Under conservative General Captain José María Medina (1862-1876), the National Congress issued the first immigration law on February 26, 1866, allowing willing foreigners to reside in the country.

Afterwards, the liberal reformer Dr. Marco Aurelio Soto (1876-1883) published the Political Constitution of 1876, which reflected the importance he placed on immigration for national development, including those from North America (many displaced by the aftermath of the Civil War), Europe, the Middle East and Asia, etc.

[4] The early 20th century saw a major increase in Arab immigration to Honduras following crisis in the Ottoman Empire and World War I.

In the early 20th century, Gonzalo "Chalo" Luque noted the names of many Palestinian-Arab heads-of-household in San Pedro Sula,[5] and Mario Posas made a similar list for the developing banana plantations near La Ceiba.

)[8] However, several researchers suggest that there had been a wave of Middle Eastern immigrants to Central America in the 1920s and 1930s; hundreds of families settled primarily in Honduras,[8][4] with nearly 25,000 Arabs in San Pedro Sula alone by 1930, and over 40,000 by 1940.