• Immigration and social mobility
• The impact of immigration on language diversity
• Immigration and social cohesion
• The role of immigration in shaping cultural identity
• Immigration and food culture
• The impact of immigration on public transportation
• Immigration and urban planning
• The role of immigration in revitalizing declining communities
• Immigration and gentrification
• The impact of immigration on small businesses
• Immigration and entrepreneurship
• The role of immigration in addressing labor shortages
• Immigration and education disparities
• The impact of immigration on rural economies
• Immigration and agricultural production
• The role of immigration in addressing healthcare shortages
• Immigration and environmental conservation
• The impact of immigration on social services
• Immigration and income inequality
• The role of immigration in cultural exchange
• Immigration and the arts
• The impact of immigration on sports
• Immigration and media representation
• The role of immigration in shaping public opinion
• Immigration and social media
• The impact of immigration on voting patterns
• Immigration and civic engagement
• The role of immigration in community organizing
• Immigration and social justice movements
• The impact of immigration on political participation
• Immigration and activism
• The role of immigration in shaping public policy
• Immigration and civil rights
• The impact of immigration on political polarization
• Immigration and the role of government
• The role of immigration in international development
• Immigration and conflict resolution
• The impact of immigration on peacebuilding efforts
• Immigration and humanitarian aid
• The role of immigration in addressing global challenges
• Immigration and sustainable development
• The impact of immigration on human rights
• Immigration and social change
• The role of immigration in promoting diversity
• Immigration and cultural preservation
• The impact of immigration on indigenous communities
• Immigration and gender equality
• The role of immigration in addressing social inequalities
• Immigration and intergenerational mobility
• The impact of immigration on social cohesion
• Immigration and social welfare
• The role of immigration in addressing poverty
• Immigration and social justice
• The impact of immigration on human development
• Immigration and social inclusion
• The role of immigration in promoting social progress
• Immigration and social integration
• The impact of immigration on community resilience
• Immigration and disaster response
• The role of immigration in addressing humanitarian crises
• Immigration and conflict prevention
• The impact of immigration on peacebuilding
• Immigration and human security
• The role of immigration in promoting global peace
• Immigration and international cooperation
• The impact of immigration on sustainable development goals
• Immigration and the future of humanity

These are just a few examples of the many immigration essay topics you could explore in your writing. Whether you're interested in the social, economic, political, or cultural aspects of immigration, there is no shortage of compelling topics to explore. So pick a topic that resonates with you, do some research, and start writing!

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Why do immigrants come to the US?

Of all people legally immigrating to the US in 2021, about 42% came for work, 32% for school, and 23% for family.

Updated on Thu, August 1, 2024 by the USAFacts Team

People immigrate to the US to work, reunite with family, study, or seek personal safety. In 2021, 42% of the 1.5 million people who immigrated to the US came for work.

What reasons for immigration does the government track?

The US government generally allows legal immigration for five broad reasons : work , school , family, safety, and encouraging diversity.

People immigrating for work or school are often granted temporary entry rather than permanent residency. Immigration for family generally means the immigrant has a relative who is already in the US as a citizen, green card holder, or temporary visa holder with whom they want to be reunited with. Those who immigrate for safety are refugees or asylum-seekers. And finally, up to 50,000 immigrants obtain green cards annually through the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program lottery that grants entry to individuals from countries with low rates of immigration to the US.

How many immigrants came for each reason in 2021?

Of the 1.5 million people who immigrated to the US in 2021, about 42% came for work, 32% for school, and 23% for family. Nearly 2% were seeking safety, and about 0.9% were admitted on Diversity Immigrant Visas.

How have reasons for immigration evolved over the past 15 years?

Since 2006, work has consistently been the top reason people immigrate to the US, with the exception of 2013–2015 when immigration for work was equal to or slightly lower than for school.

School is usually the second most common reason for immigration except for 2018, when a higher percentage of people began immigrating for family reunification than education. In 2021 school again became the second most common reason.

Safety and diversity have consistently been the fourth and fifth most common reasons for immigration, respectively.

How do the reasons for immigration change depending on where people are immigrating from?

Of the 638,551 immigrants who came to the US for work in 2021, 61% came from North America. Immigrants from Asia represent the largest geographic cohort among the other four primary reasons for immigration: school (58%), family (45%), safety (34%), and encouraging diversity (33%).

In 2021, 74% of all immigrants came from Asia and North/Central America. Roughly 53% of Asian immigrants came from China and India, while nearly 80% of immigrants from North/Central America were from Mexico.

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Why do Chinese people immigrate to America?

School was the top reason Chinese people immigrated between 2006–2021; 19% of people who came to the US for school were from China, the highest percentage of any other country. The number of Chinese immigrants coming to the US for school peaked in 2015, growing 680% from 40,477 people in 2006 to 315,628 people in 2015.

Despite a sharp decrease after 2016, most Chinese immigrants continue to come to the US for school. Fewer than 57,000 Chinese immigrants have come to the US per year for work or family reasons since 2006, and those numbers hit record lows of 5,323 and 13,412 in 2021.

Why do Indian people immigrate to America?

The largest share of immigrants who came to be with family were from India, at 18% . But in 2021, more Indians immigrated for school than for family reunification. Work was the third most common reason.

Prior to 2021, most Indian immigrants came to the US for family and work, but those numbers have been decreasing. Fewer people came to the US from India for work (54,032 people) and family in 2021 (62,407) than in 2006 (117,189 and 81,045 people, respectively).

Meanwhile, the number of Indians immigrating for school increased by over 300% between 2020 and 2021, from 20,629 to 85,385.

Why do Mexican people immigrate to America?

In 2021, people from Mexico comprised the largest share of immigrants coming for work — 55% of all immigrants, or 351,586 people. Work has consistently been the top reason Mexican people immigrate to the US. Family and school have consistently been the second and third reasons.

More than double the number of people immigrated to the US for work from Mexico in 2021 (351,586 people) than in 2006 (168,619 people).

Where did this data come from?

There are multiple data sources because immigrants enter the US through multiple pathways. Data on visa admissions comes from the US State Department; we exclude people who come with visas for short-term tourism, cultural exchange, or visiting. Data on refugees and asylum-seekers comes from the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Yearbook of Immigration Statistics. Data on green cards comes from the DHS’s expanded lawful permanent resident tables.

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Population and society

How many DACA recipients are there in the United States?

Immigration demographics: a look at the native and foreign-born populations, the census has been asking about citizenship on and off for nearly 200 years, immigration is down and so are births: why population growth slowed down, related data, immigrant population.

46.18 million

Visas granted

6.82 million

Unauthorized immigrant population

11.39 million

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U.S. Immigration Timeline

By: History.com Editors

Updated: August 23, 2022 | Original: December 21, 2018

The United States has long been considered a nation of immigrants, but attitudes toward new immigrants by those who came before have vacillated over the years between welcoming and exclusionary. Thousands of years before Europeans began crossing the vast Atlantic by ship and settling en masse, the first immigrants arrived in North America from Asia. They were Native American ancestors who crossed a narrow spit of land connecting Asia to North America at least 20,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age .

By the early 1600s, communities of European immigrants dotted the Eastern seaboard, including the Spanish in Florida, the British in New England and Virginia, the Dutch in New York, and the Swedes in Delaware. Some, including the Pilgrims and Puritans, came for religious freedom. Many sought greater economic opportunities. Still others, including hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans, arrived in America against their will.

Below are the events that have shaped the turbulent history of immigration in the United States since its birth.

White People of 'Good Character' Granted Citizenship

January 1776: Thomas Paine publishes a pamphlet, “ Common Sense ,” that argues for American independence. Most colonists consider themselves Britons, but Paine makes the case for a new American. “Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America. This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe,” he writes.

March 1790: Congress passes the first law about who should be granted U.S. citizenship. The Naturalization Act of 1790 allows any free white person of “good character,” who has been living in the United States for two years or longer, to apply for citizenship. Without citizenship, nonwhite residents are denied basic constitutional protections, including the right to vote, own property, or testify in court.

August 1790: The first U.S. census takes place. The English are the largest ethnic group among the 3.9 million people counted, though nearly one in five Americans are of African heritage.

Irish Immigrant Wave

1815: Peace is re-established between the United States and Britain after the War of 1812 . Immigration from Western Europe turns from a trickle into a gush, which causes a shift in the demographics of the United States. This first major wave of immigration lasts until the Civil War .

Between 1820 and 1860, the Irish —many of them Catholic—account for an estimated one-third of all immigrants to the United States. Some 5 million German immigrants also come to the United States, many of them making their way to the Midwest to buy farms or settle in cities including Milwaukee, St. Louis and Cincinnati.

1819: Many of newcomers arrive sick or dying from their long journey across the Atlantic in cramped conditions. The immigrants overwhelm major port cities, including New York City , Boston , Philadelphia and Charleston. In response, the United States passes the Steerage Act of 1819 requiring better conditions on ships arriving to the country. The Act also calls for ship captains to submit demographic information on passengers, creating the first federal records on the ethnic composition of immigrants to the United States.

1849: America’s first anti-immigrant political party, the Know-Nothing Party forms, as a backlash to the increasing number of German and Irish immigrants settling in the United States.

1875: Following the Civil War, some states passed their own immigration laws. In 1875 the Supreme Court declares that it’s the responsibility of the federal government to make and enforce immigration laws.

Chinese Exclusion Act 

1880: As America begins a rapid period of industrialization and urbanization, a second immigration boom begins. Between 1880 and 1920, more than 20 million immigrants arrive. The majority are from Southern, Eastern and Central Europe, including 4 million Italians and 2 million Jews . Many of them settle in major U.S. cities and work in factories.

1882: The Chinese Exclusion Act passes, which bars Chinese immigrants from entering the United States. Beginning in the 1850s, a steady flow of Chinese workers had immigrated to America.

They worked in the gold mines,and garment factories, built railroads and took agricultural jobs. Anti-Chinese sentiment grew as Chinese laborers became successful in America. Although Chinese immigrants make up only 0.002 percent of the United States population, white workers blame them for low wages.

The 1882 Act is the first in American history to place broad restrictions on certain immigrant groups.

1891: The Immigration Act of 1891 further excludes who can enter the United States, barring the immigration of polygamists, people convicted of certain crimes, and the sick or diseased. The Act also created a federal office of immigration to coordinate immigration enforcement and a corps of immigration inspectors stationed at principle ports of entry.

Ellis Island Opens

January 1892 : Ellis Island , the United States’ first immigration station, opens in New York Harbor. The first immigrant processed is Annie Moore, a teenager from County Cork in Ireland. More than 12 million immigrants would enter the United States through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954.

1907 : U.S. immigration peaks, with 1.3 million people entering the country through Ellis Island alone.

Photos: Immigration at Ellis Island

February 1907: Amid prejudices in California that an influx of Japanese workers would cost white workers farming jobs and depress wages, the United States and Japan sign the Gentlemen’s Agreement. Japan agrees to limit Japanese emigration to the United States to certain categories of business and professional men. In return, President Theodore Roosevelt urges San Francisco to end the segregation of Japanese students from white students in San Francisco schools.

1910: An estimated three-quarters of New York City’s population consists of new immigrants and first-generation Americans.

New Restrictions at Start of WWI

1917: Xenophobia reaches new highs on the eve of American involvement in World War I . The Immigration Act of 1917 establishes a literacy requirement for immigrants entering the country and halts immigration from most Asian countries.

