If the US never had any immigration restrictions...

If the US never emplaced any immigration restrictions, how many extra people would that be? Who would they be and when would each wave arrive?

Of course it might be ASB for the early US to accept immigration from areas that were disliked. So there are multiple scenarios, some more realistic than others. The ones I feel the answer would be most interesting, are colored blue.

Let's say the laws in each scenario are basically enacted around 1800-1810. Some of them would have to occur later but they occur as early as possible after that.

Scenario 1: All white immigrants allowed (Europeans + overseas Europeans). Naturalization laws OTL, still a blocking of non-white immigrants as OTL, until the 60s. However no per-country quotas.

Scenario 2: Most whitish immigrants allowed (Europeans + overseas Europeans + light Latin Americans). Naturalization laws OTL. Still a blocking of Asian immigrants as in OTL. However no per-country quotas.

Scenario 3: All whitish immigrants allowed ("Caucasians" as a whole + mestizos + East Asians). Naturalization laws OTL, but mestizos and East Asians can gain citizenship. No per-country quotas.

Scenario 4: All culturally Western (a language spoken in Europe or the Americas) immigrants allowed. Naturalization requirement: five years of residency. No per-country quotas.

Scenario 5: All Christian immigrants allowed. Naturalization requirement: five years of residency. No per-country quotas.

Scenario 6: All immigrants allowed, but citizenship only by birth. Per-country quotas eventually enacted in percentages of the US population.

Scenario 7: All immigrants allowed. Citizenship by purchase, or inheritance. No quotas.

Scenario 9: All immigrants allowed. Citizenship by birth. No quotas.

Scenario 10: All immigrants allowed. Citizenship by birth or five-years residence. No quotas.

Scenario 11: All immigrants allowed. Citizenship by birth, or five-years' residence and knowledge of English, Spanish, French, German, or a native American language. No quotas.
 
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If the Chinese immigration ban never passed, we'd probably see a significant Asian plurality, especially on the west coast.
 
You'll never see any of those implemented permanently, rather you'd end-up with several of them at different times.

One thing to remember to is that certain immigration from Europe was restricted not because of nationalistic dislike, but because early on 'White' was a very specific group and basically only Brittano-Germanic* people were viewed as white.


*Ben Franklin himself viewed only Anglo Saxons as white.
 
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You'll never see any of those implemented permanently, rather you'd end-up with several of them at different times.

One thing to remember to is that certain immigration from Europe was restricted not because of nationalistic dislike, but because early on 'White' was a very specific group and basically only Anglo-Germanic* people were viewed as white.

*Ben Franklin himself viewed only Anglo Saxons as white.
That paragraph was very controversial, even back then, and ended up being removed.

And the Naturalization Act of 1790 allowed all free white persons.
 
That paragraph was very controversial, even back then, and ended up being removed.

And the Naturalization Act of 1790 allowed all free white persons.

I can never understand how anyone could possibly see Swedes as swarthy. They're paler skinned than Britons. Can anyone help me out?
 
There'd be a lot more Italian Americans. The immigration restrictions of the 1920s were specifically aimed at "Southern Europeans" (a codeword for Italians). They had been one of the largest immigrant groups to the U.S. in the previous half-century.
 

katchen

Banned
How many is a lot? Europe had very low brithrates between World War I and World War II (and stayed that way later). Italy only gained by 4 million --10% from 1920-1940. Yugoslavia at 11 million and Greece a lot less. Even if you count non-traditional countries for immigration like Romania and Bulgaria.
What you WOULD be likely to get though would be a lot of Jews. Particularly from Poland and particularly after 1930.
Canadian immigration statistics are instructive. See http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.b...ngs/SourcesofImmigrantstoCanada1921-1945.html .
And yes, quite a few people did leave the UK and Ireland during those years.
 
I can never understand how anyone could possibly see Swedes as swarthy. They're paler skinned than Britons. Can anyone help me out?

Vaguely remembered quote from fiction either set in or written in circa 1900: "Nah, there's no white men livin' out there, just a lot of Swedes."
 
How many is a lot? Europe had very low brithrates between World War I and World War II (and stayed that way later). Italy only gained by 4 million --10% from 1920-1940.

But that's partly due to the fact that Italians continued to emigrate in very large numbers during this time. They just went to places like Argentina and France instead of the United States.
 
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