Immigration Law Research

Ancestry operates the largest for-profit network of genealogical, historical record, and genetic genealogy websites. It has indexed the New York Passenger Lists by ships arriving to New York from foreign ports from 1820 - 1957.

Through migration records and passenger lists, this website helps people trace the whereabouts of their emigrant ancestors who migrated to the United States between 1836 and 1914.

This website helps people trace the whereabouts of their emigrant ancestors using passenger arrival records, naturalization records, border crossings, emigration records, passports, convict transportation records.

Proquest History Vault's Immigration Records of the INS, 1880-1930 covers the investigations made by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) during the massive immigration wave of 1880-1930. The files cover Asian immigration, especially Japanese and Chinese migration, to California, Hawaii, and other states; Mexican immigration to the U.S. from 1906-1930, and European immigration. There are also extensive files on the INS’s regulation of prostitution and white slavery and on suppression of radical aliens.

The USCIS Genealogy Program is a fee-for-service program ($65 per request) that provides researchers with timely access to historical immigration and naturalization records of deceased immigrants.

Castlegarden.org is a free database developed and funded by The Battery Conservancy. It contains and makes available eleven million records of immigrants who arrived at the Port of New York from 1820 - 1892. Today more than 100 million Americans can trace their ancestry to this early period of immigration.

This entirely free resource collection—notable for its census, property and parish records—hosts more than 160 databases of Norwegian emigration records.

This site serves up nearly 400,000 names of emigrants whose departures were tracked by the Copenhagen Police from 1869 through 1908. The data from 90 thick volumes include name, occupation, age, last residence, parish, county, destination (city, state, country), and ticket contract number or date of registration—all searchable fields.

FamilySearch provides a free, online genealogical guide that contains links to genealogy databases and online resources, research strategies, and other genealogical guidance to assist in the search of ancestors. Articles included are locality pages for countries around the world and topic pages that include pertinent genealogy record types explaining how to use the record, what it contains, and how to find it.

This resource from the Texas Seaport Museum covers more than 130,000 passengers who arrived at the port of Galveston from 1846 to 1948. Entries include names of passengers, age, gender, occupation, country of origin, ship name, dates of departure and arrival, and destination in the United States.

The Archives has indexed all the Ships Passengers Manifests from 1843-1900 in its collection according to the person’s nationality, and then alphabetically by last name. There is also an index not organized by nationality, but alphabetically for the years 1880-1900. These passengers were usually tourists or residents, and not contract laborers. The Archives also has a copy of Ships Passenger Manifests from Feb.1900-Jan.1921. There is a chronological listing of arrival dates, port of departure and the ship’s name. In 1900, the U.S. Federal government, through its agency Immigration and Naturalization Service, took over all immigration functions from the Hawaiian government. This included the documenting of ship’s passengers arrivals & departures.

Find your Finnish ancestors in the institute’s collection of 750,000 records, including passenger lists and passports. A basic search is free, but full access requires a subscription at about $26 annually. Depending on the database, you’ll learn last residence in Finland; profession; family members and travel companions; name and sailing date of the ship; and destination.

This database is compiled directly from the original Ship’s Passenger Manifests. It records Irish, English, Scottish, and Welsh immigrants arriving at the main US ports. For the port of New York, the database covers the years between 1846 and 1890. For Boston, Baltimore, New Orleans, and Philadelphia the database covers only the famine years between 1846 and 1851.

This resource offers a combined database of 4.8 million passengers from six Canadian ports covering 1865 to 1922, searchable by surname, given name, ship, year of arrival and arrival date (formatted as year-month-date). Clicking on each result brings up a transcription and image of the page. A separate database covers some 21,000 ship arrivals—not names of individual passengers—and is linked to digitized passenger lists.

This website covers all the 1 million passengers who arrived through the port of Boston from January 1848 to July 1891. Registers may include the immigrant’s name, age, sex, occupation, country of birth, last residence and passenger list number; and the name of the ship and date of its arrival in Boston.

The National Archives has immigration records for arrivals to the United States from foreign ports between approximately 1820 and 1982. The records are arranged by Port of Arrival. The Archive does not have passenger lists available online; however, it does have a list of the microfilm available for each port. Microfilm copies of passenger lists up to 1955 are available at the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C.

The AAD database has 604,596 persons listed who arrived in the Port of New York, from 1846-1851.

The Foundation has an online searchable database of 22.5 million arrivals to New York between 1892 - 1924.

This guide directs readers to some of the key texts and resources available on the Web that can help shed light on, and provide a context for, many of the issues currently being deliberated in the refugee law arena.

Its mission is to strengthen America by honoring our immigrant history and shaping how Americans think about and act towards immigration now and in the future. Formerly called the American Immigration Law Foundation

National association of over 14,000 attorneys and law professors who practice and teach immigration law. Resources include InfoNet Research Library

As part of the U.S. Department of State, the Bureau of Consular Affairs issues travel documents (visas and passports) that allow Americans to travel the globe and lawful immigrants and visitors to travel to America and provides essential cycle of life services to American citizens overseas.

Founded in 1985 with the mission of providing immigration policymakers, the academic community, news media, and concerned citizens with reliable information about the social, economic, environmental, security, and fiscal consequences of legal and illegal immigration into the United States.

Free information from a leading immigration law publisher

Provides an Asylum Manual

Oldest and largest interdisciplinary research center and archives devoted to preserving and understanding immigrant and refugee life in North America

Provides information and resources on applying for U.S. citizenship, green cards, temporary visas, on dealing with immigration violations, citizenship and naturalization process, permanent residency, temporary work visas, student visas, protection from deportation

National non-profit resource center that provides legal trainings, educational materials, and advocacy to advance immigrant rights

"documents voluntary immigration to the United States from the signing of the Constitution to the onset of the Great Depression. Concentrating heavily on the 19th century, Immigration to the US includes over 400,000 pages from more than 2,200 books, pamphlets, and serials, over 9,600 pages from manuscript and archival collections, and more than 7,800 photographs." From the Open Collections Program, Harvard University Library

A national public interest group which advocates for policies that welcome and support immigrants and refugees to our country

A national support center whose mission is to protect and promote the rights and opportunities of low income immigrants and their family members. NILC staff specialize in immigration law, and the employment and public benefits rights of immigrants.

Grassroots immigration-reduction organization that favors reductions in immigration numbers toward traditional levels

Promotes the legal protection of refugees, globally. Includes a database of contact details of free legal assistance providers in over 230 countries, and a database of country of origin experts

Provides access to immigration information for free with email registration