May 1924: The Immigration Act of 1924 limits the number of immigrants allowed into the United States yearly through nationality quotas. Under the new quota system, the United States issues immigration visas to 2 percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States at the 1890 census. The law favors immigration from Northern and Western European countries. Just three countries, Great Britain, Ireland and Germany account for 70 percent of all available visas. Immigration from Southern, Central and Eastern Europe was limited. The Act completely excludes immigrants from Asia, aside from the Philippines, at the time an American colony.

1924 : In the wake of the numerical limits established by the 1924 law, illegal immigration to the United States increases. The U.S. Border Patrol is established to crack down on illegal immigrants crossing the Mexican and Canadian borders into the United States. Many of these early border crossers were Chinese and other Asian immigrants, who had been barred from entering legally.

Mexicans Fill Labor Shortages During WWII

1942: Labor shortages during World War II prompt the United States and Mexico to form the Bracero Program , which allows Mexican agricultural workers to enter the United States temporarily. The program lasts until 1964.

1948: The United States passes the nation’s first refugee and resettlement law to deal with the influx of Europeans seeking permanent residence in the United States after World War II.

1952: The McCarran-Walter Act formally ends the exclusion of Asian immigrants to the United States.

1956-1957 : The United States admits roughly 38,000 immigrants from Hungary after a failed uprising against the Soviet Union . They were among the first Cold War refugees. The United States would admit over 3 million refugees during the Cold War.

1960-1962 : Roughly 14,000 unaccompanied children flee Fidel Castro ’s Cuba and come to the United States as part of a secret, anti-Communism program called Operation Peter Pan.

Quota System Ends

1965: The Immigration and Nationality Act overhauls the American immigration system. The Act ends the national origin quotas enacted in the 1920s which favored some racial and ethnic groups over others.

The quota system is replaced with a seven-category preference system emphasizing family reunification and skilled immigrants. Upon signing the new bill, President Lyndon B. Johnson , called the old immigration system “un-American,” and said the new bill would correct a “cruel and enduring wrong in the conduct of the American Nation.”

Over the next five years, immigration from war-torn regions of Asia, including Vietnam and Cambodia , would more than quadruple. Family reunification became a driving force in U.S. immigration.

April-October 1980 : During the Mariel boatlift , roughly 125,000 Cuban refugees make a dangerous sea crossing in overcrowded boats to arrive on the Florida shore seeking political asylum.

Amnesty to Undocumented Immigrants

1986: President Ronald Reagan signs into law the Simpson-Mazzoli Act, which grants amnesty to more than 3 million immigrants living illegally in the United States.

2001 : U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) propose the first Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, which would provide a pathway to legal status for Dreamers, undocumented immigrants brought to the United States illegally by their parents as children. The bill—and subsequent iterations of it—don’t pass.

2012 : President Barack Obama signs Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) which temporarily shields some Dreamers from deportation, but doesn’t provide a path to citizenship.

2017: President Donald Trump issues two executive orders aimed at curtailing travel and immigration from six majority Muslim countries (Chad, Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia) as well as North Korea and Venezuela. Both of these so-called Muslim travel bans are challenged in state and federal courts.

2018: In April 2018, the travel restrictions on Chad are lifted. In June 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court uphold a third version of the travel ban on the remaining seven countries.

Immigration Timeline, The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation . LBJ on Immigration, LBJ Presidential Library . The Nation's Immigration Laws, 1920 to Today, Pew Research Center . 1986: Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, Library of Congress .

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How Does Immigration Affect the United States?

Uc davis experts study immigration in relation to jobs, crime and disease..

• by Alex Russell
• August 19, 2024

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, immigrants made up 13.9% of the total population in 2022. Among them are highly skilled workers who fill critical gaps in high tech industries as well those who construct the buildings in which we live and who plant and harvest the foods we eat. Some arrive seeking greater opportunity while others bring hope simply for a life free from persecution and poverty.

In every country and context, immigration is as much a force for shaping society as it is a flashpoint for anger and prejudice. At the same time, research shows that immigrants make important contributions to their new countries.

“Immigrants are part of the fabric of a country’s economy and society,” said Giovanni Peri, director of the Global Migration Center and a professor of economics at UC Davis. “We want to bring more information, clarity, facts and discussion to shine the light that immigrants are human beings who bring assets with them to their new countries.” 

Immigration and jobs

In the U.S., the negativity associated with immigration is partly driven by the idea that immigrants are a threat to jobs. For nearly 30 years, Peri has published papers on how immigrants affect jobs and wages for everyone in the U.S. For a 2006 report for the American Immigration Council, Peri analyzed over a decade of economic data to understand the dynamics of how immigrant workers shape local job markets. 

Instead of revealing a zero-sum game in which immigrants and native-born workers compete for a limited number of jobs, the analysis found a net positive effect on native-born workers. The study found that immigrants did not drive down wages, as is often argued. 

From 1990-2004, immigration increased wages by as much as 3.4% for the 90% of native-born workers with at least a high-school diploma. For those without a high-school diploma, immigration caused a loss of 1.1% percent of their yearly wages. 

The analysis also showed how these effects on wages are possible. Immigrants bring levels of education and skill sets that complement — rather than compete with — the native-born workforce.

An April 2024 NBER paper by Peri and co-author Alessandro Caiumi confirm that these findings remain true nearly 20 years later. With improved statistical methods, this new analysis found that immigrant workers at all skill levels either have no effect on jobs and wages for U.S.-born workers or that they generate a slight improvement.

“Instead of a threat to native-born workers, immigrant workers bring with them skills and levels of education that are complementary,” said Peri. “Instead of generating more competition across the board, immigrant workers have almost always increased overall economic opportunity for everyone.”

The myth of immigrants and higher crime

Economics research has also found the idea that immigrants drive higher crime rates to be a myth. A new study co-authored by Santiago Pérez, an associate professor of economics and Global Migration Center affiliate, analyzed over 150 years of U.S. Census Bureau data to compare the incarceration rates of immigrants and the U.S.-born.

The study found that immigrants have had a lower incarceration rate than the U.S.-born in every single year since 1870. Also, since the 1960s the gap in incarceration rates has significantly grown. In recent years that gap has reached 30% overall.

The team explored a number of potential explanations for this shift that began about 60 years ago. One might have been that deportation was removing more people from the country before they could be counted by the U.S. Census. However, mass deportations in the U.S. began in the early 2000s, well after the incarceration trends for immigrants and the native-born began following different paths. 

In fact, the data might be overestimating the rates at which immigrants commit crime. The U.S. Census Bureau does not include any reference to their crime. Even if the only law they broke was entering the U.S., they are still reported as an incarcerated individual along with others who have committed violent or property crimes.

“People often see past migration waves in a more positive light,” said Santiago Pérez, an associate professor of economics and Global Migration Center affiliate. “They think about Europeans who came in the late 19th century and early 20th century, and they tend to contrast this with new migrants, but what we find in the paper is actually the opposite.”

Global migration, disease and stigma

Migration is by all measures a global phenomenon. About 2.3% of the global population, about 184 million people, could be considered migrants for having left the country in which they were born to live in a new nation without citizenship. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees , or UNHCR, 36.4 million of these in 2023 were war refugees. 

When large numbers of people end up in refugee camps, disease is more likely to spread. Disease itself can attach added stigma to a person’s status.

“Communicable diseases already are quite stigmatized, and there's this historical association pinning a communicable disease or an outbreak with immigration,” said Angel Desai, an assistant professor at UC Davis Health and a member of the Global Migration Center executive committee.

Desai is a physician and infectious disease specialist who conducts research on global public health. In a recent study , she and her co-authors looked at outbreaks of hepatitis E, an infection that affects the liver. With roughly a decade of data on outbreaks in refugee camps across a number of African countries, they found that these outbreaks were always associated with crowding, poor sanitation and a lack of infrastructure like running water and sanitary waste disposal systems.

“These outbreaks were not inherent to the population,” said Desai. “Hepatitis E flourishes in situations where you have poor sanitation and a lot of crowding.”

In another study , she and her co-authors analyzed how U.S. news media portrayed tuberculosis and immigrants. Their analysis showed that the political leanings of news media outlets drove differences in the number of reports they published on the topic.

“Communicable diseases don't care where you're from,” said Desai. “We need to look deeper into the structural and environmental causes of these diseases and really be making sure that our policies help everybody achieve the best health outcomes as opposed to using them as a tool to further stigmatize a group of people.”

Primary Category

Handout A: Background Essay – The History of Immigration Law in the United States

Background Essay—The History of Immigration Law in the United States

Directions: Read the background essay and answer the critical thinking questions at the end. In addition, formulate your own questions about the content discussed.

In the modern era, nation-states are defined by their unique laws, forms of government, and distinct national cultures within the borders that make them sovereign nations. Since the early years of the United States’ history, the federal government has sought, with varying degrees of success, to control and define the nature and scale of immigration into the country. In the first seventy years of the nation’s history, immigration was left largely unrestricted. Congress focused its attention on defining the terms by which immigrants could gain the full legal rights of citizenship. Beginning in the 1880s, however, Congress began to legislate on the national and ethnic makeup of immigrants. Lawmakers passed laws forbidding certain groups from entering the country, and restricted the number of people who could enter from particular nations. In the 1920s, Congress enacted quotas based upon immigrants’ national origin, limiting the number of immigrants who could enter from non-Western European countries. In the 1960s, immigration policy was radically transformed , and the policies of the preceding generations were abolished.  

Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution empowers the Congress to “Establish a Uniform Rule of Naturalization.” This means that Congress has the power to determine the rules and processes under which people from other countries may become citizens of the United States. The first national law concerning immigration was the Naturalization Act of 1790, which stated that any free white person who had resided in the U.S. for at least two years could apply for full citizenship. Congress also required applicants to demonstrate “good character” and swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. Enslaved Blacks forcibly brought to the country in the international slave trade were ineligible for citizenship.  

In 1795, naturalization standards were changed to require five years’ prior residence in the U.S., and again in 1798 to require 14 years’ residence. The 1798 revision was passed amidst the anti-French fervor of the Quasi-War and sought to limit the influence of foreign-born citizens in federal elections. During Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, the 1798 standards were repealed to require five years’ residence once more. As immigration patterns changed over time, especially in the late 1840s and early 1850s when Irish and Germans replaced the British as the primary immigrant groups, federal immigration law remained largely unchanged. Despite anti-immigrant agitation in the 1850s and the rise of nativist political groups, no limits or quotas were imposed on immigration.  

  Questions still lingered about the nature of citizenship for Black Americans. In December 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified, abolishing slavery in all of the states. Were emancipated slaves citizens, or not? Through the end of the Civil War, enslaved people had not been considered citizens and possessed none of the rights of their white countrymen. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 established that freedmen were indeed citizens. In 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution confirmed the position set forth in the Civil Rights Act. The amendment stated that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” The amendment prohibited the states from curtailing the privileges of federal citizenship. The construction of the citizenship clause indicates that anyone born in the U.S. is automatically a citizen, and this is what federal law has maintained ever since. However, some disagreement simmered as to the meaning of the citizenship clause, and whether it was intended to clarify the status of emancipated slaves, or whether it was written to apply to all peoples regardless of context.  

