Approximately 41 million people immigrated to the United States of America between the years 1820 and 1957. During this time period, the United States expanded across North America, growing from 23 to 48 states, and the population grew from approximately 10 million people in 1820, to almost 180 million people by 1957. Economically, the U.S. developed from being an agriculturally focused economy in the 1820s, to having the highest GDP of any single country in the 1950s. Much of this expansion was due to the high numbers of agricultural workers who migrated from Europe, as technological advances in agriculture had lowered the labor demand. The majority of these migrants settled in urban centers, and this fueled the growth of the industrial sector.

American industrialization and European rural unemployment fuel migration The first major wave of migration came in the 1850s, and was fueled largely by Irish and German migrants, who were fleeing famine or agricultural depression at the time. The second boom came in the 1870s, as the country recovered from the American Civil War, and the Second Industrial Revolution took off. The final boom of the nineteenth century came in the 1880s, as poor harvests and industrialization in Europe led to mass emigration. Improvements in steam ship technology and lower fares led to increased migration from Eastern and Southern Europe at the turn of the century (particularly from Italy). War and depression reduces migration Migration to the U.S. peaked at the beginning of the 20th century, before it fluctuated greatly at the beginning of the 20th century. This was not only due to the disruptions to life in Europe caused by the world wars, but also the economic disruption of the Great Depression in the 1930s. The only period between 1914 and 1950 where migration was high was during the 1920s. However, the migration rate rose again in the late 1940s, particularly from Latin America and Asia. The historically high levels of migration from Europe has meant that the most common ethnicity in the U.S. has been non-Hispanic White since the early-colonial period, however increased migration from Latin America, Asia and Africa, and higher fertility rates among ethnic minorities, have seen the Whites' share of the total population fall in recent years (although it is still over three times larger than any other group.

United States Immigrants Admitted: All Countries data was reported at 1,127,167.000 Person in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 1,183,505.000 Person for 2016. United States Immigrants Admitted: All Countries data is updated yearly, averaging 451,510.000 Person from Sep 1900 (Median) to 2017, with 118 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1,827,167.000 Person in 1991 and a record low of 23,068.000 Person in 1933. United States Immigrants Admitted: All Countries data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by US Department of Homeland Security. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.G087: Immigration.

U.S. net migration for 2024 was 1,286,132, a 2.76% decline from 2023.

<ul style='margin-top:20px;'>

<li>U.S. net migration for 2023 was <strong>1,322,668</strong>, a <strong>0.28% increase</strong> from 2022.</li>
<li>U.S. net migration for 2022 was <strong>1,319,009</strong>, a <strong>95.47% increase</strong> from 2021.</li>
<li>U.S. net migration for 2021 was <strong>674,787</strong>, a <strong>104.62% increase</strong> from 2020.</li>
</ul>Net migration is the net total of migrants during the period, that is, the total number of immigrants less the annual number of emigrants, including both citizens and noncitizens. Data are five-year estimates.

United States US: Net Migration data was reported at 4,500,000.000 Person in 2017. This stayed constant from the previous number of 4,500,000.000 Person for 2012. United States US: Net Migration data is updated yearly, averaging 4,213,405.500 Person from Dec 1962 (Median) to 2017, with 12 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 8,612,074.000 Person in 1997 and a record low of 1,549,465.000 Person in 1967. United States US: Net Migration data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.World Bank.WDI: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Net migration is the net total of migrants during the period, that is, the total number of immigrants less the annual number of emigrants, including both citizens and noncitizens. Data are five-year estimates.; ; United Nations Population Division. World Population Prospects: 2017 Revision.; Sum;

In 2022, an estimated 10.99 million unauthorized immigrants were living in the United States. This is an increase from about 3.5 million unauthorized immigrants who lived in the United States in 1990.

The estimated population of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. stands at around 11 million people. Although the number has stabilized, the United States has seen a spike in migrant encounters in the last few years, with over two million cases registered by the U.S. Border Patrol in 2023. This is a slight decrease from the previous year, when there were over 2.2 million cases registered. Due to its proximity and shared border, Mexico remains the leading country of origin for most undocumented immigrants in the U.S., with California and Texas being home to the majority.

