"LEGAL AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION TO AMERICA FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD"

The United States of America is a nation of laws and immigrants, a true melting pot for the whole world and the most ethnically diversed nation in the 21st century. America is the only country in the world where her immigrants have made major national impacts and full inroads into every aspect of the nation's life and national development. Legal immigration is part of the national policy of the government of the United States and this can be found in many of the federal statutes passed by the United States Congress.

According to the online encyclopedia, the Wikipedia: "the American immigration history can be viewed in four epochs: the colonial period, the mid-nineteenth century, the turn of the twentieth, and post-1965. Each epoch brought distinct national groups, races, and ethnicity to the United States. During the seventeenth century, approximately 175,000 Englishmen migrated to Colonial America. Over half of all European immigrants to Colonial America during the 17th and 18th centuries arrived as indentured servants. The mid-nineteenth century saw mainly an influx from northern Europe; the early twentieth-century mainly from Southern and Eastern Europe; post-1965 mostly from Latin America and Asia.

THE BEGINNING OF LEGAL IMMIGRATION INTO THE UNITED STATES
Official documentation of all arriving new immigrants into the United States did not start until 1882. All immigrants that came into the United States before the year 1882 were undocumented by the American government. Legal documentation of the new arriving immigrants started officially in 1882, but today the documentation of all arriving legal immigrants are more detailed and extensively done by the United States Citizen and Immigration Services, an agency of the United States government.

TWO TYPES OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION INTO THE UNITED STATES
(i) The first category of illegal immigrants are the immigrants that entered the United States illegally by air, land and sea. These immigrants were never seen or documented by the border patrol agents and the immigration officials at their various points of entry into America. They have broken the United States immigration laws and they are here illegally. There are no official reliable records of the number of these illegal immigrants in America today, but reliable estimates put the numbers to be between 11-20 million persons.

(ii) The second category of illegal immigrants are those that obtained an official visas from the United States embassies and consulates abroad. These immigrants were seen, documented and interviewed by the United States Consular officials at their countries of birth or residences abroad. They were given temporary visa status into the United States for a short stay or visit. These immigrants were inspected and documented by the American immigration officials at their points of entry into America. They decided to overstay the durations of their visas' status. Now they have broken the United States immigration laws and are now considered illegal immigrants in America.

WHY ARE IMMIGRANTS COMING TO AMERICA?
Immigrants from all over the world immigrate to America for different reasons since the discovery of the new land by Christopher Columbus in 1492:
(i) The first immigrants that came to America and some of today's newest arriving immigrants came here to escape the political and religion persecutions in their homelands.
(ii) Some immigrants are here on political asylum and from the war-torn nations as war refugees
(iii) Political instability, the rule of lawlessness or brutality, human rights abuses and civil wars in many nations promote brain drain in those affected countries to the United States.
(iv) A serious and a rapid decline in the national economies of most developing nations, leading to weak and worthless national currencies encourage brain drain of their professionals to the United States.
(v) The decades of the failure of most governments and leaders around the world in providing adequate social services for their citizens encourage emigration of their citizens to United States.
(vi) The low wages and salaries in their original countries and the lack of opportunities for career advancement on their jobs.
(vii) Personal interest or preference of many people around the world to live in America.
(viii) Attraction to the political stability, democracy, freedom, justice, the rule of law, enormous opportunities for money making and career advancement, as well as the better living conditions in America

As we advance into the 21st century, the United States will remain a nation of immigrants as well as a nation of laws. American government will continue to promote legal immigration into America. The issue of what to do with the millions of the illegal immigrants who are here will continue to be a national issue that will polarize and divide this nation more and more. The present immigration policies of today must be revisited by the United States Congress to adequately address the various loopholes in our broken national immigration policies.