  During the congressional ratification debates, members made clear the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment. Senator and Radical Republican Thaddeus Stevens argued in 1866 that the Fourteenth Amendment was the final fulfillment of the principles of the Declaration of Independence, a law designed to ensure equal rights for all Americans no matter their race or prior status under the law. Senator Jacob Howard, one of the chief authors of the citizenship clause, reassured Congress by saying the amendment “will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens” or had been born to foreign diplomats. Senator John Bingham echoed his colleague’s remarks and said the citizenship clause reasserts “that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of our Constitution itself, a natural-born citizen.” In 1868, the amendment was ratified, and the interpretation that favors the interpretation that all individuals born in the United States are naturalized citizens has prevailed.  

After the Civil War, the American economy boomed as industry grew and the American West was settled and organized into new states. On the Pacific coast, the high demand for labor drew thousands of Chinese immigrants into the country to work in a variety of capacities. Most often, they worked building railroads or in mines. Others farmed or ran businesses in California’s growing cities. By the late 1870s, opposition to Chinese laborers had grown substantially, stemming from a combination of racism and the belief that Chinese laborers unfairly competed with white American laborers and stole their economic opportunities. Eventually, Congress passed the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act barring virtually all new immigration from China. The act was extended in 1892 and on a permanent basis beginning in 1902. Other laws further restricted the rights and privileges of Chinese immigrants already in the United States. The Scott Act of 1888, for example, forbade Chinese immigrants who left the United States from returning, even if they were gone for a short period of time. It was not until World War II, when China was a military ally of the United States, that the ban on Chinese immigration was lifted.  

For most of the 1800s, the main sources of immigrants to the United States were British, Irish, German, Scandinavian, and Central European peoples. By the 1880s, immigration patterns shifted toward Eastern and Southern European groups, especially Italians, Poles, Russians, and other Slavic peoples. Most were pulled to the United States by the promise of better opportunities and improved quality of life. The dramatic change in the ethnic makeup of this “new wave” of immigrants caused alarm among nativists who saw the new immigrants as inferior, criminals, and Catholics with little allegiance to republican ideals.   

  This same latent anti-immigrant hostility also erupted during both World Wars. Anti-immigrant antagonism has not always been racially motivated. In World War I, German-Americans (even those born in the United States) were subjected to discrimination and harassment for their national background. In some communities, German-Americans were lynched by mobs while others had their businesses boycotted or closed. Americans born in Germany were forced to register with the government as “enemy aliens,” and some states prohibited the use of the German language in school instruction. Most Lutheran churches ceased conducting services in the German language and adopted English instead.  

One piece of legislation that emerged from this period was the Immigration Act of 1917 which created the Asiatic Barred Zone, a vast area of Asia from which no person could immigrate to the U.S. The prohibited areas included most of the Middle East, South Asian countries like Persia and British-ruled India, as well as central Asia and Southeastern Asia.  

Nativist fears of the growing number of immigrants arriving from Eastern and Southern European countries also led Congress to pass the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921, which placed limits on the number of people entering the country based upon prescribed quotas. The law used the 1910 Federal Census to determine existing numbers of foreign-born citizens already living in the U.S. It then required that a number equivalent to only 3% of the already resident population from a certain country could be admitted. Therefore, for example, if 100,000 Bulgarians already lived in the U.S., only 3,000 Bulgarian immigrants could enter annually thereafter. This scheme became known as the National Origins Formula. While the stated goal of federal policy sought to ensure that new waves of immigrants from outside western and central Europe could slowly integrate into American society and so could better embrace American notions of civic virtue, self-government, and productivity, its roots in nativism and insularism mark it as a dark moment in American history.  

The Immigration Act of 1921 was followed a few years later by the Immigration Act of 1924 which decreased the quota from 3% to 2% and used the 1890 census instead of the 1910 census as the reference point for its quotas. Because Congress chose to utilize the 1890 census, which showed a higher proportion of residents from what were seen as more desirable European countries like Germany and Great Britain, the law created artificially low quotas for the new immigrants. Furthermore, it placed low caps on arrivals from majority non-white nations, like those in Africa and the Middle East. In the first year of its enactment, the law permitted 51,000 German immigrants, for example, but only 100 from the Arabian Peninsula.  

During World War II, JapaneseAmericans were subjected to even worse treatment and were forced into internment camps for the duration of the war. In February 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which forced Japanese Americans to move away from the Pacific coast because of the fear they would support a Japanese invasion or engage in acts of sabotage. Fred Korematsu challenged the legality of Roosevelt’s directive, but in  Korematsu v. U.S.  (1944) the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the internment of Japanese Americans was constitutional.  

  The quotas and restrictions of the 1920s remained largely in place until the administration of President Lyndon Johnson, when he and Congress undertook a sweeping reform project of many of the most important public policy sectors. As part of his reform agenda, Johnson signed into law the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which ended use of the National Origins Formula. Under the new law, 120,000 immigrants were to be admitted annually from Western Hemisphere nations in Latin and South America. 170,000 people per year would be admitted from Asia, Africa, and Europe combined. The reforms of 1965 initiated a substantial change in the ethnic and national origin of immigrants with immigration today being dominated by non-European peoples from all parts of the world. Further, the 1965 reform provided an avenue for immigrants’ families to come to the United States after them, as family immigration is usually not counted in the overall quota. With minor revisions, the standards set forth in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 remain in effect today and still determines from which countries the United States draws its new citizens.  

CRITICAL THINKING OR HOMEWORK QUESTIONS  

• Describe the Naturalization Act of 1790. According to this law, who could become citizens of the United States? What racial boundaries to citizenship did the law define? What were the conditions of gaining full citizenship?  
• What is naturalization and why were law makers in the years around 1800 concerned with defining how long citizens must be in the country to become naturalized?  
• Describe the debate over the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. How do most Americans in the present day interpret the law? How did its framers explain the law at the time?  
• What were some of the reasons that the Chinese were forbidden to immigrate? When were these immigration restrictions lifted?  
• Describe the challenges faced by immigrants and the descendants of recent immigrants during World War I and World War II. What did the Supreme Court rule in  Korematsu v. U.S. ?  
• What were the primary changes brought about in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965? How was this law different from the laws enacted in 1921 and 1924?  

417 Immigration Topics to Write about & Essay Examples

Welcome to our list of catchy immigration essay titles! Here, you will find a variety of immigration topics to write about as well as writing prompts and presentation ideas.

🔝 Top 10 Immigration Titles for Essays

📝 key points to use to write an outstanding immigration essay, 🏆 best immigration topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 good essay topics on immigration, 🎓 simple & easy immigration essay titles, 🥇 most interesting immigration topics to write about, 📌 immigration writing prompts, ✅ good research topics about immigration, ❓ immigration essay questions, ✨ creative titles for immigration essays, 🚀 immigration topics for presentation.

• How Migration Shapes Identities
• Assimilation vs. Multiculturalism
• Immigration Policies and Their Effects
• Global Responses the Refugee Crisis
• Immigration and Crime: Fact vs. Fiction
• Immigration’s Impact on Social Integration
• Educational Challenges and Opportunities for immigrants
• What Are the Health Impacts of Immigration?
• The Effects of Immigration on Family Separation
• What’s the Role of Immigrants in Entrepreneurship?

Immigration essay is a popular type of assignment in various topics, including politics and social sciences. In a globalized world, people can migrate from one country to another for work, study, and other reasons.

This post will discuss some points that you could include in your essay on immigration to earn a high mark!

First of all, you should provide some background information on the subject. For example, if you are writing an essay about immigration in the United States, describe and discuss the key periods when immigration was high. Try to think about the following questions:

• What motivates people to immigrate a certain country?
• Why is immigration higher in developed countries than in developing ones?
• What are some examples of government policies promoting or reducing immigration?

Secondly, you should cover the key pro/con immigration arguments. Whether your essay is argumentative, persuasive, or informative, you need to acknowledge that immigration has both advantages and disadvantages. Here is a list of questions that you might want to ask yourself while writing the paper:

• What influence does immigration have on the economy?
• Does immigration make it easier or harder for people to find employment?
• Why are some people against immigration, even when it’s legal?

The third point you should address in your essay is illegal immigration.

This is a significant topic in many countries, including the United States. To make sure that your paper receives an excellent mark, answer the following questions:

• What are the reasons that make people immigrate illegally?
• What are your country’s policies with regards to illegal immigrants?
• What impact do illegal aliens have on the economy and society?
• Why are some countries targeted by illegal immigrants more often than others?
• What can governments do to prevent illegal migration without violating human rights and freedoms?

One of the most important immigration essay topics is the immigrant experience. While many students write about immigration, they often fail to present a comprehensive view of the concept.

To avoid this mistake, consider what immigrants feel and experience when they decide to come to a different country. If you have a friend who is an immigrant, you can interview them. Here are a few ideas to think about:

• What are the most widespread challenges faced by immigrants?
• How do people plan their life in a different country?
• Do language barriers affect their relationships with other people, access to medical care, and education?
• How do immigrants adjust to a new culture?
• Can an immigrant integrate fully into the community?

Lastly, when thinking of essay topics about immigration, it is impossible to ignore the impact of immigration on society. Indeed, most essay titles in this area are focused on positive and negative social consequences of immigration. To cover this point in your paper, you may try to answer these questions:

• Does immigration facilitate social division and can this effect be prevented?
• Why do some people oppose cultural and racial diversity? What is cultural assimilation, and is it helpful to modern societies?
• How can cultural pluralism and multiculturalism influence communities in immigrant-rich countries?
• What can we do to ensure that immigration benefits all people, including native citizens?

Hopefully, this post has provided you with some things to talk about in your future immigration essays. Make sure to check sample papers and free essay titles about immigration on our website!

