Immigration has always been a source of debate for the American public. During the early part of the 20th century Americans had concerns about the effects of European immigrants. Today similar concerns are being raised about Latin American immigrants. This book presents selected decennial census data on the foreign-born population of the United States from 1850 to 2000. This book provides the background knowledge necessary to examine the tables in a detailed and informed manner. The tables provide statistics that reveal all the trends in immigration during the last century of America's history. It is fully indexed.

Every ten years the United States Census counts every resident in the country. The data is collected to figure out the number of seats each state holds in the U.S. House of Representatives, it is used to distribute billions of federal funds, and to answer other questions as well. Employees from the Population Division on the U.S. Census uses this data to research and stimulate deliberation of the work taking place. This is one of those Working Papers.

This Current Population Report (CPR) presents data on a wide range of geographic, demographic, social, economic, and housing characteristics for the foreign-born pop. of the U.S. Data for the native population are included for comparison. The data in this report does not include info. from the 2000 census. Data for 1990 and earlier years, are included for historical comparison. The core of this report is 22 sections presenting info. on various topics for the foreign-born population. These sections are followed by 5 appendixes: definitions& concepts; source and accuracy of estimates; comparison of pop. universes; nativity questions on the CPR; and related reports and info.