Immigration to the USA

For more than 400 years people have been immigrating to America, from all over the globe. These immigrants came to American for a variety of reasons. Most immigrants came of their own choosing. Some such as the Africans brought to American as slaves, came because they had no choice.

In the early years of American immigration, many came searching for the freedom to follow their religious beliefs. These immigrants came to an underdevelopment country and built it from the ground up in order to gain the freedom to worship their God in their own way. Other groups of immigrants would flee to America from war torn countries, seeking a safe place to live and raise their children. Still other groups would leave their countries to escape famines and come to America to survive. As America grew and became an established country, immigrants began to arrive in large numbers, searching for a better, more prosperous life for themselves and their children. They developed wild land into plantations and farms, built churches, cities and universities. Immigrants came to America to help build railroads and highway systems.

Throughout most of the years of immigration to America, the United States welcomed immigrants from other nations. Perhaps because most everyone in the government, passing the laws pertaining to immigration, came from a family who at one time had been immigrants, themselves. At other times, America passed laws making it very difficult for anyone to immigrate to the United States.

Immigrants have fought in every war that America has participated in. During the Colonial War, the immigrants, mainly from Britain, fought to establish the United States of America. When the Civil War began, immigrants fought on both sides of the conflict. Whenever their new country, America has gone to war, its immigrants have been there to help defend their new homeland.

Immigrants built the United States of America, fought for the United States of America and each group, found a way to turn a foreign country into their home and to make the transition from immigrant to American.