• Essay About Immigration Causes and Effects Some of the major causes of immigration in the current world include; Political unrests and wars This is one of the common causes of immigration in various regions of the world.
• Immigration: Advantages and Disadvantages It is important to mention how immigrants tend to affect the economy of the country. According to the statistics received from the US Bureau of Labor, the participation of foreigners in the workforce was 3.
• The History of Jamaicans Immigration to Canada The final section examines and discusses the migration of Jamaicans to Canada from 1960s to the financial year 2000. Despite the importation, the Maroons who in 1976 migrated to Halifax became the earliest Jamaicans to […]
• Irish-Catholic Immigration to America The importance of this event appeared from the fact that the Irish migration was one of the most significant contributors to the American immigrants’ inflow.
• Immigration Issues in Alfonso Gonzales’s Book “Reform Without Justice: Latino Migrant Politics and the Homeland Security State” Focusing on the emotions associated with the discussed ideas about the necessity of the comprehensive immigration reform, it is necessary to pay attention to the desire to support the claims of the Latino migrant activists […]
• Ferguson v. Canada: Citizenship and Immigration Case The applicant and the council counter this claim by stating that the officer’s dismissal was based on not finding evidence credible and failing to consider statements such as “Ms.
• Immigration: Benefits for the Nation or a Drain on Society? Immigration is a topical issue in the contemporary U.S., which has divided the community into two opposing camps.
• Thunder in the Sun – A Tale of Basque Gold-Rush Immigration The examination of the plot of Thunder in the Sun and credible sources focused on the Basques’ culture and immigration into the United States has revealed some inconsistencies in terms of historical evidence.
• Chinese Immigration to Cambodia in Personal Story Mom was forced to gather up some money from relatives who were already in the refugee camp to exchange for the release of my sister.
• Travel and New Land: Immigration Experience I have shared my thoughts with many immigrants and found out that many of them have the same feeling of the obligation to stay loyal to the political machine of this country due to the […]
• Comparing Sweden Immigration Policy with German Immigration Policy As Herrera and Moualhi posit, “In liberal-democratic polities, the question of ‘who makes immigration policy’ evokes the question of the extent at which those policies mirror the preferences of a majority of citizens, or rather […]
• History of Puerto Rican Immigration to New York Amid the earliest Puerto Ricans to immigrate to New York were Spanish crown exiles both men and women, due to their political beliefs and resistance for the cause of Puerto Rican sovereignty In 1917 United […]
• The Impact of Immigration on the American Society and Culture Even though the country has granted residency status to millions of immigrants since time immemorial, the rapid influx of immigrants have created anxiety among the American citizens that immigration could adversely affect their social and […]
• The IDEAL Immigration Policy Advocacy All IDEAL candidates, like most applicants nowadays, would be required to pay a processing fee in advance to cover the price of doing background checks and conducting visa interviews.
• Immigration in the United States and Canada in the Post Hart-Cella Act (1965) and Canadian Immigration (1976) Act Era Two basic factors motivate Immigration in the world; the first one is the reason to move from country of origin and second, the reason to move to a host country.
• Immigration in New York City and Its Effects Steele and Perkins examine the impact of the apparent volume of migrants in the neighborhood on the propensity to redistribute in New York City.
• The Maya Immigration to the United States Therefore, each narrative included in the article “Maya Youth in Los Angeles” by Alicia Ivonne Estrada helps a reader to determine the factors that affected the Maya immigration to the U.S.
• The Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada The IRB is comprised of the Immigration Appeal Division, the Immigration Division, and the Refugee Protection Division. The governor-in-council appoints the Chairperson of the IRB who is supported by the vice-chairperson and deputy chairperson.
• The National Immigration Enforcement The intention of ICE to employ their agents in sanctuary cities will only make the gap between the cities and enforcement agencies wider.
• Migration Patterns: American Immigration However, it is also crucial to refer to the effects of such processes, including the overview of local communities, the impact on the economy, and the overall development or lack thereof when multiple individuals move […]
• The Harvest of the Empire: Immigration in the US The situation has become more acute in the last few years because of global problems like the coronavirus. The entire economic development of the colonies was subordinated to the interests of Spain and Portugal.
• Climate Change and Immigration Issues Due to its extensive coverage of the aspects of climate migration, the article will be significant to the research process in acquiring a better understanding of the effects of climate change on different people from […]
• Immigration: The Key Challenges As evidenced in the four articles, the key challenges of immigration revolve around high unemployment, border militarization, and legality of DACA. The border agents, as explicated in the Carroll’s article, have doubled to 23,000 for […]
• Immigration in the US: Historical Background Therefore, it is likely that he would have supported the introduction of quotas and would have taken a position similar to Jefferson.
• The Immigration Crisis in Texas The clash between the federal government and the state of Texas over the implementation of immigration law and the exercise of these powers has been ongoing for decades now.
• The 0 Visa: Immigration Case Study The purpose of the work is to consider an example of a 0 visa case from a family of three people and the possible issues that an officer may encounter.
• Soledad Castillo’s Immigration to the USA To reach the USA at that time, the group of people Soledad was with had to stay invisible and quiet because the actions they took were illegal.
• Irish Immigration to America and the Slavery Despite the fact that the Irish encountered a great number of obstacles, the immigration of Irish people to the United States was advantageous not only to the immigrants but also to the United States.
• Discussion of Holocaust and Immigration In “Holocaust Education and Remembrance in Australia,” Suzanne D.and Suzanne H.discuss the adverse effects and after-issues of immigration among the Jewish community and how it led to the concept that the Holocaust had a long-lasting […]
• Phenomenon of Immigration Analysis The phenomenon of immigration is often viewed as a complex one due to the concerns and fears associated with the increase in the number of immigrants within a community.
• Immigration Controversy in the United States This might have a significant influence on the quality of decisions and the care provided to immigrants. The financial and emotional obstacles that children of immigrants encounter in a new nation are sometimes complex.
• Immigration in American Economic History Because of the discriminatory attitudes that existed in society, I was not able to find a high-paying job. Those were the physical challenges I had to face in the form of sickness and starvation.
• Migration to the Caribbean vs. African Immigration While the 19-20-th-centiury migration to the Caribbean historically has nothing to do with African immigration, the underlying cause of racism and discrimination case the main reason for migration connects the specified phenomena.
• Abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention Centers Although the abolition of ICE detention centers could potentially encourage the violation of the country’s immigration policies, they constitute a tool for racial subordination and exacerbate the problem of mass incarceration.
• The Irish Immigration to America in the 19th Century The increase in food production and income from the war led to increased fertility rates among the Irish. The abrupt end of the war in the early nineteenth century precipitated the emigration.
• Immigration System and Homeland Security The combined efforts of the agencies constituting the Department of Homeland Security in addressing the safety needs of American citizens have a predominant impact on the immigration system.
• Immigration and Homeland Security as Issues It is important to note that the issues of immigration and homeland security are the problem of the moral duty of the United States as a beacon of democracy and the safety of its current […]
• Geopolitics, Diplomacy and Small States: Immigration Challenges in Switzerland The current foreign policies of the country have remained ineffective in regulating the influx of foreigners in the country. The following are some of the specific challenges that are associated with the high rate of […]
• Globalization, Immigration, and Class Division It includes the widespread globalization of countries, diverse economic perception of each, and the acute ethical and legal side of the immigration issue.
• The Florence Project: Immigration According to a fellow volunteer at the Florence Project, one of the biggest non-profit organizations in Arizona, the need for social and emotional support for Mexican immigrants has been of utmost importance across the state […]
• The Texas Border, Security, and Immigration Immigration from Mexico is not thought to represent a violation of U.S.security, but the issue of the Texas border remains relevant and intriguing.
• The Immigration Stations of Ellis Island and Angel Island Although the Angel Island Immigration Station was often referred to as the “Ellis Island” of the West, the conditions in these sites were very different, and so was the treatment of the arriving immigrants.
• Alabama and California Immigration Policies The higher population of immigrants in California pushes the states to create a positive environment for the majority as opposed to Alabama.
• Waves of Immigration: Recognizing Race and Ethnicity In 1965, Congress overturned the discriminatory immigration quota system and passed legislation based on the principles of family reunification and the attraction of a highly-skilled workforce to the United States.
• Immigration: Social Issue Feeling Analysis From the global perspective, the most influencing countries in the world use visa and other conditions of entering the country as a migration regulating tool.
• The Problem of Immigration in the US Puerto Rico came to capitalism and imperialism, and the transformation of this territory into a state “under the wing” of the United States led to the loss of culture, tourism, and an increase in poverty […]
• Illegal Immigration Policies and Violent Crime The authors of this article discuss how illegal immigration and border enforcement influence the level of crime along the U.S.-Mexico border.
• Strategies for Solving the Issue of Illegal Immigration in the US The first one is enforcing the measures preventing it, and the second one is changing immigration policy in order to make legalization easier.
• Immigration: Life Chances and Difficulties Other factors are unsuitable weather conditions, persecution, threats to life or health, poverty in the country, risks of disease, and infection. Therefore, immigrants want to find a better place to live in order to improve […]
• The Crisis of Cultural Identity of Luxembourg Due to Massive Immigration The possibility of a city-wide display exhibiting the workmanship and specialties of Luxembourg could be a method for opening the secret of the nation’s way of life. There is an incredible blend of individuals who […]
• Resolving Mexico’s Immigration Crisis A stable rate of immigrants and refugees, particularly traveling in so ‘caravans’ coming from South and Central Americas into Mexico with the hopes of reaching the U.S.or finding permanent residence in Mexico at the least.
• Immigration, Cultural Encounters, and Cultural Clashes He also obeyed the religious traditions of his country by avoiding beef in his food, opting for milk and cornflakes as a meal.
• The Birth of Illegal Immigration In addition, Americans blamed Chinese immigrants for low wages and the unemployment rate, which further influenced the ban on Asians to move to the U.S.
• Immigration: Orientalism and Yellow Power The migration was propelled by drought and floods on the Opium trade between the Chinese and the British. The initial resistance against the Chinese started in 1875 with the enactment of the Page Act.
• Biden Ends Workplace Immigration Raids, Reversing Trump Policy Firstly, the announcement will contribute immensely towards the integrity of most employers in the sense that it is going to push employers to pursue only documented immigrants for labor without putting excessive pressure on the […]
• Immigration: The Costs and Benefits According to the author, due to the prevailing ethnocentrism and the division of society into “us” and “outsiders,” the community often treats immigrants with prejudice.
• Analysis of DACA and Immigration Illegal immigration and its handling has always been a hot button topic in the US, especially after the events of 9/11 and the creation of the department of homeland security.
• Cost of Immigration Enforcement and Border Security Functional Components of the Incident Command System Out of the functions described in the table focusing on the NRF, the most useful and important one is definitely prevention of terrorist attacks and associated incidents.
• Analysis of Immigration Issues The lack of protection for the work of immigrants demands compared to people born in this country and who had the opportunity to get a job because the state protects them.
• US Immigration Policy and Its Correlation to Structural Racism That may create breaches in the immigration policy and cause social instability that could endanger the status of immigrants and even negatively affect the lives of the nationals.
• Immigration to the US in Relation to Covid-19 Overall, the human right to change the place of residence should be upheld by the nations of the world. To conclude, the issues related to immigration should be of more significant concern to the world’s […]
• Ambiguous Loss: Immigration and Separation of Families To lessen the impact of ambiguous loss, immigrants and their families need therapy, community support, and advocacy for policy change to keep them safe.
