Brief History of U.S. Immigration

• Colonial Era (1600s–1776):
  Settlers were mainly English, but with German, Dutch, Irish, and African (enslaved) populations. Integration was informal, but Protestantism and English language became cultural anchors.
• 19th Century (1820s–1880s):
  Large influxes of Irish (fleeing famine) and Germans (political upheaval) arrived. These groups clustered in cities and faced heavy discrimination (anti-Catholic, anti-Irish, and anti-German sentiment).
• Late 19th to Early 20th Century (1880s–1924):
  New immigrants came from Southern and Eastern Europe (Italians, Poles, Jews). Many worked in factories, built infrastructure, and settled in ethnic enclaves. Assimilation was uneven but accelerated by urban schools and labor.
• 1924 Immigration Act – 1965:
  Immigration was heavily restricted, favoring Northern Europeans. During this period, the descendants of Irish, Italians, and others assimilated rapidly, moving into middle-class life.
• Post-1965 Immigration Reform:
  The Hart-Celler Act reopened immigration, removing quotas and increasing arrivals from Asia, Latin America, and Africa, which changed the demographic landscape and reignited debates about assimilation versus multiculturalism.

Timeline of U.S. ethic makeup from 1776

Below is the best-available point-in-time snapshot of the United States’ ethnic make-up from the first federal census (1790) through today.
Official census racial categories, measurement rules and nativity questions changed repeatedly, so the earliest columns on nativity are blank where no data were collected. “Other” is simply 100 – White – Black and therefore absorbs Indigenous, Asian, Pacific-Islander, multiracial and (after 2000) people reporting two or more races.

** 2020 nativity share derives from ACS 5-year release (foreign-born = 13.9 %);
† 2023 race estimates are from the Census Bureau’s July 1 Vintage 2024 population characteristics release;
‡ January 2025 foreign-born share (Current Population Survey) comes from a Census micro-estimate summarized by the Center for Immigration Studies; 2025 race percentages are provisional, scaled to keep totals at 100 %.

Reading the table

• Native-born = 100 – foreign-born.
• “White” and “Black” are whatever the Census used at the time (before 2000, single-race choices; since 2000, people reporting one race alone).
• “Other” was tiny through 1950 but grows sharply after 1970 as Asian, Hispanic, Indigenous and multiracial categories became separately enumerated.

Key takeaways

• The foreign-born share was modest at the founding, peaked near 15 % in the late-19th/early-20th centuries, dipped to a record low 4.7 % in 1970 and is again at record highs (≈15 % today).
• From 1790-1960 the population was overwhelmingly classified as White or Black, with very small recorded shares for Indigenous and Asian peoples; rapid growth of “other” categories begins after the 1965 Immigration Act and after the 2000 allowance for multiracial self-identification.
• White-alone share has fallen from about 90 % in mid-century to roughly 60 % in 2020 and closer to 57–58 % in the latest annual estimates.

These figures come from the decennial census (1790-2020) and annual Census Bureau or CPS releases; minor rounding keeps each row at 100 %.

Immigration Law History

Key milestones in U.S. immigration law (1776 – 2025)

Big-picture phases

1. Founding era (1790-1874) – Immigration policy meant who could become a citizen, not who could enter. Laws favored White Europeans and empowered presidents to expel perceived threats.
2. Asiatic exclusion & federal control (1875-1916) – Congress took sole authority and, under nativist pressure, erected the first categorical bans, aimed chiefly at Chinese and other Asian migrants.
3. Quota regime (1917-1964) – Literacy tests and national-origins quotas cemented an overtly racial hierarchy, severely curbing immigration from Southern/Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia.
4. Civil-rights turn (1965-1979) – Hart-Celler scrapped quotas, and the Refugee Act globalized humanitarian protection, opening the door to family- and skill-based migration from every continent.
5. Enforcement & legalization mix (1980-2000) – IRCA paired amnesty with employer sanctions; later statutes created new visa categories but also toughened deportation rules and border security.
6. Security & identity era (2001-present) – 9/11 moved immigration into the national-security realm (DHS, PATRIOT, REAL ID). Policy now swings between expansive executive discretion (DACA, travel bans) and congressional gridlock over comprehensive reform.

Taken together, U.S. immigration law has shifted from explicit racial exclusion to formal race-neutrality, while cycling between openness and restriction in response to war, economic fear, and evolving conceptions of national identity.

90% “White” before 1965

What the historical record actually shows

1. Foreign-born vs. native-born Americans before 1965

   • In 1960—the last census before the 1965 Hart-Celler Immigration and Nationality Act—just 5.4 % of all U.S. residents were foreign-born. (www2.census.gov)
   • Of those immigrants, about 84 % traced their birth to Europe or Canada; the remainder already came from Latin America, Asia, Africa and elsewhere. (pewresearch.org)
   • Put differently, more than nine in ten people living in the United States in 1960 were native-born, not immigrants. The misreading that “90 % were immigrants from Europe” conflates the share of the total population that was White with the much smaller share that was foreign-born.

2. Racial and ethnic mix in earlier periods

   • The country was never “exclusively European.” Millions of people of African descent—3,953,760 enslaved individuals in 1860 alone, or roughly 12.6 % of the national population—were a foundational (albeit forcibly transported) part of the United States from its earliest decades. (en.wikipedia.org)
   • Indigenous nations pre-dated European settlement, and Asian and Latin-American migrants began arriving in measurable numbers in the 19th century (for example, Chinese laborers building the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s).

3. Pre-1965 immigration law was the most racially exclusive

   Key statute	Main effect	Who was excluded or favored
   Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)	First federal law barring immigration on racial grounds	All Chinese laborers barred	(archives.gov)
   Immigration Act (1924, Johnson-Reed)	National-origins quotas capped visas at 2 % of each nationality’s 1890 population; explicitly banned Asian immigration	Non-Europeans almost entirely excluded; quotas tilted toward Northern & Western Europeans	(history.state.gov)
   Immigration & Nationality Act (1952, McCarran-Walter)	Codified the quota system; 85 % of visas reserved for Northern & Western Europeans	Continued strong European preference; Asians received tiny quotas	(history.state.gov)

4. What changed in 1965

   • The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act abolished national-origin and race-based quotas, replacing them with a system that prioritized family reunification and job skills. This is why post-1965 immigration waves are far more diverse, with large inflows from Latin America, Asia and Africa. (pewresearch.org)
   • Since then, U.S. immigration statutes have been formally race-neutral; debates have focused on skill, family ties, refugee status and unauthorized entry, not on explicit racial categories.

5. Population composition, 1960 snapshot

   • White (of any ancestry): 91.5 % of the total population.
   • Black: 8.2 %.
   • All other races combined: <1 %.
   • Again, the overwhelming majority of the White population at that time were U.S.-born descendants, not immigrants. (census.gov)

Bottom line

• The statement that “America was 90 % immigrants from Europe until 1965” is incorrect. The United States was about 90 % White in many mid-20th-century censuses, but only a tiny fraction of those people were foreign-born.
• It is also inaccurate to claim that racialized immigration laws began after 1965; the opposite is true. The most restrictive, explicitly race-based U.S. immigration regime existed before 1965 and was dismantled by the Hart-Celler Act.
• Finally, the notion that America has never been a mix of people from multiple continents overlooks the enduring presence of Native peoples, the African diaspora, and 19th-century Asian and Latin-American communities who all played central roles in building the nation.