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Eighty Percent of Foreign Born Population of 15,000,000 Entered U.S. Before 1920

August 11, 1932
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More than 80 per cent of the foreign-born population of the United States came to this country prior to 1920 and less than a million persons entered during the five and one-fourth years preceding the 1930 census during which time immigration has been restricted, according to an analysis of census returns relative to year of immigration of the foreign-born population issued yesterday by the Department of Commerce.

The returns show that approximately one-third of the foreign-born white population of the country, numbering 13,366,407 in 1930, entered in 1900 or earlier.

The newest immigrants in the United States, that is, those who have entered since 1920, are largely Canadian, Italian, German, Mexican, Irish, Scotch, English, Russian, Polish and Scandinavian. During the last decade there has been a decrease, as compared with the previous decade, in immigrants from Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemberg, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Roumania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Spain, Syria.

The increases over the preceding decade have been largely from North American and Latin American countries, Germany, Scandinavia, Great Britain and the Irish Free State, Switzerland, France and Portugal.

On April 1, 1930, the foreign-born population of the United States was 14,204,149. Of this number, 4,429,494 or 31.2 per cent, arrived in 1900 or earlier; 3,823,694, or 26.9 per cent, between 1901 and 1910; 2,541,946, or 17.9 per cent, between 1911 and 1919; and 2,823,399, or 19.9 per cent between 1920 and 1930.

YEAR OF IMMIGRATION

In the foreign-born white population of the United States in 1930, natives of countries in northwestern Europe and of Germany represented as a whole an older immigration than those from other parts of Europe. Of the total returned as born in England, Scotland, and Wales, which was 1,223,200, 37.6 per cent arrived in the United States in 1900 or earlier; as did 46.4 per cent of the 744,810 born in the Irish Free State, 49.9 per cent of the 1,122,576 born in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, and 58.3 per cent of the 1,608,814 born in Germany.

There were 1,790,424 natives of Italy, 1,268,583 natives of Poland, and 1,153,624 natives of Russia, in the foreign-born white population of the United States in 1930. Of those born in Italy, only 17.8 per cent arrived in the United States in 1900 or earlier; of those born in Poland, only 19 per cent; and of those born in Russia, only 21 per cent.

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