• Impacts of Immigration and Urbanization Urbanization is a special term that describes the decreasing proportion of people who live in rural areas, the population shift from rural to urban areas, and the possible ways of societies’ adaption to these changes. […]
• The Implications of Immigration When considering the results of the process, both the sender and the receiver country must be discussed, as well as the implications for the migrants themselves.
• Aspects of Immigration Reform Creating a fair, legal, and humane immigration system requires the legalization of almost 11 million immigrants already staying in the country and the simplification of obtaining citizenship in the country.
• COVID-19 and Immigration Issues On March 20th, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the US Department of Health and Human Services issued a special order to curb the spread of COVID-19.
• Homeland Security Analysis: The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services The mission and duties of this agency are closely related to the September 11 events not to face similar losses and threats in the future.
• Immigration Policy in Germany and the United States Germany and the United States contrast each other in resolving the public issue of immigration. The immigration policies of Germany and the United States cater to specific key stakeholders.
• Immigration and Naturalization Service Officer Career For the present paper, I have selected to profile the careers of Custom Officer and Immigration and Naturalization Service Officer. However, the entry-level position for customs is often administrative assistant, who works mainly with documents […]
• Immigration: Where Did Your Ancestors Live? Officially, it is referred to as the Republic of Haiti, and the population of this country is approximately ten million people.
• Immigration from Asia and India: Political Impacts In retrospect, the literature review of the issue at hand has shown that there is a significant gap in the study of the factors that shape immigrants’ ability to reconnect with their cultural roots.
• Immigration: Political Impacts and Social Changes Particularly, the author posits that the increase in the amount of labor force that immigration entails leads to the improved performance of local companies, hence the rise in GDP rates and the overall increase in […]
• Angel Island Immigration Station While European immigrants coming into the country at the beginning of the twentieth century were more familiar with Ellis Island of New York, the Orientals underwent the experience of the immigration station at Angel Island.
• Hearth and Home Perception in 19th-Century Victorians Due to Immigration Nevertheless, the Victorian perception of what constitutes the concept had undergone severe changes in the 19th century, when the heart of the British Empire saw a significant wave of migration into the metropolis from its […]
• Debate on Immigration Policy: Law Enforcement Practices It is presumed that a wise immigration policy performed by the representatives of the police departments is likely to stabilize the current set of things and to reduce the number of illegal unregistered immigration cases.
• Immigration Museum and Cultural Diversity in Australia History The timeline presenting the main periods of immigration which is exhibited in the gallery can help to understand the development of the cultural diversity in Australia from the historic point of view because various periods […]
• Immigration Debate: Literature Study The Size and Characteristics of the Unauthorized Migrant Population in the U. The Immigration Debate: Studies On The Economic, Demographic, And Fiscal Effects Of Immigration.
• Immigration Asylum and Nationality Law In the UK it is very easy to move from a temporary settlement to a permanent one and it has increased the levels of net migration to the brimming level.
• Immigration Policy, Border Security and Migrant Deaths The research design that was used to collect this data was to investigate the rate of deaths that were experienced among the immigrants since the enactment of the immigration policy.
• Immigration and Refugee Law in New Zealand Consequently, the refugee policy comes about due to the flow of obligations courtesy of the 1960 UNHCR Convention, that is to say, the provision of refugees’ protection.
• The Current Immigration and Customs Immigration has always been the backbone of American history and the country’s rich cultural and ethnic diversity. Immigration in the U.S.is overseen by the Department of Homeland Security and its various agencies.U.S.
• Immigration and Its Impact on Employment Opportunities of Local People On the macroeconomic level, the inflow of immigrants to a country leads to an expansion in the size of an economy.
• Immigration and the United States On the other hand, the approximated number of immigrants in the region is 58 million, and the group is projected to be the main source of the future labor force.
• The Immigration in Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi, in particular, is a noteworthy case study subject due to its history as the center of the UAE government and its corresponding influence on the question of immigration in the nation.
• Immigration Programs in the US Despite its economic, military and cultural power and the concept of an American dream, the US is far from the land of hopes it is portrayed to be.
• US Politics of Immigration The representatives of the Democratic and the Republican Parties of the United States have opposite viewpoints on immigration-related issues. In conclusion, the views of Democrats and Republicans on immigration are completely different.
• Immigration and Multiculturalism: Flow of Workers This paper aims to address the question of whether the flow of workers makes a positive impact on the host country in the context of society and business.
• The Immigration Benefits Specialists define labour migration as an advantageous process that positively affects the development of the economy in countries of employment and the improvement of the quality of life of families of labour migrants in their […]
• Immigration in Canada and Ethnicity: New Perspectives Such a reality will continue to influence and affect the life outcomes of the greatest number of Canadian citizens with diverse backgrounds in the future.
• Immigration From Mexico to the United States In the present day, the immigration of Mexican citizens to the United States is a topic of considerably intense debates for various political and economic reasons.
• Role of Immigration in Development of Canadian History Changes to the Immigration Act in the 1960s and the Royal Commission recommendations that led to the bilingual framework and multiculturalism stance of the Canadian government signified the significant shift for the country from being […]
• The History of Immigration to the United States and the Nature of Racism The development of the idea of race and ethnicity along with the idea of racial antagonism has two main stages in the history of the United States.
• Immigrant Adaptation Patterns Generally, the main difference of this form of adaptation is in the fact that immigrants may continue having their own cultural perceptions as their connections with the motherland are still strong due to family ties, […]
• Mitt Romney Softens Stance on Immigration The minority vote, particularly the Latino, has been on the increase and could have an effect on the election by providing a margin of victory on some of the states such as Nevada, Colorado and […]
• Illegal Immigration Control in the Texas Although the public assigns immense powers to the governor’s office, Texas’ office of the governor enjoys weak institutional powers because of the constitution’s provision of multiple offices that server alongside the office of the governor.
• Chinese American Immigration The Chinese American immigration consists of two distinct periods: first wave occurred between the 1850s and 1880s and ended in the appearance of federal laws that restricted the immigration: and the second wave that started […]
• US Immigration: Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Philippines The origins of Philippines immigration lie in its historical and political links with the United States Philippines used to be first annexed by the United States in 1989 and then an insular area of the […]
• Immigration Of Mexicans Into The United States In The Early 20th Century In the book, “Becoming Mexican American: ethnicity, culture, and identity in Chicano Los Angeles 1900-1945”, the author, Sanchez, addresses various issues that led to the immigration of Mexican into the United States. Community crisis is […]
• Berlin: Music, Spies, and Turkish Immigration And I think that Berlin’s split during the XX century has also influenced the music that was produced and written here: in its core, it reflects the differences and similarities between the East and West.
• The Illegal Immigration Prevention Policy For example, one of the biggest of them would be the necessity to analyze all the gathered information. Therefore, it is safe to assume that there would be no shortage of information for the Chef […]
• The Immigration Crisis by Armando Navarro This is a strategy that has been incepted to reduce the immigration of the people especially in countries that have direct business transactions.
• Birthright Citizenship in the US This is whereby a foreigner travels to the United State for a short period for the sole reason of giving birth in the U.S.in order to guarantee the citizenship of the child.
• Failure of Immigration Laws in Pakistan and Its Influence on American Economy The military death and announcement of the Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden by the president of the United States of America have raised eyebrows on the immigration policies of Pakistan as a sovereign nation.
• “Arizona Immigration Law Debate Triggers National Shockwaves” by Nowicki While the motives of the author are unknown, it is likely that proposing the debate as so contentious will cause the audience to be more enticed to read and more engaged in the material.
• Immigration: The Ethical Side So, in order to make it clear, the essay will touch upon ethical advantages and disadvantages of immigration for the countries of origin and for the US.
• Mexican-US Immigration: Causes and Effects The drift of Mexicans or Latinos into the US is begging for increased concerns recently, especially among Republicans and the concern around decision tables is to itemize and resolve causes and effects that are directly […]
• Current Immigration Patterns in Canada The refugee population is made up of the populace who come to seek refuge in Canada as well as the populace made up of persons brought to Canada by churches, private sponsors as well as […]
• Arizona’s 2010 Immigration Law and US Economy A challenge is thrown to this clause by the 2010 Arizona immigration Law in America. It is this very thing that the founding fathers of the American Constitution had feared and thus took steps to […]
• The American Immigration Debate In the context of the present discussion of the immigrant debate in the US, one should turn to the work of Brimelow who has offered a rather radical solution to the problem of immigration.
• Immigration Issues in the USA The USA is the country that was built up of immigrants at the period of British colonization about three centuries ago; people who could not find their happiness and welfare in the Old Land came […]
• Causes and Consequences of Immigration to Canada The Chinese and Japanese still kept their oriental culture while the rest of the immigrants adapted to the new way of living in Canada.
• Ellis Island as an Immigration Station The minority of the un-admitted immigrants who had spent time and energy on the long journey to the Island led to the Island being referred to as “The Heartbreak Island” or the “The Island of […]
• Race Relations in Britain. Immigration Situation This was the first large-scale migration of colored immigrants as compared to the minimal migrations that Britain had gotten used to.
• Saenz’ Opinion on Comprehensive Legislation on Immigration In addition to this is the fact that, it would be in accordance with the respect for human rights that the country stands for.
• Russian Immigration to America after 1945 The first wave of migration of the Russians was in the second half of the nineteenth century and during the early 20th Century before the First World War.
• Social Issues in Kuwait: Immigration Workforce Among the frequently highlighted issues in the country, one is the low productivity among the local workforce due to the high influence of favoritism and nepotism in promotions and merits.
• Immigration in California: “Moving Still” by Francisco Jimenez The atmosphere of fear and poverty forced the families to break the rules and to overcome the frontier in the pursuit of welfare.
• US Immigration in Late 19th Century In the late 19th century, following the stream of the “Gold Rush”, millions of immigrants entered the United States, most of them attracted by the opportunity to earn “easy money” and to escape the hardships […]
• Humanities. Immigration Issues in the United States The scope of the problem of illegal immigration in the United States has remained undefined due to the vagueness of the immigration policies.
• The Effects of Immigration in Texas The period between 200 and 2006 saw the population of the foreign-born in the Texas state increase by twenty-four percent and it was during this same period that the state gained over 650,000 immigrants bringing […]
• Jobs and the American Economy: The Issue of Immigration The issues of immigration to the USA, either legal or illegal are of great significance for the US government. Since the 1990s, lots of academic researches have tried to charge the extent to which immigration […]
• Catholic and Jewish Immigration in the United States The experiences and challenges of starting a new life in America were very different for both the Catholics and the Jews primarily because of their different social cultural and social economic disparities.
• The History of Canadian Immigration and Innovative Federal Immigration Policy Though this phenomenon has outlined in positive financial growth in Canada there are lots of fundamental complexities that immigrants usually have to challenge when immigrating to Canada comprising the underdevelopment of community services, difficulties in […]
• French Immigration: Rights of Foreign-Born Citizens An analysis of the impact of immigrants on the average level and distribution of income among the native population shows that immigrants with higher levels of skill are more likely to raise the average level […]
