India, Oct. 9 -- The United States' immigration policy has constantly struggled to balance two competing goals - bringing in foreign workers to help the economy grow versus protecting American workers. A short overview of USA's constantly-shifting immigration policy, leading up to the creation of the H-1B visa programme in 1990, is testament to the fact.

More than 10 million Irish, German, English and other European immigrants arrived in the United States between 1820 and 1880. These immigrants were mostly from northern and western Europe, although a smaller number also came from Asia beginning in the 1850s.

According to a 2000 paper by The Center for Comparative Immigration Studies,

University of California, San Diego, rapid industria...