Changing U. S. Immigration Notes

• The US is inhabited overwhelmingly by direct descendants of immigrants
• About 80 million people migrated to the US between 1820 and 2015, including 42 million who were alive in 2015
• The population in the US in 1970 was 3.9 million including 950,000 who had immigrated to one of the colonies
• One of the main places where immigrants come from is Europe with 62% and of those, 45-50% came from the lands comprising the modern day United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland
• The other is Sub-Saharan Africa at the time of independence there were 360,000 people in the US, 38% immigrants. Another 250,000 in the next century
• Most of the Africans were forced to migrate to the US as slaves, whereas most Europeans were voluntary migrants
• Between 1820 and 1920, approximately 32,000,000 people immigrated to the US. Nearly 90% of them from Europe
• Europeans migrated for an opportunity in life
• Annual migration in 1840-1850 from Ireland and Germany went from 20,000 to more than 200,000 
• Three-Fourths of all US immigrants at that time came from Ireland or Germany
• Emigration from Ireland and Germany resumed following a temporary decline during the US civil war in 1870
• Immigration from Scandinavia increased to 500,000 per year to the US in 1880
• Annual immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe reached 1,000,000 or two-thirds of all immigrants during this time
• Among European countries Germany has sent the largest number of immigrants to the US: 7.2 million, then Italy: 5.4 million, then the United Kingdom: 5.3 million, then Ireland at 4.8 million.