• Women Study: Immigration and Mothering One of the most essential areas of such studies is immigration in relation to gender and specifically mothering.”Immigration and Mothering; Case Studies from Two Generations of Korean Immigrant Women” by Seungsook Moon is an attempt […]
• Illegal Immigration: Difference in Covering the Matter The aim of the paper is to discover the difference in covering the matter of illegal migration to Canary Islands from sub-Saharan including periodical issues, radio broadcasts, and a photo, in order not only to […]
• Amending Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 The arguments for the former side include the following: first is that there is an unprecedented increase in the inflow of illegal workers in the United States.
• Why Immigration Is a Problem When Amir came to rescue him, he is beaten by Assef and Sohrab hits Assef with a stone from the sling in the eye and it is when they manage to escape and go back […]
• Necessity of Immigration Reform in America Basically, immigration reform pertains to policies and programs that aim to improve the development of the quality of life that will aid in the adjustments of the immigrants.
• Open Immigration Borders Migration: Effects of Muslim Ideologically, the presence of the Muslim religion has affected the lives of the people of France in one way or the other.
• Immigration Asian Indians in America For American immigration history, it means that it coincides with the settlement of the country: the settlement of America was influenced more by the immigration processes rather than by the natural increase of the citizens.
• Immigration, Hispanics, and Mass Incarceration in the U.S. This article evaluates the effect of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, that led to the legalization of approximately 3 million immigrants had on the crime rates in the U.S.
• Immigration and Labor Law The majority of research findings suggest that despite the active work of the legislative branch on the improvement of immigration policies, the lives of both documented and undocumented foreigners are obstructed with multiple limitations and […]
• Immigration as a Source of Community Problems In order to address the immigration concern, one will have to create a more welcoming and inviting economic and social environment for immigrants, reducing the propensity toward a cross-cultural conflict and engaging the members of […]
• How Immigration Affects Global Business The purpose of this paper is to apply different case studies and thoughts to describe how immigration continues to affect global business.
• Federal Immigration Policy: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals It allowed people who came to the U.S.as minors to be in the U.S.legally. Hence, my perspective is that one needs to be educated and well-informed on the ongoing situation, as it concerns every person […]
• Immigration History of New York City: The Most Significant Center for New Arrivals This essay addresses the immigration history of New York City through the examination of the general history of American immigration, the city’s background, and its contemporary state from the perspective of newcomers.
• The Migrant and Immigration Issues in the US Society Reading John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Helena Mar a Viramontes’s Under the Feet of Jesus altered my understanding of the problems related to migration and immigration.
• The History of Korean American Immigration Experience Firstly, the documentary by Coffman displays the urge of the Korean people to avoid the Japanese imperialism that was developing on the Korean territory at that time.
• Immigration Issues in the United States It was built on the labor, ideas, and cultural melting pot of immigrants coming to the US in the hopes of achieving the American dream, finding a new life, and establishing a home for their […]
• New Waves of Immigration to the United States The author specifies that, with the U.S.quickly becoming a crucial political power in the global arena, people from the countries that were either colonized by the U.S.or suffered economic issues because of the economic expansion […]
• Immigration and Crime Rates in the United States The paper evaluates the effects of immigration on crime in America and discusses the hidden dangers of America’s political asylum opportunities. There ought to be a law that limits the number of political asylum seekers […]
• Labor Economy and Immigration A particular way to measure discrimination in the context of labor is to calculate mean earnings indicators for groups of people of different gender and age and to come from different ethnic backgrounds; in case […]
• The Immigration Museum: Cultural Diversity in Australia The Immigration Museum is an exhibition center that was opened in 1998, with the aim of exhibiting the cultural diversity and the Indigenous history of Australia.
• International Immigration Flows: Economic Pressure Therefore, these countries experience economic integration and diversification, a factor that attract immigrants to new destinations due to favorable terms of trade.
• Social Issues of the Immigration Journal The authors studied the impacts of multiculturalism of the period 1980s to 1990s on institutional forms of immigrants in the Netherlands.
• Irish and German Immigration to the 19th-Century US In the middle of the 19th century, half of the Irish and German population immigrated to America. One of the main reasons that made Irish and Germans immigrate was the presence of large land in […]
• Employment Law: Immigration Reform and Control Act Due to this fact, Patricia and other employers are expected to follow the specifications of this law. There are several procedures that Patricia is expected to follow in the process of employment.
• Ethics of Illegal Immigration Effects on the US As such, the Immigration Act of 1924 was established, which promoted the immigration of foreign citizens into the US to meet these requirements, and also created several objective preconditions for foreigners to consider entering America […]
• Immigration Influence on Israeli Residents’ Personality Traits The research problem of the present study is how immigration, the following acculturation, and multilingualism influence the personality traits of Israeli residents.
• Current International Interest: Immigration in the US The regulations will defend the economic well-being of the legitimate immigrants who have already settled in the US while restricting the admission of foreign workers illegally.
• Changes in Immigration Policy Nevertheless, there are a lot of issues surrounding the policy that is connected both to the reaction of the community and the possible negative outcomes of its implementation.
• Fiscal Concerns and Public Attitude towards Immigration In the past few years, immigration has changed the demographic composition of a majority of the developed countries. The political economy approach considers the economic impacts of immigration that lead to native people rejecting or […]
• Illegal Immigration Issue in the USA The secure border could also be considered one of the possible solutions to the problem of illegal immigration as it will help to control this very aspect.
• Muslim Immigration to European Countries This popularity has been because of the high number of immigrants that have been witnessed in the preceding years in France, Germany, and Britain experiencing the largest influx of immigrants from different countries.
• Women’s Immigration and Its High Price However, these women and children must meet their daily needs, which implies that they have to seek employment from the host regions and countries.
• The New Immigration Laws Creating a New Realty The main advantage of this new policy is that it empowers the customs and immigration officials to deport anyone that they arrest for being in the country illegally.
• Donald Trump’s Immigration Speech The audience consisted mostly of his electorate and, judging from the reaction of the crowd observed in the video, the majority of the listeners were sympathetic with the content as they reacted positively to the […]
• Immigration Pros and Cons for the Immigrants Themselves This paper will evaluate the economic consequences of immigration to immigrants and will give a summary of how this is going to outweigh its negative social-economic consequences to the unskilled immigrants.
• Immigration in Britain and Social Cohesion In this regard, the surge in the number of immigrants in Britain is of political, social, and economic concern. The rising rate of immigration in Britain has elicited concerns that ethnic and racial diversity could […]
• Immigration as the Positive Economic Consequences in the USA
• Immigration and Urban Change in the USA
• Open Immigration, Its Benefits and Morality
• Illegal Immigration, Its Causes, Methods, Effects
• Current Immigration Issues in the United States
• Immigration in Trump’s Candidate Speech
• Immigration and Healthcare in the United States
• Immigration and Refugee Protection Act for Women
• Illegal Immigration Crisis: Problems and Solutions
• The Economics of Immigration
• Immigration Pros and Cons for the United States
• The Problems of Immigration: Muneera Qahtani Views
• A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life
• Identity, Immigration and American Public Opinion
• New York Times: Obama Vows to Push Immigration Changes
• Media View in Shaping Immigration
• Immigrants’ Human Rights in America: The Issue of Immigration as Old as the Country
• Immigration Effects in Patrick Buchanan’s The Death of the West
• How Immigration Relates to Post-Human and Globalization?
• Immigration in America: the Current Understanding
• Justice of Immigration in the United States
• Ontario Immigration Rates Growth
• Immigration, Voting and Naturalization Laws
• Reasons of Immigration Literature Growth
• Operation Jump Start in Immigration Issues: Pros and Cons
• Immigration and Its Effects to the Middle East
• Relationship of Immigration and Median Household
• Sheriff Joe’s Illegal Immigration in Arizona
• Immigration Laws in Arizona State
• UK Immigration in 2015
• Ethnic Groups in the US Immigration History
• Political Sciences: American Immigration
• Immigration Debate in the US
• Waves of Immigration to the United States
• Immigration Issues in Different Spheres
• Illegal Immigration in the United States
• Illegal Immigration Problem in the United States
• Immigration and Deportation Processes
• Is the Legalization of Illegal Aliens a Good Solution to Illegal Immigration in America?
• Middle Eastern Immigrants in Australia
• Immigration as Social Issue in Australia
• The Aspects of Immigration into Australia
• Role of Frontex in Combating Illegal Immigration in the European Union Territory
• Illegal Immigration in the United States as an Economic Burden
• The Issue of Muslims’ Immigration to Australia
• Stopping Illegal Immigration: Border Security
• Analysis of Race and Ethnicity in U.S. Immigration History
• History of Immigration to the United States
• Arab Immigration in USA
• U.S. Immigration Reform Policy Circa 2001 to Present
• Domestic and Immigration Policies
• Immigration and Changes in British Society around the Time Period the Novel is Set
• Bridging People Together: When Immigration Issue Comes to the Forth
• Immigration and Multiculturalism in Australia
• Economics and Immigration in Japan
• Immigration and Illegal Foreigners in Japan
• Legal Mexican Immigration Wave Since 1965
• Immigration to Australia (Arabic Case)
• Impact of the DREAM Act on Immigration in America
• Immigration of Filipino Nurses to the United States
• History of Immigration in the United States
• Immigration to the US After the Second World War
• Women and Immigration Challenges
• Immigration Reform in the United States
• Immigration Admission and Control Polices
• Immigration Policies and Economy
• Types of Diasporas: Articles Analysis
• Public Opinion on Immigration and Ethnic Relations in the US
• Effects of illegal immigration on the economy of the United States and the measures that be taken to minimize the effect
• Is Immigration an Economic benefit to the Host Country?
• Controversy Surrounding Immigration
• How Has Immigration Transformed the Life and Culture of London Over the Past 150 Years?
• Canadian Immigration Policies: Points-Based System
• U.S. Immigration Encouragement
• Errors Made by the United States Citizen and Immigration Service When Processing Immigration Forms
• Socio-Economic Benefits of Immigrant Population in the US and Canada
• Immigration in the Film ‘The Guest worker’
• Economic advantages and disadvantages of immigration into the U.S.
• Sweden and Denmark: Immigration policies
• Age at Immigration and Second Language Proficiency Among Foreign-born Adults by Gillian Stevens
• Immigration Specificity of ELLs in Canada and the USA
• Immigration Reform and the Economic Impact
• Immigration Reform in US Government
• Justice Theories and American Immigration System
• Political Immigration as Addressed in City on the Edge: The Transformation of Miami
• Impact of Immigration on the Geography of Canada
• Immigration: “City on the Edge” and “Friends or Strangers”
• The Political Affairs and Strategies of Immigration Laws in the State of North Carolina
• Immigration Bill in US
• Immigration bias on Hispanics in North Carolina
• Myths About Immigration in the U.S.
• Immigration, Socioeconomic and Upward Mobility and Cultural Assimilation
• United States Immigration History
• Concept of Race and Ethnicity in U.S. Immigration History
• The Root Cause of Racism and Ethnic Stratification in the US
• A Speech Touching on Immigration Reforms
• Women Immigration to US
• American Immigration History
• History of Immigration and Its Timeline in the United States
• History of Immigration – United States
• Rights of Immigrants and Immigration Policy
• Globalisation, Immigration, Race and Ethnicity in Vancouver
• Immigration and Discrimination in the Workplace
• Immigration Debate: Romney & Obama
• Immigration’s Influence on the USA
• Economic Consequences of Immigration
• Economic Consequences of Immigration on Socioeconomic Activities
• Immigration in the Contemporary American Society
• Factor that Cause Immigration
• Consequences of Immigration
• The Issue of Illegal Immigration
• Coming to America: An Exploration of Immigration
• Annotation of Immigration Effects on Homicide Offending for Total and Race/Ethnicity-Disaggregated Populations
• Anti-Anti Immigration: Principles to Make Migration Work
• Immigration as Political Issue in the USA
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• Illegal Immigration: Views of Policy Makers, Media and General Public
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IvyPanda. (2024, February 25). 417 Immigration Topics to Write about & Essay Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/immigration-essay-examples/