Immigration and political division

Despite the majority of the population having immigrant roots, the topic of immigration in the U.S. remains one of the country’s longest-standing political debates. Support among Republicans for restrictive immigration has grown alongside Democratic support for open immigration. This growing divide has deepened the polarization between the two major political parties, stifling constructive dialogue and impeding meaningful reform efforts and as a result, has led to dissatisfaction from all sides. In addition to general immigration policy, feelings toward illegal immigration in the U.S. also vary widely. For some, it's seen as a significant threat to national security, cultural identity, and economic stability. This perspective often aligns with support for stringent measures like Trump's proposed border wall and increased enforcement efforts. On the other hand, there are those who are more sympathetic toward undocumented immigrants, as demonstrated by support for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

This data collection contains information on the characteristics of aliens who became legal permanent residents of the United States in fiscal year 1977 (October 1976 through September 1977). Data are presented for two types of immigrants. The first category, New Arrivals, arrived from outside the United States with valid immigrant visas issued by the United States Department of State. Those in the second category, adjustments, were already in the United States with temporary status and were adjusted to legal permanent residence through petition to the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service. Variables include port of entry, month and year of admission, class of admission, and state and area to which immigrants were admitted. Demographic information such as age, sex, marital status, occupation, country of birth, country of last permanent residence, and nationality is also provided.

This graph shows the distribution of nationalities among documented immigrants who arrived in the United States between 1820 and 1870. As we can see, over seven million people arrived in the US in this 50 year period, with the majority coming from Ireland, Germany and Britain. The largest groups, by far, were Irish and German, who together made up roughly two thirds of all immigrants to the US during this time. The reasons for this were because of the Irish Potato famine from 1845 to 1849, which resulted in the death or emigration of twenty to twenty five percent of the total Irish population, and a number of internal factors in Germany such as economic migration for farmers affected by industrialization, political/religious asylum, and in order to avoid conscription. One noteworthy exclusion from the information is of those transported to US as slaves, whose information was not recorded in this statistic (although the slave trade was abolished in 1808, the practice continued in the decades that followed).

Immigrants Admitted: Philippines data was reported at 53,287.000 Person in 2016. This records a decrease from the previous number of 56,478.000 Person for 2015. Immigrants Admitted: Philippines data is updated yearly, averaging 54,446.000 Person from Sep 1986 (Median) to 2016, with 31 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 74,606.000 Person in 2006 and a record low of 30,943.000 Person in 1999. Immigrants Admitted: Philippines data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by US Department of Homeland Security. The data is categorized under Global Database’s USA – Table US.G086: Immigration.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the majority of documented migration to the United States of American came from European countries. Between 1820 and 1957, of the approximate 41 million migrants to the US, over 34 million of these came from Europe. The most commonly documented countries of origin during this time were Germany (6.6 million), Italy (4.9 million), Ireland (4.6 million), Great Britain (4.5 million), and Russia (3.4 million). The first wave of mass migration came in the 1850s, as the Great famine crippled Ireland's population, and many in rural areas of mainland Europe struggled to adapt to industrialization, and economic opportunities attracted many in the 1870s, following the American Civil War. The 1880s saw another wave, as steam powered ships and lower fares made trans-Atlantic journeys much more affordable. The first wave of mass migration from Eastern and Southern Europe also arrived at this time, as industrialization and agricultural advancements led to high unemployment in these regions.

The majority of migrants to the United States settled in major urban centers, which allowed the expansion of industry, leading to the United States' emergence as one of the leading global economies at the turn of the twentieth century. The largest wave of migration to the United states during this period came in the first fifteen years of the 1900s. The influx of migrants from Northern and Western Europe had now been replaced by an influx from Eastern and Southern Europe (although migration from the British Isles was still quite high during this time). European migration fell to it's lowest levels in eighty years during the First World War, before fluctuating again in the interwar period, due to the Great Depression. As the twentieth century progressed, the continent with the highest levels of migration to the US gradually changed from Europe to Latin America, as economic opportunities in Western Europe improved, and the US' relationship with the Soviet Union and other Eastern, communist states became complicated.

Brazil immigration statistics for 2015 was 713,568, a 20.42% increase from 2010.

