History of Immigration

1800 – 1900

The 1800s – 1900s showed a large immigrant population from Europe with minimal immigration from other places in the world. The 1800s was the start of the Industrial Revolution, and this produced a massive leap in quality of life. A better quality of life led to reduced mortality, and fertility rates still remained high. Together, this all created a massive surge in population in Europe. Because of the unique relationship between Europe and the United States, immigration from Europe to the US was quite popular.

Immigration policies and quotas helped to favor European immigrants. From the early 1800s – 1850s, the US population grew from 6 million to 24 million, which was not insignificantly related to European immigration. European immigration continued to add several million new residents each year to the US prior to the early 1900s. Although other parts of the world were vastly more populated during the 1800s (India and China had populations of 200 million and 400 million, respectively), immigration to the US was not as easy or popular for these countries. The US, in fact, specifically established policies between 1882 – 1917 against first Chinese, then Japanese, and finally all Asian immigrants. 

1900 – 2020

In the early 1900s, the World Wars and the Great Depression, coupled with more stringent immigration regulations, resulted in a staggering drop in immigration to the US from all countries. The stringent immigration regulations set up preferences for Europeans from specific regions, such as from northern and western countries, and actively dissuaded immigration from southern and eastern Europeans. There were no restrictions on Canadians or immigrants from Central and South America, and this is reflected in the slight increase of those immigrant populations during the early 1900s. 

It wasn’t until the 1950s that immigration really picked up again for the US, largely due to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 that replaced the previous racist regulations with policies that emphasized preferred skill sets. However, a quota system was still used, and immigration preference included families of current immigrants. The wave of European immigration was rapidly declining, although Europeans were still immigrating to the US. Between 1950 – 2010, the bulk of immigrants came from Asia and North and Central America. The family-preference policies were a significant cause of increased Asian and North and Central American immigration to the US.

By the 1970s, people from Oceania and South America began immigrating to the US. The removal of the quota system in the mid-1960s helped influence this new wave of immigration. Immigration slowed slightly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, and immigration restrictions against some Middle Eastern countries were loosely formed. Between 2010 – 2018, the dominant location of immigrants to the US came from Mexico and Asia, with less than 8% coming from Europe. This trend is likely to continue for the US in the near future, even with new immigration rhetoric developing in US government. Some of these discussions are staunchly opposed to immigration, while other policies aim to provide relief to immigrants, such as DACA (2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and DAPA (2014 Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents). Many of the new issues surrounding recent US immigration revolve around undocumented immigrants, and the vast majority of immigrants are family members of US citizens or fall under the family-preference category. Refugees and skilled workers compose the next two largest classes of immigrants into the US. 

Environmental Refugees

Environmental migrants, also called environmental refugees or climigrants, are refugees in which the primary actor behind their forced removal from their homes is a severe change in their physical environment that makes it dangerous or largely unsuitable for safe habitation. Examples of a severe change in a physical environment include significantly reduced or increased rainfall that leads to long droughts or intense and frequent flooding, substantial loss of island or coastal land from sea level rise, and hazardous natural disasters or large events such as hurricanes, cyclones, tsunamis, wildfires, volcanic eruptions, and others. 

The type of severe change will result in a temporary or long-term, sometimes permanent, relocation of an environmental migrant or refugee. For some natural disasters, such as a hurricane or tsunami, the migration will be relatively sudden but temporary and as short as possible; people expect to return home once the event is over and all related hazards are gone. Food, shelter, and general support will need to be provided temporarily. Other environmental events, such as sea level rise and severe droughts due to changing temperature and precipitation patterns, will occur slowly over decades and will result in long-term or permanent displacement.

While some areas are part of the developed world, long-term environmental migrants are disproportionately from least developed and developing countries. Places in Europe and the US, for example, are experiencing sea level rise and impacts from hurricanes. However, these countries are developed and have the opportunity and financial means to create mitigation strategies, tools, and technology. They also have more government support for displaced people. Members of least developed and developing countries will experience the same environmental changes, but they will not have the economic means to enact mitigation strategies, so there will be minimal or no relief. Some of these people will emigrate to other countries and become international environmental migrants, which poses its own set of difficulties.

Internal migrants benefit from similar language, laws, and culture found in their home location. Migrating from Louisiana to Wisconsin in the US, for example, would still present many challenges for a migrant, but they would still be citizens, speak the language, have knowledge of and access to health care, where to find assistance, how to obtain housing, securing employment, and would lack fear of being forcibly returned to the location they left. International Migrants, on the other hand, may not know the language, which prohibits communication and ability to obtain adequate food, shelter, and information. Additionally, there are international migrant and refugee laws that may impede the international migrant or potentially cause them to be forcibly returned to the location they left. International migrants and refugees do not usually have an abundance of economic resources, either, which limits their opportunities. As many people from least developed or developing countries will be at risk of becoming environmental migrants in the future, the challenges of being an international environmental migrant will continually need to be addressed.

Want to know more?

Newbold, K. B. (2021). Population geography tools and issues (4th ed.). Rowman & Littlefield.