Immigration to the United States has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of its history. In absolute numbers, the United States has by far the highest number of immigrant population in the world, with 50,661,149 people as of 2019. This represents 19.1% of the 244 million international migrants worldwide, and 14.4% of the United States' population. In 2018, there were almost 90 million immigrants and U.S.-born children of immigrants in the United States, accounting for 28% of the overall U.S. population.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart–Celler Act and more recently as the 1965 Immigration Act, is a landmark federal law passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The law abolished the National Origins Formula, which had been the basis of U.S. immigration policy since the 1920s. The act formally removed de facto discrimination against Southern and Eastern Europeans as well as Asians, in addition to other non-Western and Northern European ethnicities from the immigration policy of the United States.
The H-1B is a visa in the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act, section 101(a)(15)(H), that allows U.S. employers to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations. A specialty occupation requires the application of specialized knowledge and a bachelor's degree or the equivalent of work experience. The duration of stay is three years, extendable to six years, after which the visa holder can reapply. Laws limit the number of H-1B visas that are issued each year. There exist congressionally mandated caps limiting the number of H-1B visas that can be issued each fiscal year, which is 65,000 visas, and an additional 20,000 set aside for those graduating with master’s degrees or higher from a U.S. college or university. An employer must sponsor individuals for the visa. USCIS estimates there are 583,420 foreign nationals on H-1B visas as of September 30, 2019. The number of issued H-1B visas have quadrupled since the first year these visas were issued in 1991. There were 206,002 initial and continuing H-1B visas issued in 2022.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act was passed by the 99th United States Congress and signed into law by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on November 6, 1986.
David Edward Card is a Canadian-American labour economist and the Class of 1950 Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has been since 1997. He was awarded half of the 2021 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences "for his empirical contributions to labour economics", with Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens jointly awarded the other half.
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) is an American anti-immigration think tank. It favors far lower immigration numbers, and produces analyses to further those views. The CIS was founded by historian Otis L. Graham and eugenicist and white nationalist John Tanton in 1985 as a spin-off of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. It is one of a number of anti-immigration organizations founded by Tanton, along with FAIR and NumbersUSA.
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short-term stays in a destination country do not fall under the definition of immigration or migration; seasonal labour immigration is sometimes included, however.
Foreign nationals (aliens) can violate US immigration laws by entering the United States unlawfully or lawfully entering but then remaining after the expiration of their visas, parole, or temporary protected status. Illegal immigration has been a matter of intense debate in the United States since the 1980s.
A guest worker program allows foreign workers to temporarily reside and work in a host country until a next round of workers is readily available to switch. Guest workers typically perform low or semi-skilled agricultural, industrial, or domestic labor in countries with workforce shortages, and they return home once their contract has expired.
In international economics, international factor movements are movements of labor, capital, and other factors of production between countries. International factor movements occur in three ways: immigration/emigration, capital transfers through international borrowing and lending, and foreign direct investment. International factor movements also raise political and social issues not present in trade in goods and services. Nations frequently restrict immigration, capital flows, and foreign direct investment.
Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of that country's immigration laws, or the continuous residence in a country without the legal right to. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upward, from poorer to richer countries. Illegal residence in another country creates the risk of detention, deportation, and/or other sanctions.
Various effects of migration have been an area of study and debate amongst economists. Researchers have studied questions including: if migrants hurt wages for natives; what is their tax contribution/burden; what are the effects of the money migrants send home (remittances); and how does the loss of workers affect the sender country.
George Jesus Borjas is a Cuban-American economist and the Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. He has been described as "America’s leading immigration economist" and "the leading sceptic of immigration among economists". Borjas has published a number of studies that conclude that low-skilled immigration adversely affects low-skilled natives, a proposition that is debated among economists.
There are thought to be over half a million undocumented immigrants residing in New York City. They come from many parts of the world, especially Latin America, Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Caribbean. About 70% of them have paid work, in catering, construction, retail, driving, cleaning, and many other trades; at least in catering, their wages tend to be lower than those of comparable workers.
Frank Dawson Bean Jr. is Chancellor's Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Research on Immigration, Population and Public Policy at the University of California, Irvine. Bean came to Irvine in 1999, after holding positions at the University of Texas and Indiana University. He has a PhD in sociology from Duke University.
The economic impact of illegal immigrants in the United States is challenging to measure, and politically contentious. Research shows that undocumented immigrants increase the size of the U.S. economy/contribute to economic growth, enhance the welfare of natives, receive more in tax revenue than they contribute, reduce American firms' incentives to offshore jobs and import foreign-produced goods, and benefit consumers by reducing the prices of goods and services.
In the United States, despite the efforts of equality proponents, income inequality persists among races and ethnicities. Asian Americans have the highest median income, followed by White Americans, Hispanic Americans, African Americans, and Native Americans. A variety of explanations for these differences have been proposed—such as differing access to education, two parent home family structure, high school dropout rates and experience of discrimination and deep-seated and systemic anti-Black racism—and the topic is highly controversial.
Joseph Gerard Altonji is an American labour economist and the Thomas DeWitt Cuyler Professor of Economics at Yale University. His fields of interest include macroeconomics and applied econometrics and in particular labour economics, being ranked as one of the foremost labour economists worldwide. In 2018, his contributions to the analysis of labour supply, family economics and discrimination were rewarded with the IZA Prize in Labor Economics.
The American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act (ACWIA) was an act passed by the government of the United States on October 21, 1998, pertaining to high-skilled immigration to the United States, particularly immigration through the H-1B visa, and helping improving the capabilities of the domestic workforce in the United States to reduce the need for foreign labor.
Immigration to the United States has many effects on the culture and politics of the United States.
