Prior to 1965, policies such as the national origins formula limited immigration and naturalization opportunities for people from areas outside Western Europe. Exclusion laws enacted as early as the 1880s generally prohibited or verely restricted immigration from Asia, and quota laws enacted in the 1920s curtailed Eastern European immigration.
岳阳楼记作者20世纪60年代的民权运动导致了移民从种族配额到各国限制的改变（Foner, Nancy; Fredrickson, George M.,2005）。此后，居住在美国的第一代移民的数量翻了两番（Demetrios G. Papademetriou and Aaron Terrazas, 2009），从1970年的960万到2007年的约3800万（Uma A. Segal, Doreen Elliott, Nazneen S. Mayads，2010）。2000至2010年间，近14万移民进入美国，2008年就有超过一百万的人成为美国公民。各国限制的
规则要求每个国家发放签证的数量上限是一致的，而不考虑其国人口多寡，因此对出生在人口众多的国家的人们具有显著限制，如墨西哥，中国，印度和菲律宾等——这些都是居于2013年合法移民到美国的人口排行榜的前列的国家；同时，根据美国人口普查局的研究，在不考虑法律地位的情况下，中国，印度和墨西哥是在2013年移民到美国的人口总数最多的国家（Neil Shah, 2015）。2009年，合法移民中的66％是基于家庭关系被准许签证，13％基于职业技能被准许签证，以及出于人道主义原因的占17％。网页推广
The civil rights movement of the 1960s led to the replacement[2] of the ethnic quotas with per-country limits.[3] Since then, the number of first-generation immigrants living in the United States has quadrupled,[4] from 9.6 million in 1970 to about 38 million in 2007.[5] Nearly 14 million immigrants entered the United States from 2000 to 2010,[6] and over one million persons were naturalized as U.S. citizens in 2008. The per-country limit[3] applies the same maximum on the number of visas to all countries regardless of their population and has therefore had the effect of significantly restricting immigration of persons born in populous nations such as Mexico, China, India, and the Philippines – the leading countries of origin for legally admitted immigrants to the United States in 2013;[7]
nevertheless, China, India, and Mexico were the leading countries of
origin for immigrants overall to the United States in 2013, regardless of legal status, according to a U.S. Census Bureau study.[8] As of 2009, 66% of legal immigrants were admitted on the basis of family ties, along with 13% admitted for their employment skills and 17% for humanitarian reasons.[9]
对于那些非法横跨美墨边界进入美国和其他地方的人来说，移民是艰难，昂贵和危险的。事实上，所有的无记录的移民没有合法入境美国的途径的原因是关于绿卡的限制性法律，以及缺乏给低技术工人的移民签证。二十一世纪早期对于非法移民问题的讨论中，有参与者呼吁强化既有对于移民的管控法律的执行力度，建筑沿部分或全部的墨西哥-美国边境的2000英里（3200公里）的屏障，或创建一个新的客工计划。2006年全国和国会沉浸在关于这些建议的辩论中。截至2010 年4月少数这些提案被予以立法，但部分边界围墙获得批准后又最终被取消（Cheryl Sullivan，2011）。
For tho who enter the US illegally across the Mexico–United States border and elwhere, migration is difficult, expensive and dangerous.[10] Virtually all undocumented
immigrants have no avenues for legal entry to the United States due the restrictive legal limits on green cards, and lack of immigrant visas for low skilled workers.[11] Participants in debates on immigration in the early twenty-first century called for increasing enforcement of existing laws governing illegal immigration to the United States, building a barrier along some or all of the 2,000-mile (3,200 km) Mexico-U.S. border, or creating a new guest worker program. Through much of 2006 the country and Congress was immerd in a debate about the proposals. As of April 2010 few of the proposals had become law, though a partial border fence had been approved and subquently canceled.[12]
历史
美国移民史可以被分为四个时期：殖民时期、19世纪中期、20世纪初期和1965年后。在每个时期，不同国家、种族和民族的人们来到美国。在17世纪，约400,000英格兰人迁移到北美殖民地。在17和18世纪期间，超过一半的欧洲移民以契约佣工的身份迁移到北美殖民地。在19世纪中期，移民主要来自北欧; 在20世纪初期，移民主要来自南欧和东欧; 1965年后移民大部分来自拉丁美洲和亚洲。
American immigration history can be viewed in four epochs: the colonial period, the mid-19th century, the start of the 20th century, and post-1965. Each period brought distinct national groups, races and ethnicities to the United States. During the 17th century, approximately 400,000 English people migrated to Colonial America.[13] Over half of all European immigrants to Colonial America during the 17th and 18th centuries arrived as indentured rvants.[14] The mid-19th century saw mainly an influx from northern Europe; the early 20th-century mainly from Southern and Eastern Europe; post-1965 mostly from Latin America and Asia.