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18 Essays About The Immigrant Experience You Need To Read

These stories illuminate what it takes, and what it means, to uproot your life in one country and begin it again in a new one.

BuzzFeed Staff

Growing Up American In Gaza Taught Me What We Owe To Refugees — Rebecca Peterson Zeccola

"In Palestine, we could so easily have been treated as the enemy, but we were welcomed like family."

I’m Not OK With Being One Of The Lucky Muslims — Romaissaa Benzizoune

"This weekend’s immigration order doesn’t apply to me or my family; I’ll be fine. But so many others I know and love will not."

I Grew Up In The Rust Belt, But I'm Not In Any Of The Stories About It — Alia Hanna Habib

"It’s strange to see the media turn its attention to places like my hometown in coal-country Pennsylvania and find that my experience there, as part of the non -white working class, is still invisible."

Here’s What I’m Telling My Brown Son About Trump’s America — Mira Jacob

"Sometimes I wish I could ask America when, exactly, it made its mind up about us. The myth, of course, is that it hasn’t, that there is still a chance to mollify those who dictate the terms of our experience here, and then be allowed to chase success unfettered by their paranoia. To live, as it’s more commonly known, the American dream."

There’s No Recipe For Growing Up — Scaachi Koul

"My mom’s Kashmiri cooking has always tethered me to home. So it’s no wonder she won’t give me (all) the secrets to doing it myself."

How I Learned That Beauty Doesn’t Have To Hurt — Sonya Chung

"Growing up in a Korean American family, I absorbed the idea that any feeling of pleasure comes at a cost. But as I get older, I’m realizing it doesn’t have to work that way."

Why Brexit Has Broken My Heart — Bim Adewunmi

"As a child of immigrants, I am deeply ashamed that this is who we are."

I Found A Home In Clubs Like Pulse, In Cities Like Orlando — Rigoberto González

"I cherish the time I have spent in clubs like Pulse in cities like Orlando, where gay Latinos — the immigrants, the undocumented, and the first-generation Americans alike — gravitate because we love men and we love our homelands, and that’s one of the places our worlds converge."

Making Great Pho Is Hard, But Making A Life From Scratch Is Harder — Nicole Nguyen

"After fleeing Vietnam, my parents turned to food to teach us about what it means to be Vietnamese."

When Home Is Between Different Countries And Genders — Meredith Talusan

"I moved to the U.S. from the Philippines when I was 15, where I had been raised as a boy. About a decade later, I started to live as a woman and eventually transitioned. I think of migration and transition as two examples of the same process – moving from one home, one reality, to another."

I Found The House My Grandparents Abandoned in 1947 — Ahmed Ali Akbar

"So many Americans go to India to find themselves. But I went to find the history my family lost in the subcontinent’s Partition."

How I Became A Southern-Fried Nigerian — Israel Daramola

"I once felt torn between Nigeria and Florida, between jollof rice and fried alligator, but there is no real me without both."

Learning To Mourn In My Father's Country — Reggie Ugwu

"After my brother died and my father was partially paralyzed, my family traveled 7,000 miles in search of an old home, a new house, and the things we’d lost on the road in between."

How To Get Your Green Card In America — Sarah Mathews

"When you perform the act of audacity that is consolidating an entire life into a couple of suitcases and striking out to make your way, what is not American about that? When you leave the old country so that your daughters can have a good education and walk down their streets without fear, what is not American about that? When you flee violence and poverty to come to a land of plenty, when you are willing to learn new languages, to haul ass, to do twice as much work, what is not American about that?"

A Childhood Spent Inside A Chinese Restaurant — Susan Cheng

"Being one of the few Asians in my school was hard enough. Working at my parents’ Chinese restaurant didn’t make it any easier."

How I Learned To Celebrate Eid Al Adha In America — Zainab Shah

"I bent over backward to explain myself. 'From Pakistan,' I would say. 'Not a terrorist,' I almost added. But I didn’t — the joke would only be funny if racial profiling didn’t exist."

Texts From My Parents: What It Was Like To Leave Vietnam — Nicole Nguyen

"They did it for us, and I'll spend the rest of my life trying to make the most of it."

What It’s Like Speaking A Different Language From Your Parents — Zakia Uddin

"My parents and I communicate in an incomplete mash-up of Bengali and English. I sometimes wonder what we are missing."

Topics in this article

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The Morning

A 2024 vulnerability.

The Democrats are out of step with public opinion when it comes to immigration.

By David Leonhardt

I keep a running list of issues on which either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party is out of step with public opinion.

For Republicans, abortion now tops my list , followed by Donald Trump’s attitudes toward democracy . For Democrats, I think immigration policy has moved to the top of the list.

In a newsletter last week, I described the shift in the Democratic Party’s immigration policy over the past decade. Before Trump ran for president, Democrats tended to combine passionate support for many forms of immigration with a belief in strong border security. But Trump’s harsh anti-immigration stance pushed the party toward the opposite end of the spectrum.

Today, many Democratic politicians are willing to accept high levels of undocumented immigration and oppose enforcement measures that the party once favored. Some Democrats, especially on the left, argue that the government doesn’t even have the power to reduce migration much.

This shift has created political vulnerabilities for Democrats — because most Americans are closer to the party’s old position than to its new one. Today, I’ll walk through public opinion on the issue.

‘A serious problem’

The first thing to know is that views on immigration aren’t static. During Trump’s presidency, Americans became more favorable to immigration, evidently in reaction to Trump’s opposition to it. Consider this: By the end of his presidency, the number of Americans who favored increasing immigration exceeded the number who favored decreasing it for the first time in six decades of Gallup polling.

Should immigration be kept at its present level, increased or decreased?

60% of U.S. adults

present level

How serious a problem is illegal immigration in the U.S.?

75% of U.S. adults

Support for various border policies

More border agents

79% of registered voters

Deport immigrants who are here illegally

Fines for knowingly hiring unauthorized workers

Let employed immigrants without legal status apply for it

Use military to stop illegal immigration

Build a border wall

Fines for knowingly hiring

unauthorized workers

Let employed immigrants

without legal status apply for it

Who do you trust to do a better job on immigration?

All registered voters

BY RACE AND EDUCATION

college degree

no college degree

White, college degree

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Non-white, no college degree

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Illegal Immigration — Causes and Effects of Immigration

Causes and Effects of Immigration

• Categories: Illegal Immigration

About this sample

Words: 731 |

Published: Jan 29, 2024

Words: 731 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Causes of immigration, effects of immigration, a. economic factors, b. political factors, c. social factors, a. economic effects, b. social effects, c. political effects.

• National Academy of Sciences. (2017). The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration .
• Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD). (2019). International Migration Outlook 2019 .
• Peri, G., & Shih, K. (2019). "The Economic Contribution of Unauthorized Workers: An Industry Analysis". National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series.

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Related Essays on Illegal Immigration

Borjas, George. “The Economics of Immigration.” Journal of Economic Literature. 32.1 (1994): 1667-1717.Legrain, Philippe. Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them. London: Little Brown, 2007. Print.Swanson, Marisa. The causes and [...]

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. "The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration." The National Academies Press, 2017. Center for Immigration Studies. "The Employment Situation of [...]

In conclusion, illegal immigration is a multifaceted issue that demands our attention and careful consideration. We have explored the persuasive arguments for both stricter immigration policies and a more compassionate approach. [...]

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Biden administration may soon restart immigration program that was paused for possible fraud

A program that let migrants apply for U.S. entry from their home countries that was paused because of potential mass fraud may be revived by the Biden administration as soon as this week, even though thousands of suspect applications still need review, two sources told NBC News.

The Biden administration announced last month that an 18-month-old program that had let Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans apply for legal entry and temporary work authorization in the U.S. would be “temporarily paused” while the Department of Homeland Security conducted “a review of supporter applications.” 

Those supporters, also called sponsors, are people legally living in the U.S. who make the initial applications for the migrants who want to enter the U.S. The sponsors vouch that they can financially support the migrants once they arrive, and the migrants then follow up with an additional request for entry before federal authorities say yes or no.

An internal DHS report reviewed by NBC News, however, found that almost 101,000 sponsor applications for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Ukraine were filed by 3,218 so-called serial sponsors. The report, produced by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a division of DHS, does not say how many of those applicants entered the U.S. The report was first cited publicly by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an anti-immigration advocacy group.

The report’s authors found thousands of instances of would-be sponsors’ using the same street addresses, internet protocol addresses or phone numbers. Almost 600 applications were flagged, for example, because they all appeared to use the address of the same commercial warehouse in Orlando, Florida. The authors also found repeated uses of the same Social Security numbers, including numbers belonging to dead people.

Small numbers of sponsors for large groups of people have raised concerns about potential human trafficking for immigration programs in the past, though it is not known whether DHS is reviewing those cases for potential human trafficking, the sources said.

A U.S government official told NBC News that when the program resumes, applications for sponsors will be manually vetted in small batches with enhanced procedures for vetting. And any sponsor believed to be involved in fraud will be referred for further investigation.

The administration is eager to turn the program back on as quickly as possible because it is believed to be deterring migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela crossing the border illegally, a source familiar with the decision said.  

The report, released internally in May, spurred DHS to suspend travel authorization for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela and Nicaragua who had applied under the program.

Sources familiar with the review of the nearly 101,000 sponsor applications said that employees at USCIS’ Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate had reviewed more than two-thirds of the suspect applications as of last week and that they had about 30,000 left to review and would most likely not finish before the program is reinstated.

So far, six sponsor applications have been turned over to investigators at Homeland Security Investigations, a division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement assigned through an agreement between USCIS and ICE to investigate potential criminal immigration fraud, the sources familiar with the review said.

More than 2.6 million migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela have applied for entry through the program, known as CHNV, and a similar program for Ukrainians, according to the internal report.

As of July, over 530,000 migrants had been authorized to travel to the U.S. under CHNV, according to  data from DHS . It is unclear from the report how many of those successful applicants were brought into the U.S. with the help of the 3,200 “serial sponsors.” It is also unclear whether the 101,000 applications that were flagged for review were from people who have now entered the U.S. or people whose applications were rejected or a mixture. The number of migrants who applied under the program for Ukrainians is not specified.

After sponsors make initial applications for migrants who want to enter the U.S., the migrants apply online for CHNV from one of the four countries. The sponsors are also asked to enter their Alien Registration numbers and/or Social Security numbers so that the government can verify them, according to an application form viewed by NBC News. Once migrants have approval, they can fly to the U.S.

Within weeks of CHNV’s beginning in January 2023, concerns were raised in an Associated Press article about potential sponsors’ advertising online that they would be willing to sell their services as sponsors to migrants in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. It is unknown whether any sponsors have been found to have sold their services.

In a statement, a DHS spokesperson said the agency has not identified issues of concern related to the screening and vetting of the immigrants themselves. 

“DHS has review mechanisms in place to detect and prevent fraud and abuse in our immigration processes. DHS takes any abuse of its processes very seriously. Where fraud is identified, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will investigate and litigate applicable cases in immigration court and make criminal referrals to the Department of Justice,” the spokesperson said.

Red flags raised

An internal fraud detection unit in USCIS launched a “filing trend analysis” on April 17 to see whether there were any red flags in the program.

Less than a month later, the unit produced the report reviewed by NBC News, finding a troubling set of indicators that thousands of applications were potentially fraudulent.

The report does not indicate how many of the original applications that were potentially fraudulent were ultimately approved, but it raises a series of red flags.

The authors found examples of suspicious use of Social Security numbers, with the same number used in 20 or more applications. The authors labeled those repeat sponsors as “serial sponsors” and noted that 100,948 forms used 3,218 serial sponsors’ Social Security numbers. At least 24 of the most-used Social Security numbers were numbers tied to dead people, according to the report.

The report's authors also found problems with 3,355 duplicate phone numbers used on more than 110,000 forms.

Physical addresses provided by sponsors also raised questions. Multiple sponsors repeatedly used the same physical addresses for more than 19,000 applications. Almost 130 applications appear to have used the address for a single-family home in rural Pennsylvania with less than 900 square feet. There were 596 applications that appeared to use the address for a commercial warehouse in Orlando, and more than 500 applications used an address that matches a storage unit facility in Pompano Beach, Florida.

