Pub. date: 2008 | Online Pub. Date: May 28, 2008 | DOI:
10.4135/9781412963930 | Print ISBN: 9781412941655 | Online ISBN:
9781412963930| Publisher:SAGE Publications, Inc.About this
encyclopedia Immigration, United States Often described as a
nation of immigrants, the United States had a foreign-born
population of 12.4 percent in 2005. Before the 19th century,
however, people rarely used the term immigrant. Instead, the
foreign-born came as settlers, pioneers, slaves, or indentured
servants. The Naturalization Act of 1790 first established a
centralized process for becoming a citizen, originally open to
any free white individual who could demonstrate residence in the
country for 2 years. In the mid-19th century, the short-lived
Know-No thing movement emerged as a reaction to a surge in
immigration, particularly of Irish Catholics after the potato
famine of 1845–1851. No national legislation, however, was
enacted in response. Immigration was, for the most part,
welcomed as a route to national development until t