Introduction Immigration statistics for the last few decades show significant changes in the United States’ “foreign-born population” in terms of socioeconomic, racial, and gender factors (Grieco et al. 2). Historical and up-to-date comparisons of immigration from Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines can explain current trends, significance, and relevance of various factors influencing immigration and related processes in the United States. Main text Interestingly, the first wave of Mexican immigrants is connected with the US-Mexican war after which “Californians went from living in Mexico to living in the United States” (Stephen 66). The next waves of Mexican immigrants are mainly connected with internal demand for the workforce in the United States. Agricultural, transportation, and mining industries in the southwestern part of the United States needed Mexican workers in 1910-1930 with a pause due to the Great Depression (Stephen 68-70). The next wave refers to the period when World War II began and the “bracero program was created to alleviate wartime labor shortage”, but it finished only in 1965 (Stephen 72). After increased wage levels in the US agricultural industry in 1970-1980 cheap workforce from Mexico was in need again. Consequently, for a family reunion, the number of Mexican immigrants including illegal ones is significantly risen every year from the 1990s until now which poses a problem for the United States and demands new controlling requirements. The origins of Philippines immigration lie in its historical and political links with the United States Philippines used to be first annexed by the United States in 1989 and then an insular area of the United States from 1934 until 1946. Speaking in favor of annexing the Philippines, Beveridge declared that “the United States served humanity as well as its expanding commercial empire in the Orient” (370). Therefore, during this period the flow of people from the Philippines to the United States was significant, though, not presented in number as being migration, not immigration. The second wave refers to the period after World War II, with 17,245 people in 1950-1959 compared to 4,099 people from 1940-1949. After the year 1965, the figures raised dramatically reporting 337,726 people in 1970-1979 compared to 70,660 people in 1960-1969. This increase relates to abolishing national origins quotas in 1965 (“2013 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics” 6). Finally, Puerto Ricans are US citizens since 1917. However, in his speech given to the Associated Press in 1936 Campos demanded “retreat of the United States armed forces from Puerto Rico” and accused the United States of seeing Puerto Rico “not as a nation, but as island property” (27). The increase of Puerto Rican migration to the mainland started after World War II due to economic hardships, and never stopped as “in 2008 the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that 51.6 percent of all persons of Puerto Rican origin lived in the continental United States” (Duany 207). According to Grieco et al., the origins of the most foreign-born population in the United State were European before 1960 and Latin American and Asian for the last 55 years. This shif