Throughout its history, millions of immigrants have landed at America’s shores. Their practical contributions are still felt in every field of endeavor including agriculture, industry, and the service trades, but within the great immigrant migration to America there also came gutsy and talented individualists, artists, and dreamers.

Many of these exceptional talents have gone on to win worldly renown, and their names have lived on in history. Ellis Island’s Famous Immigrants tells the story of some of the best known of these legendary characters and records their actual immigration experience at Ellis Island. Celebrities featured within Ellis Island’s records include such entrepreneurs as Max Factor, Charles Atlas, and Etorre Boiardi; painters Arshile Gorky and Joseph Stella; authors Isaac Asimov and Ludwig Bemelmans; spiritual figures Father Flanagan and Krishnamurti; Hollywood actors Claudette Colbert, Rudolph Valentino, and Bob Hope; sports figures Knute Rockne and Johnny Weissmuller; and Supreme Court jurist Felix Frankfurter.

Probably the most famous immigrant to land in the city of Houston, Texas is Hakeem Olajuwon, born in Nigeria in 1963. Some consider him to be the most famous continental African to have played in any sport in America. He came to America to play basketball for Guy Lewis at the University of Houston where he led the Cougars to three NCAA final four appearances and won the NCAA Tournament Player of the Year award.

In 1984, the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association drafted Olajuwon, and he developed into one of the dominant big men in the league. Nicknamed “The Dream,” given to him because he referred to the footwork and moves he acquired as a young soccer player as the Dream Shake, he used the moves to confound his defenders while playing post.

Olajuwon led the Rockets to the NBA championship in 1994 and 1995, and was voted the league’s most valuable player for the 1993-94 season. During the 1990s, sportswriters and fans considered him one of the NBA’s best centers. Olajuwon retired in 2002 after signing with the Toronto Raptors the previous year. Olajuwon still lives in Houston today where he he has had great success in the real estate market and runs a basketball camp for big men. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008. “The Dream” became an American citizen in 1993.

The United States no longer processes immigrants through Ellis Island. The immigration laws have changed through the years, and it is much harder to immigrate to America today than it was in the days of the famous Ellis Island immigrants mentioned in this story.

Whether you live in Houston, Texas, its surrounding area, or outside the United States, you may be interested in immigrating to America, becoming a permanent resident, or becoming one of its citizens. You may also be in a place where you know someone who has had a difficult time immigrating to the United States, becoming a permanent resident, or a citizen.

If you or your acquaintances do not understand our immigration laws, you should probably seek legal counsel. Even if you already live here and just want to become a permanent resident or citizen, or have a relative that wants to become a permanent resident or citizen of the United States, contact us at www.immigrationlawstation.com, and we will help you find an immigration lawyer in your area who will answer any legal questions you may have about immigration law.

Who knows, maybe you, your relative, or someone you know who wants to be a legal resident in the United States will be like Hakeem Olajuwon.