<ul style='margin-top:20px;'>

<li>Brazil immigration statistics for 2010 was <strong>592,568</strong>, a <strong>7.21% decline</strong> from 2005.</li>
<li>Brazil immigration statistics for 2005 was <strong>638,582</strong>, a <strong>6.72% decline</strong> from 2000.</li>
<li>Brazil immigration statistics for 2000 was <strong>684,596</strong>, a <strong>7.68% decline</strong> from 1995.</li>
</ul>International migrant stock is the number of people born in a country other than that in which they live. It also includes refugees. The data used to estimate the international migrant stock at a particular time are obtained mainly from population censuses. The estimates are derived from the data on foreign-born population--people who have residence in one country but were born in another country. When data on the foreign-born population are not available, data on foreign population--that is, people who are citizens of a country other than the country in which they reside--are used as estimates. After the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 people living in one of the newly independent countries who were born in another were classified as international migrants. Estimates of migrant stock in the newly independent states from 1990 on are based on the 1989 census of the Soviet Union. For countries with information on the international migrant stock for at least two points in time, interpolation or extrapolation was used to estimate the international migrant stock on July 1 of the reference years. For countries with only one observation, estimates for the reference years were derived using rates of change in the migrant stock in the years preceding or following the single observation available. A model was used to estimate migrants for countries that had no data.

https://www.googleapis.com/download/storage/v1/b/kaggle-user-content/o/inbox%2F12064410%2F468b9ab69fbaa3eea94ab7c13537052f%2Fimmigration%20flag.png?generation=1673145948097950&alt=media" alt="">

15,341 DAYS (October 1st, 1979 - September 30th, 2021)

This is a dataset that describes annual statistics regarding US immigration between the 1980-2021 fiscal years.

All data are official figures from the Department of Homeland Security's government website that have been compiled and structured by myself. There are several reasons for the decision to only examine immigration data from 1980 to 2021. Since 1976, a fiscal year for the US government has always started on October 1st and ended the following year on September 30th. If the years prior to 1976 were included, the data may be incorrectly represented and cause further confusion for viewers. Additionally, the United States only tracked refugee arrivals after the Refugee Act of 1980, a statistic that is prominently featured in the dataset. As a result, the start date of 1980 was chosen instead of 1976.

Data Sources

The primary data sources used were the "Yearbook of Immigration Statistics" webpages from the Department of Homeland Security. As a whole, the website not only provided figures about US immigration that were perfect for making time series analyses, but also explored the logistics behind the annual trends found.

1. The Department of Homeland Security's 2021 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics - The Office of Immigration Statistics' 2021 Flow Reports and Population Estimates provide text, tables, and charts on lawful permanent residents, refugees and asylees, nonimmigrant admissions, naturalizations, enforcement actions, and the unauthorized population. Being the latest version released to date, the 2021 yearbook is the most comprehensive report publicly available and tends to feature data of past years for reference.
2. The Department of Homeland Security's Directory of Past Immigration Yearbooks - Past yearbooks were referenced in order to find the missing data from the fiscal years during 2000-2021. There is a single yearbook covering the fiscal years during 1996-1999, but that was the oldest publications featured in the directory.
3. The Center for Immigration Studies's File Library - In order to procure immigration data during the fiscal years of 1980-1999, I found free versions of the Immigration and Naturalization Service's paywalled yearbooks from the Center for Immigration Studies. By doing so, I was able fill in the missing values and finish the dataset.

Statistics Being Tracked

• Immigrants Obtaining Lawful Permanent Resident Status - Number of immigrants who obtained lawful permanent resident status in the United States, otherwise known as green card holders.
• Refugee Arrivals - Number of refugees who arrived in the United States. Excludes Amerasian immigrants except for the fiscal years of 1989 and 1991. Figures are based on refugee's arrival date.
• Noncitizen Apprehensions - Number of noncitizens apprehended in the United States. Data from 2020 to 2021 includes U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encounters that resulted in expulsion on public health grounds (due to the pandemic).
• Noncitizen Removals - Number of noncitizens removed from the United States. Removals are the compulsory and confirmed movement of an inadmissible or deportable noncitizen out of the United States based on an order of removal.
• Noncitizen Returns - Number of noncitizen returns from the United States. Returns are the confirmed movement of an inadmissible or deportable noncitizen out of the United States not based on an order of removal.

Dataset History

2023-01-07 - Dataset is created (465 days after the end of the 2021 fiscal year).

GitHub Repository - The same data but on GitHub.

Code Starter

Link to Notebook

Immigrants Admitted: Cuba data was reported at 65,028.000 Person in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 66,516.000 Person for 2016. Immigrants Admitted: Cuba data is updated yearly, averaging 28,549.000 Person from Sep 1986 (Median) to 2017, with 32 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 66,516.000 Person in 2016 and a record low of 9,262.000 Person in 2003. Immigrants Admitted: Cuba data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by US Department of Homeland Security. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.G087: Immigration.

Mexico immigration statistics for 2015 was 1,193,155, a 23.06% increase from 2010.

