International moving from country to country can be tedious and exhausting. It can also be an adventure like no other. Moving into the United States from a European nation was once upon a time a common occurrence and the main reason why America grew so rapidly in the 19th and 20th Century. The intake centers at Ellis Island on any given day would have Italian, Irish, German, Russian, and Spanish immigrants lining up to find a better life for their families and a market for their skills.



After World War II, international moving into the United States began to slow down. Hitler's defeat and the loss of so many native troops created a need for Europeans to stay home and rebuild. The re-establishment of Israel offered a chance for many displaced families to go home to the land that belonged to their forefathers and begin to heal from the atrocities of the war. International moving took on a different meaning as the new Israeli people were moved in massive groups to the land that housed Jerusalem.

The 1950's and 1960's saw a gradual decline in international moving to the U.S. as new countries were established and the Soviet Union tightened its grip on Eastern Europe. The civil rights movement and the Vietnam War created feelings of disunity and fear inside the United States and an international distaste that brought European migration almost to a halt. The number would continue to be low until the mid 1980's when Europe once again went through a change, the fall of the Soviet Union.

International moving into the United States in the 1980's and 1990's was different than it had been before World War II. The immigrants coming in from former Soviet areas of Eastern Europe were trained in the use of technology and conditioned to longer work weeks and stricter conditions. Germans, Czechs, Russians and Poles came to American in droves and brought skills and work ethics with them. International moving once again helped America grow.

There is no question that the country that has benefited the most from international moving is the United States. For two centuries people brought their hopes and dreams to the shores of Ellis Island and in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty prepared to enter a new land of opportunity. On September 11, 2001, two planes flew over that same island and changed international moving to the United States forever.

The destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11th was a horrific tragedy that immediately attracted sympathy and support from around the world and condemnation for the cowards who perpetrated it. It also caused the United States, for the first time since its inception in 1776, to seriously regulate the flow of international moving. The past decade has seen tightened security at airports and shipping ports, limited and almost non-existent new visas issued, and a general suspicion of anyone entering the U.S. with a Middle Eastern accent. The country built by immigrants, the melting pot, became almost inaccessible to new arrivals and that is where it still stands today.