US Immigration History

Introduction
Immigration to the United States was relatively low during the first half of the 19th century, but the government encouraged immigrants to help settle the west.

Castle Garden
On August 1, 1855, the New York opened the first official immigrant receiving station in New York City. It functioned as an immigrant processing center and was the first of its kind in the United States. Previous to this, there were no official arrival stations for immigrants coming into the U.S.; immigrants were just dropped at U.S. ports and left to look after themselves. Castle Gardens operated as an Emigrant Landing Depot until April 18, 1890, when the United States government assumed control of immigrant processing.

Statistics
The United States is a nation of immigrants of which a majority came from Europe. Between 1820 and 1974, 46,712,725 immigrants entered the United States; 76.8% of these immigrants were Europeans.

The following chart documents the number of immigrants and their country of origin:

Europe

Immigrants from Other Countries and Continents