ABSTRACT
America is a country of immigrants from all parts of the world and in recent times the US has had Secretaries of State born in Germany (Henry Kissinger), Czechoslovakia (Madeleine Albright), and another (Colin Powell) the son of immigrants from Jamaica. Former national security adviser, Zbibniew Brzezinski, was of Polish origin, while Condoleezza Rice was the first black female to hold the same office. In the early part of the twentieth century about 90 percent of all immigrants came from Europe. Since the 1970s there has been a significant change in the pattern of immigration into the US and today European immigrants number only about 15 percent. This is due to the 1965 immigration and nationality act that abolished the national quota system and gave preference to family reunification, a policy that favored recent immigrants rather than the traditional European ethnic base of the US. The result has been a drastic drop in immigrants from Europe. In 2000, there were 120,000 immigrants from Mexico and only 2352 from France. As the number of Europeans has declined dramatically, the number of Asians, Hispanics, and others from war-torn regions such as the Horn of Africa has risen steadily.
