Immigration to the USA throughout history

That's a pretty good population map for Germany as well.

That's a pretty good population map for Germany as well.

Click to expand...

A good population map of modern Germany.

But in case of 19th century Germany population density was probably (I'm not 100% sure) differently distributed.

I'm not talking about non-German immigrants if that was unclear.

Obviously immigrants from South-Western part of Geramany were nearly all Germans.

Domen said:

A good population map of modern Germany.

But in case of 19th century Germany population density was probably (I'm not 100% sure) differently distributed.

Click to expand...

Not really. The vast majority of Germans (indeed Europeans) lived in the Rhineland; a quick glance at a map plotting the major cities gives dense population in that area and increasingly sparse population as one travelled East, with the exception of Berlin. This is one of the reasons why the Vienna treaty was so significant; by transferring the Rhineland to Prussia, it more than doubled that state's population and shifted its centre of gravity towards Germany and Western Europe rather than Poland and Eastern Europe.

Flying Pig said:

That's a pretty good population map for Germany as well.

Click to expand...

Obligatory xkcd reference http://xkcd.com/1138/

Assuming that proportions between relative population densities of various regions remained unchanged throughout time is wrong. I can give you several examples if you want. One of them is France compared to England.

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Population density in late 1930s (map is from 1938):



Take a look at Poland - densely populated south vs. sparsely north. In Poland it was like that already since the 1700s, but it doesn't mean that in other regions things did not change over that period. And when it comes to Poland, during the 1500s it was differently - there was a densely populated strip of territory leading from north to south along central part of the country (roughly along the Vistula River from Cuiavia to Lesser Poland) - not from west to east along the Carpathian Mountains, as it was later, since the 1700s until WW2 and in fact to a large extent even today.

dutchfire said:

Obligatory xkcd reference http://xkcd.com/1138/

Click to expand...

That was actually what I had in mind!

Domen said:

Assuming that proportions between relative population densities of various regions remained unchanged throughout time is wrong. I can give you several examples if you want. One of them is France compared to England.

=================

Population density in late 1930s (map is from 1938):



Take a look at Poland - densely populated south vs. sparsely north. In Poland it was like that already since the 1700s, but it doesn't mean that in other regions things did not change over that period. And when it comes to Poland, during the 1500s it was differently - there was a densely populated strip of territory leading from north to south along central part of the country (roughly along the Vistula River from Cuiavia to Lesser Poland) - not from west to east along the Carpathian Mountains, as it was later, since the 1700s until WW2 and in fact to a large extent even today.

Click to expand...

I'm not assuming - there are plenty of good maps of historical population density in print, though I confess I can't find one online. Holland and the Rhineland have been among the most densely populated regions of Europe since the early modern period, if not before. Simply looking at a map showing the cities of Germany in (say) 1640 or 1815 or whenever makes this quite obvious.

Population density of several European countries in the 2nd half of the 16th century:

Netherlands - 45 ppl / km2
Italy - 38 ppl / km2
France - 36 ppl / km2
Germany - 29 ppl / km2
Austria, Bohemia & Western Hungary - 22 ppl / km2
Poland (pre-1569 borders) - 19-20 ppl / km2 (19-20 was average, and regional differences were: between 10 and 40 ppl / km2)
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (post-1569 borders) - 9-10 ppl / km2
Spain & Portugal - 15-16 ppl / km2
Switzerland - 15 ppl / km2
England & Ireland - 13 ppl / km2
Ottoman Europe - 9-10 ppl / km2
Scotland - 6 ppl / km2
Russia - 2 ppl / km2 (with huge regional differences, of course)
Denmark & Norway - 2 ppl / km2
Sweden & Finland - 1 person / km2

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For Poland (before the Union of Lublin) 19-20 was average, but regional differences for 19 regions were between 10 and 40.

Those 19 regions had area of 240,000 km2.

If we exclude 4 regions (78,000 km2) with low density (10 - 15), the average for the remaining 15 regions was 22.

Those 15 regions had area of 162,000 km2.

Those 4 regions with low density were in the north (Pomerelian region) and in the south (Ruthenian, Belz, Chelm regions).

So the "core" of Poland had an average density of 22 / km2 - the same as Austria, Bohemia or Western Hungary.

Total legal emigration / immigration to the USA from 1820 to 2011:

(Technically all immigration to the United States is legal. It's just not necessarily lawful, is the trick.)

Traitorfish said:

(Technically all immigration to the United States is legal. It's just not necessarily lawful, is the trick.)

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The USA historically uses the term 'illegal alien', with alien being used in the latin sense of someone who is a citizen of another country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(law)

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/alien

Joecoolyo said:

Yeah, I can provide an anecdote for this. My hometown changed its name around WWI from a very German name to a generic English one.

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In the US, there's interesting state and town laws about the public speaking of the German language, around the time of WW1.
It affected the Amish / Mennonites especially (Ohio / Iowa).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_language_in_the_United_States#Persecution_during_World_War_I

Yeah, there was actually a US Supreme Court case that ruled it was unconstitutional to ban the teaching of German (Meyer v. Nebraska). The case itself continues to be an important case in the right of family members to control their child's upbringing.

BTW, Traitorfish, I'm not sure I understand the difference between "legal" and "lawful" in that context. My personal preference is for "entered without inspection and admission or parole," since that's the exact removable offense they've committed under the Immigration and Nationality Act, but I'll admit that this is a bit of a mouthful.

Louis XXIV said:

BTW, Traitorfish, I'm not sure I understand the difference between "legal" and "lawful" in that context. My personal preference is for "entered without inspection and admission or parole," since that's the exact removable offense they've committed under the Immigration and Nationality Act, but I'll admit that this is a bit of a mouthful.

Click to expand...

If something is "illegal", then it is actively prohibited by law, but if it's "unlawful", it only means it's not protected. In the US, constitutional law forbids the criminalisation of unlawful immigration, so "illegal immigrants" by definition cannot exist.

I disagree that constitutional law forbids the criminalization of unlawful immigration (at least the act of crossing the border, which is a criminal offense, I could see that you can't punish someone for their status under Robinson v. California, although I don't know if anyone's ever addressed it). However, now I understand what you mean by illegal v. unlawful (I'd probably consider the latter closer to "unsanctioned" or something like that, though).

So it can't be illegal to be an immigrant, but it can be illegal to immigrate. Does the distinction mean anything in practice?

I'm not sure. While I studied a little bit of immigration law, I did not actually learn the criminal offenses for illegally crossing the border (just the removable offenses). My guess is it's a crime to intentionally cross the border, so someone who was young and carried over is probably not guilty. Then again, they might make it illegal to intentionally remain in the country while knowing you have no lawful status (which skirts the rule in Robinson, but I'm not sure crosses it). In that situation, I don't think there's any meaningful difference.

But, iirc, there have historically been criminal penalties for merely unlawful immigration. The first law was the Chinese Exclusion Act (illegal immigration from China was enforced long before concerns about illegal immigration from Mexico, which wasn't always practical to enforce). I'm pretty sure that involved criminal penalties as well.

Arizona vs. United States (2012) determined that unlawful residence in the United States cannot be criminalised, essentially ruling that "illegal immigrants" do not exist.

No it didn't, it determined that, because the federal government has control over this area, states cannot legislate (it's the doctrine of "Field Preemption" where Congressional regulation of a field is so significant that the state isn't allowed to legislate at all for fear of messing up the whole thing). It said nothing about whether the federal government could pass a law making it illegal to be here unlawfully.

Ah, I misinterpreted. Fair enough!