Immigration is what made America what it is today. An immigrant is a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence there. Everyone in the United States of America is an immigrant, either moving here on their own or is directly related to someone who has. We all come from different parts of the world, even Native Americans when they immigrated from Asia to the United States. Immigration is necessary to make America grow with new cultures and ideas. Immigration is a necessity, but the way it is controlled now does not work well because we are not fair in choosing which citizens to admit, thus increasing illegal immigration. An important man in history named Christopher Columbus immigrated to America in 1492. “He landed somewhere in the Caribbean, marking the first encounter of Europeans with the New World” (Purcell 139). Nearly a hundred years later Sir Walter Raleigh sent ships to America to explore and eventually founded “Virginia”. Since then, more and more explorers came to America and “marked their territory” as their own. Some important immigration stories involved black African slaves and the people who landed in Plymouth on the Mayflower and made it their home. In 1921, Congress passed the first comprehensive immigration restriction law. “This law set a limit on total immigration and imposed a quota system based on nations of origin” (Purcell 140). About nine years later, a four-year period of negative immigration begins to cause more immigrants to leave America than come to America. Another nine years later and almost all immigration was halted due to World War II. The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 ushered in a new era of immigration policy... in the middle of paper... on the web. November 26, 2013. “The Benefits of Common-Sense Immigration Reform.” White House. Np, nd Web. November 24, 2013. Basso, Frank. “Second Generation Immigrants Outperform the U.S. Population.” Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, February 7, 2013. Web. November 28, 2013. .Simon, Julian L. “Journal of Libertarian Studies.” ARE THERE REASONS TO LIMIT IMMIGRATION? (1998): 137-52. Center for Libertarian Studies. Network. November 29, 2013. Bouvier, Leon F. "Embracing America: A Look at Immigrants Becoming Citizens | Center for Immigration Studies." Center for Immigration Studies. Np, July 1996. Web. 01 December. 2013. .