The report also analyzed the IP addresses associated with the applications and found more than 1,300 applications were tied to an IP address in Tijuana, Mexico.

The report noted a “concerning trend” — for nine IP addresses, many more women were being potentially sponsored than men. For example, one IP address was linked to applications to sponsor 18 females, 14 of them under age 18.

Julia Ainsley is the homeland security correspondent for NBC News and covers the Department of Homeland Security for the NBC News Investigative Unit.

Laura Strickler is a senior investigative producer and reporter for NBC News. She is based in Washington.

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Immigrant families in limbo after judge puts U.S. program for spouses on hold

Roberto Garcia helps his wife Maria Garcia get into their truck after dropping their two children off for their first day of school in East Los Angeles on Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

FILE - President Joe Biden speaks during an event with the National Governors Association in the East Room of the White House, Feb. 23, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

FILE - Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC 2024, at the National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Md., Friday , Feb. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

Roberto Garcia and his wife Maria Garcia pause for a picture after dropping their two children off for their first day of school in East Los Angeles on Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

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McALLEN, Texas (AP) — After President Joe Biden this summer announced a new U.S. citizenship pathway for immigrant spouses, Oscar Silva rushed to apply and was elated Monday when an email arrived confirming his appointment for a required biometric exam.

But hours later, Silva received a jolt: a federal judge in Texas was temporarily suspending the program that could benefit an estimated 500,000 immigrants in the U.S., freezing in place one of the biggest presidential actions to ease a path to citizenship in years.

“I don’t know what is going to happen,” Silva said Tuesday. The 23-year-old college student arrived in the U.S. as a baby and lives in Texas with his wife, Natalie, an American citizen who provides for their family as a high school teacher.

Although the Biden administration’s “Keeping Families Together” program only began accepting applications last week, families and immigration attorneys say confusion, uncertainty and frustration is already mounting following the order by U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker. Couples who already applied say they are in limbo and those who haven’t yet must weigh whether to wait for Republicans’ court challenge over the program to play out.

Applicants must pay a $580 processing fee. Following Barker’s order, the Florida Immigrant Coalition said it was asking people “to weigh their options and to make the best decision for their families at this time.”

The court order followed a challenge by 16 states , led by Republican attorneys general, who filed a federal lawsuit days after the program began taking applications on Aug. 19. Barker’s order, known as an administrative stay, will be in place for 14 days but could be extended.

“That ruling is wrong. These families should not be needlessly separated,” Biden said in a statement.

The states claimed the move would cause irreparable harm and accused the administration of bypassing Congress for “blatant political purposes.”

Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office is helping lead the lawsuit, applauded the order. “This is just the first step. We are going to keep fighting for Texas, our country, and the rule of law,” he said in a statement.

On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security said the government would continue to take applications and defend the program in court. Any applicants whose parole was granted prior to the order will be unaffected, according to the department.

DHS did not respond to questions about how many applications were received or approved or how long it takes to determine the outcome of a case under the program.

Fears of separation returned for Silva and his wife, Natalie. Under the traditional process to apply for a green card, spouses living in the U.S. illegally can be required to return to their home country — often for years — and they always face the risk they may not be allowed back in.

“We thought this was finally our opportunity to be able to go through this process together and not fear the possibility of spending ten years away from each other,” Silva said. Now “I feel pretty heartbroken, very sad… because without it we face so much uncertainty.”

Immigration attorney Laura Flores-Perilla said it was “really unclear” what will happen with Silva’s appointment scheduled for September.

“I cannot underestimate the impact that this temporary pause is having,” said Flores-Perilla, an attorney at the Action Justice Center.

Gregory Chen, the director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said he had heard from lawyers affiliated with the association of at least hundreds of people who had applied since the program was launched, including some who applied and were approved the next day.

Lawyers are rushing to understand what the order means for their clients, too. According to Chen, the organization’s listserv for lawyers interested in the Keeping Families Together program “blew up” after the judge’s decision late Monday with questions about what the decision means.

Advocates are concerned the changes, even temporary ones, created by such litigation “creates chaos and uncertainty” for those looking to apply. Chen said he’s seen the effect litigation has had on other immigration-related programs.

His organization has held three webinars designed to educate lawyers about the program. One of those seminars had about 1,000 lawyers in attendance, an extremely high number for one of the group’s educational offerings, Chen said.

Roberto García, 37, and his wife Maria in Los Angeles had just paid an attorney $3,000 to help them fill out the lengthy application for the program but the application wasn’t submitted yet because of Monday’s order. Now, they’re wondering if they should gamble their chances and pay the processing fee for a program on hold.

“I didn’t think this was going to happen. It’s very hard,” said Roberto Garcia, referring to the order that halted the parole program. “We are not a priority. It is bad that they play with people’s feelings.”

Roberto is the sole provider for the family of five and earns a living through this construction business in California. He also sends money back home to family in Mexico.

If approved, applicants have three years to seek permanent residency . During that period, they can get a work authorization.

But Maria García said she is losing hope and considering moving to Mexico, where her husband has his parents and brothers.

“We will never be able to buy a house here,” she said. “Here if you do things wrong, they reward you. If you do things right, they punish you.”

Salomon reported from Miami. Associated Press writer Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed to this report.

Immigration | President Joe Biden calls Texas district court…

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Immigration | President Joe Biden calls Texas district court immigration ruling ‘wrong’

The ruling by a federal judge in Texas suspended “parole in place,” a program intended to provide legal status to family members of US citizens in the country illegally. Under the proposal, immigrants who have been in the US for at least 10 years could seek deportation protection and work permits without having to leave the country, which the White House argued would help preserve family units.

But the Texas judge paused the program just a week after the Department of Homeland Security began accepting applications, saying the administration had exceeded its authority in rewriting immigration laws.

“Last night, a single district court in Texas ruled that our work to keep families together has to stop,” Biden said in a statement. “That ruling is wrong. These families should not be needlessly separated. They should be able to stay together, and my Administration will not stop fighting for them.”

Biden announced the program in June, and it was intended as a counterweight to the crackdown announced weeks earlier that curbed asylum claims by those entering the country without visas or other documentation. Immigration levels have dropped significantly since Biden’s executive action restricting migrants’ ability to seek asylum between ports of entry during periods of heightened migration, but the policies were criticized by advocacy groups and the head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus as draconian.

Biden said he was driven to act after congressional Republicans twice blocked a bipartisan immigration bill at the urging of former President Donald Trump, now the party’s presidential nominee. But his executive action – and the corresponding decrease in immigration court cases – has blunted the issue ahead of November’s election.

Republican states sued to block the program on Aug. 23, arguing it violated the Administrative Procedure Act and exceeded the authority of the Department of Homeland Security.

If the program is ultimately allowed to proceed, an estimated 550,000 people would be eligible to apply. Applicants seeking protection as the spouse of a US citizen must have resided in the US for the past decade and been married before June 17, 2024. Some step-children of US citizens would also qualify.

The advocacy group Fwd.us estimates that 120,000 people in California are eligible to apply, the most of any state. If they were to gain citizenship, they’d contribute an additional $1.6 billion to the US economy. An additional 111,000 people in Texas and 27,000 in Florida would also be eligible. On average, the eligible residents of these states have been in the US for over two decades.

More in Immigration

Immigration | Immigrant families in limbo after judge puts US program for spouses on hold

Immigration | Texas judge orders pause on Biden program that offers legal status to spouses of US citizens

Immigration | Texas, other GOP-led states sue over program to give immigrant spouses of US citizens legal status

National News | Arrests in fatal Texas smuggling attempt climb 2 years after 53 migrants died in tractor trailer

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Justin Trudeau’s legacy will be destroying the Canadian consensus on immigration

The “policy” part of a bad immigration policy can be fixed.

The government can, for example, announce a cap on international study permits when it becomes clear that Canada can’t accommodate the 1,028,850 international students it accepted in 2023. It can scale back the number of hours international students are allowed to work off-campus when students who are working close to 40 hours a week are in effect temporary foreign workers with the wrong papers. It can announce a six-month moratorium on applications for some low-wage temporary foreign workers in Montreal when there is a by-election coming up in the city. Wait – no, I meant to say: when unemployment is up in Quebec. Yes, that’s it.

And it can decide to tighten the reins on the low-wage stream of the temporary foreign worker program when it becomes evident, both domestically and internationally , that the whole thing has become an out-of-control racket .

Yes, bad policy can be reversed (though the problem of how to accommodate the enormous number of people Canada has already accepted in a short period of time will persist). What can’t be reversed, however, is the population’s changing attitudes toward immigration, which is a direct consequence of the policies implemented under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Canada once enjoyed a rather remarkable consensus on the value of immigration: we took pride in our scrupulous vetting and points-based selection process, which really was the envy of sister nations. (Speaking from his cabinet retreat Monday, Mr. Trudeau insisted, straight-faced, that our system “continues to be an extraordinary, important advantage that Canada has in the world.”) But people can plainly see that that is no longer true; as of April 1, Canada had a record high of 2,793,594 non-permanent residents living in the country. There is no way that each newcomer was scrupulously vetted, nor is it possible that each position he or she was brought in to fill was assessed for its legitimate need.

In fact, the Toronto Star reported on Tuesday that staff working for Employment and Social Development Canada were instructed to skip routine checks of employers in order to expedite approvals. One document viewed by the Star also instructed staff to “discontinue the practice of checking on the website of the law society or the CPA (Chartered Professional Accountant) association to validate that the lawyer or the CPA who provided the attestation [on behalf of employers] is a member in good standing.”

The reality is that Canada needs immigration – our population is aging, and our fertility rate in 2022 was the lowest on record in the past century – but we also have a worsening housing crisis, a health system that was buckling under demand even before we decided to grow our population by the highest rate in more than 60 years, and surging unemployment rates among young people and recent immigrants. So yes, Canada needs immigration, but what it really needs is smart, careful immigration that also considers the strain that an influx of newcomers will have on existing services and institutions. And just as importantly, Canadians need to trust that their government is bringing people into the country responsibly.

Instead, Canadians are seeing low-wage temporary workers filling their cups at Tim Hortons while their kids sit at home unemployed. They’re hearing about how a man who allegedly worked for the Islamic State was somehow granted Canadian citizenship . They’re reading stories about international students relying on food banks to feed themselves. And they’re seeing the data – on housing costs and shortages, health care waits , and unemployment – and concluding that Canada’s once-proud immigration system has been destroyed. They’re not wrong.

Recent polling has shown a steep decline in Canadians’ support for immigration. A Nanos poll released in 2023 showed a 20-point increase from March to September in respondents who thought Canada should accept fewer immigrants. Research by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada showed similar results. A recent Leger poll indicated that 60 per cent of Canadians believe we are accepting too many immigrants. These attitudes about policy can often turn into animosity toward people – attitudes that are quick to shift, and nearly impossible to shift back. It breeds the type of xenophobia that recently led to violent clashes in Britain, and unapologetic racism in France, and inhumane border detention facilities in the United States. And it’s starting to creep out of the fringes in Canada.

Anti-immigrant attitudes have always been present in this country, but never before have they been so prevalent, and so mainstream. The Canadian consensus that existed on immigration before Mr. Trudeau’s government has all but been vanquished, and a new cap on temporary foreign workers or a few piddling restrictions on international students won’t bring it back. That will be Mr. Trudeau’s legacy, and it’s not one that he, or the country, can be proud of.

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