Italians immigrated to the United States because there was poverty, bad wages, high taxes, and overcrowding. In the north there was a spread of pellagra, which causes you to go insane and then die. And in the south there was malaria, which was once just on the coastline but due to all the deforestation that was going o, it spread up farther inland. Italians would also come over to America because they wanted to have the right to vote.