<ul style='margin-top:20px;'>

<li>Mexico immigration statistics for 2010 was <strong>969,538</strong>, a <strong>36.08% increase</strong> from 2005.</li>
<li>Mexico immigration statistics for 2005 was <strong>712,487</strong>, a <strong>32.42% increase</strong> from 2000.</li>
<li>Mexico immigration statistics for 2000 was <strong>538,051</strong>, a <strong>17.34% increase</strong> from 1995.</li>
</ul>International migrant stock is the number of people born in a country other than that in which they live. It also includes refugees. The data used to estimate the international migrant stock at a particular time are obtained mainly from population censuses. The estimates are derived from the data on foreign-born population--people who have residence in one country but were born in another country. When data on the foreign-born population are not available, data on foreign population--that is, people who are citizens of a country other than the country in which they reside--are used as estimates. After the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 people living in one of the newly independent countries who were born in another were classified as international migrants. Estimates of migrant stock in the newly independent states from 1990 on are based on the 1989 census of the Soviet Union. For countries with information on the international migrant stock for at least two points in time, interpolation or extrapolation was used to estimate the international migrant stock on July 1 of the reference years. For countries with only one observation, estimates for the reference years were derived using rates of change in the migrant stock in the years preceding or following the single observation available. A model was used to estimate migrants for countries that had no data.

Net migration for the United States was 4774029.00000 People in January of 2017, according to the United States Federal Reserve. Historically, Net migration for the United States reached a record high of 8859954.00000 in January of 1997 and a record low of 1556054.00000 in January of 1967. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for Net migration for the United States - last updated from the United States Federal Reserve on June of 2025.

United States Immigrants Admitted: Russia data was reported at 9,297.000 Person in 2016. This records an increase from the previous number of 8,799.000 Person for 2015. United States Immigrants Admitted: Russia data is updated yearly, averaging 12,079.000 Person from Sep 1992 (Median) to 2016, with 25 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 20,771.000 Person in 2002 and a record low of 6,718.000 Person in 2010. United States Immigrants Admitted: Russia data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by US Department of Homeland Security. The data is categorized under Global Database’s USA – Table US.G086: Immigration.

United States Immigrants Admitted: Europe data was reported at 84,335.000 Person in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 93,567.000 Person for 2016. United States Immigrants Admitted: Europe data is updated yearly, averaging 104,629.000 Person from Sep 1986 (Median) to 2017, with 32 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 165,507.000 Person in 2001 and a record low of 61,174.000 Person in 1987. United States Immigrants Admitted: Europe data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by US Department of Homeland Security. The data is categorized under Global Database’s USA – Table US.G087: Immigration.

World immigration statistics for 2015 was 243,192,681, a 9.93% increase from 2010.

<ul style='margin-top:20px;'>

<li>World immigration statistics for 2010 was <strong>221,233,994</strong>, a <strong>15.96% increase</strong> from 2005.</li>
<li>World immigration statistics for 2005 was <strong>190,789,342</strong>, a <strong>10.74% increase</strong> from 2000.</li>
<li>World immigration statistics for 2000 was <strong>172,278,883</strong>, a <strong>7.37% increase</strong> from 1995.</li>
</ul>International migrant stock is the number of people born in a country other than that in which they live. It also includes refugees. The data used to estimate the international migrant stock at a particular time are obtained mainly from population censuses. The estimates are derived from the data on foreign-born population--people who have residence in one country but were born in another country. When data on the foreign-born population are not available, data on foreign population--that is, people who are citizens of a country other than the country in which they reside--are used as estimates. After the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 people living in one of the newly independent countries who were born in another were classified as international migrants. Estimates of migrant stock in the newly independent states from 1990 on are based on the 1989 census of the Soviet Union. For countries with information on the international migrant stock for at least two points in time, interpolation or extrapolation was used to estimate the international migrant stock on July 1 of the reference years. For countries with only one observation, estimates for the reference years were derived using rates of change in the migrant stock in the years preceding or following the single observation available. A model was used to estimate migrants for countries that had no data.

United States Immigrants Admitted: Singapore data was reported at 818.000 Person in 2017. This records an increase from the previous number of 812.000 Person for 2016. United States Immigrants Admitted: Singapore data is updated yearly, averaging 743.000 Person from Sep 1986 (Median) to 2017, with 32 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1,204.000 Person in 2005 and a record low of 355.000 Person in 1999. United States Immigrants Admitted: Singapore data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by US Department of Homeland Security. The data is categorized under Global Database’s USA – Table US.G087: Immigration.