Immigration reform has stalled and started, and stalled again in an especially discordant Congress. But America is a nation of immigrants who have contributed to our culture and economy in innumerable ways. When it’s tougher than ever for people to become citizens, just what kind of leaders, artists, and geniuses might we be turning away? Here's a look at a few of the foreign-born citizens who made it in. Thank God these folks got green cards.
If J. Edgar Hoover had gotten his way, the most influential physicist of the 20th century might have never become an American. Concerned about Albert Einstein’s ties to pacifists and socialists, the FBI director recommended that the German-born scientist be kept out, but he was overruled by the State Department. The father of modern physics renounced his citizenship in 1933, when Hitler came into power, and immigrated to the United States, taking a professorship at Princeton. He became a citizen in 1940.
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Dr. David Ho was just 12 years old and spoke no English when he came to the States from Taiwan. The 1965 Immigration Act was crucial to his citizenship: it opened the doors to nonwhite immigrants for the first time. Ho’s AIDS research led to the combination antiretroviral therapy that has saved millions of lives, and made him Time magazine’s 1996 Man of the Year. In 2003, Dr. Ho told PBS, “The opportunities for [an advanced education] did not exist in Taiwan back then. And still to this day those opportunities in Taiwan do not compare to such in our country here.”
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Born Marie Jana Körbel, the future first female secretary of State was born in Czechoslovakia and became a U.S. citizen in 1957. Speaking to CNN about the 2010 Arizona immigration law Albright said, “Nothing in my life is more important than having become an American … the system at the moment is broken.”
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The cofounder of Google fled Moscow at the age of 6 with his family to escape the country’s persecution of Jews. He excelled in the United States, earning a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship and studying computer science at Stanford University. On a trip to visit his home country, Brin thanked his father “for taking us all out of Russia.”
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This Scotland-born writer and conservationist moved to Wisconsin at the age of 11. An industrial accident left him blinded for a time; the accident also fired his determination to focus on nature, which he called “the inventions of God.” Known as the father of the National Parks Service, his writings persuaded the government to preserve national treasures such as the Grand Canyon.
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One of the most famous labor leaders of the 19th century, Mary Harris Jones emigrated from Ireland with her family at age 5. Her tenacity was unmatched—her whole family, including her four children, was killed in the yellow-fever epidemic and she lost everything in the great Chicago fire. Still, she dedicated her life to improving labor conditions and the union cause.
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Pulitzer came to the States from Hungary in 1864 to serve as a soldier in the Civil War. He became a citizen in 1867. Funds left in the newspaper magnate’s will funded the establishment of Columbia University’s journalism school as well as the annual arts and journalism prizes that bear his name.
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Bavarian immigrant Levi Strauss came to the U.S. with his family when he was 18. During the California gold rush, Strauss opened a dry-goods business where he sold durable pants to prospectors—the first blue jeans.
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"God Bless America,” America’s unofficial anthem, was written by Russian immigrant Irving Berlin while he served in the Army. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1918.
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The American scientist and Nobel laureate immigrated to the States in 1937 and became a citizen 16 years later. Chandrasekhar’s major discoveries in astrophysics led to a better understanding of stars, and NASA named one of its four “Great Observatories” Chandra, the name by which he was known to his friends.
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Modern architect I.M. Pei came to the U.S. to study in 1935 and remained when the outbreak of World War II prevented his return to China. He became a citizen in 1954 and went on to design JFK airport in New York, the East Building of the National Gallery of Art, and the glass pyramid in the Louvre Museum.
Clark came to New York in 1919 from Panama Canal Zone. He was the first African-American to earn a doctorate in psychology from Columbia University and the first to serve as president of the American Psychological Association. His work was cited in the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, which led to the desegregation of public schools.
Born Leslie Townes Hope in Great Britain, this honorary veteran performed for countless troops in overseas shows. His family emigrated to Cleveland when he was 4 years old, and he became a citizen in 1920. The library at Ellis Island was named after the entertainer in 2010.
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Nicknamed “Hakeem the Dream,” Olajuwon was born in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1963 and is now known as one of the greatest players in NBA history. The 6-foot-10 center came to the U.S. by way of the University of Houston. He became a citizen in 1993 and responded to criticism from Nigerians by saying, “It was just natural. I'm still a Nigerian and I'm proud of it, but I'm a U.S. citizen."
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