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 immigrants 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.
Human migration is the movement of people from one place to another, with intentions of settling, permanently or temporarily, at a new location. The movement often occurs over long distances and from one country to another, but internal migration is the dominant form of human migration globally.
Free migration or open immigration is the position that people should be able to migrate to whatever country they choose with few restrictions.
In sociology, an ethnic enclave is a geographic area with high ethnic concentration, characteristic cultural identity, and economic activity. The term is usually used to refer to either a residential area or a workspace with a high concentration of ethnic firms. Their success and growth depends on self-sufficiency, and is coupled with economic prosperity.
A migrant worker is a person who migrates within a home country or outside it to pursue work. Migrant workers usually do not have an intention to stay permanently in the country or region in which they work.
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.
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.
Opposition to immigration, also known as anti-immigration, is a political ideology that seeks to restrict immigration. In the modern sense, immigration refers to the entry of people from one state or territory into another state or territory in which they are not citizens. Illegal immigration occurs when people immigrate to a country without having official permission to do so. Opposition to immigration ranges from calls for various immigration reforms, to proposals to completely restrict immigration, to calls for repatriation of existing immigrants.
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 do so. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upward, from poorer to richer countries. Illegal residence in another country creates the risk of detention, deportation, and other imposed sanctions.
Internal migration in the People's Republic of China is one of the most extensive in the world according to the International Labour Organization. This is because migrants in China are commonly members of a floating population, which refers primarily to migrants in China without local household registration status through the Chinese Hukou system. In general, rural-urban migrants are most excluded from local educational resources, citywide social welfare programs and many jobs because of their lack of hukou status. Migrant workers are not necessarily rural workers; they can simply be people living in urban areas with rural household registration.
"Dirty, dangerous and demeaning", also known as the 3Ds, is an American neologism derived from the Asian concept, and refers to certain kinds of labor often performed by unionized blue-collar workers.
Labor market segmentation is the division of the labor market according to a principle such as occupation, geography and industry.
An open border is a border that enables free movement of people between jurisdictions with no restrictions on movement and is lacking substantive border control. A border may be an open border due to intentional legislation allowing free movement of people across the border, or a border may be an open border due to a lack of legal controls, a lack of adequate enforcement or adequate supervision of the border. An example of the former is the Schengen Agreement between most members of the European Economic Area. An example of the latter has been the border between Bangladesh and India, which is becoming controlled. The term "open borders" applies only to the flow of people, not the flow of goods and services, and only to borders between political jurisdictions, not to mere boundaries of privately owned property.
Emigration from Mexico is the movement of people from Mexico to other countries. The top destination by far is the United States, by a factor of over 150 to 1 compared to the second most popular destination, Canada.
Women migrant workers from developing countries engage in paid employment in countries where they are not citizens. While women have traditionally been considered companions to their husbands in the migratory process, most adult migrant women today are employed in their own right. In 2017, of the 168 million migrant workers, over 68 million were women. The increase in proportion of women migrant workers since the early twentieth century is often referred to as the "feminization of migration".
Christian Dustmann, FBA, is a German economist who currently serves as Professor of Economics at the Department of Economics of University College London. There, he also works as Director of the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM), which he helped found. Dustmann belongs to the world's foremost labour economists and migration scholars.
Leah Platt Boustan is an American economist who is currently a professor of economics at Princeton University. Her research interests include economic history, labour economics, and urban economics.
Africa hosts the fourth largest number of global international migrants. In 2017, 25 million people migrated within and outside it. Most of migration in Africa occurs within the continent as 19 million people moved between African countries. The surge in international migration within Africa is due in part by the efforts of African states and international institutions to enhance regional integration. Regional migration in the African continent is also largely facilitated by the development of infrastructure and diffusion of western languages and culture.
Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes is a Spanish economist, a Professor in the Economics and Business Management faculty at the University of California, Merced and a Professor and Department Chair at San Diego State University. Since 2015, she has been the Western Representative for a standing committee called the Committee for the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP). Her field of work focuses on the fundamentals of labour economics and international migration, particularly the nature of immigration policies and its impact on migrant's assimilation into the community at a state and local level. Amuedo-Dorantes has published multiple articles in refereed journals including Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Population Economics, International Migration, and Journal of Development Economics.
Immigration to the United States has many effects on the culture and politics of the United States.
