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In the first great wave of immigration, where did the first immigrants come from? Also, why did they emigrate to the United States?

User Shina
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Answer:

CONTENTS

Immigration in the Colonial Era

Immigration in the Mid-19th Century

Ellis Island and Federal Immigration Regulation

European Immigration: 1880-1920

The Bracero Program

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965

PHOTO GALLERIES

The United States experienced major waves of immigration during the colonial era, the first part of the 19th century and from the 1880s to 1920. Many immigrants came to America seeking greater economic opportunity, while some, such as the Pilgrims in the early 1600s, arrived in search of religious freedom. From the 17th to 19th centuries, hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans came to America against their will. The first significant federal legislation restricting immigration was the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. Individual states regulated immigration prior to the 1892 opening of Ellis Island, the country’s first federal immigration station. New laws in 1965 ended the quota system that favored European immigrants, and today, the majority of the country’s immigrants hail from Asia and Latin America.

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