The founders likely experienced a higher immigrant share than any time after them in US history

Foreign-born share of the US population, 1630-2025

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Sources: U.S. Bureau of the Census, A Century of Population Growth: From the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth, 1790–1900 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1909), Part 2; Aaron S. Fogleman, "From Slaves, Convicts, and Servants to Free Passengers," Journal of American History 85, no. 1 (June 1998); SlaveVoyages website, 2025; Hans-Jürgen Grabbe, "European Immigration to the United States in the Early National Period," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 133, no. 2 (June 1989); Campbell Gibson and Kay Jung, "Historical Census Statistics on the Foreign-Born Population of the United States: 1850 to 2000," Population Division Working Paper No. 81 (Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau, February 2006); American Community Survey, Census Bureau, 2025; and authors' calculations