US Immigration Numbers Close To Shattering 108-Year-Old Record
Even as President Donald Trump seeks to reform the nation’s immigration laws and policies, the face of immigration has changed to the point where immigrants make up the largest share of the U.S. population since 1910.
The shift that took place between 2010 and 2017 saw Asian immigrant populations on the rise and small states far from major immigration magnets logging double-digit increases in immigrants. Overall, 44.5 million Americans were foreign-born, according to the data.
Census Bureau numbers from its American Community Survey, a computer-generated statistical model based on demographic information from around the nation, show that in 2017, 13.7 percent of Americans were born abroad, according to Breitbart. The record is 14.7 percent in 1910.
In 2016, the final year of the Obama administration, 13.5 percent of Americans were foreign-born.
The Census Bureau projects that despite efforts by the Trump administration to curb immigration and adopt a merit-based system, immigration numbers will keep rising.
The Census estimates that at current rates, by 2030 15.8 percent of Americans will be foreign-born and that by 2060, that number will be at 18.8 percent, The Daily Caller reported.
Jeffrey Passel, a demographer at the Pew Research Center, said the actual immigrant population is likely 3 percent to 5 percent higher than the Census figure, according to NBC. As it is, the Census estimates there are 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, Breitbart reported.
“The economy’s definitely a factor in this, not just in more people coming but in more people staying,” said Randy Capps, a demographer at the Migration Policy Institute,
States such as California and New York continue to have the most immigrants, but the data showed that while these states logged an increase of 6 percent from 2010 to 2017, other states had double-digit growth. Tennessee’s immigrant population rose 20 percent, as did that of Kentucky. Ohio saw a 13 percent increase while the number went up 12 percent in South Carolina.
Many of those coming are Asians with a substantial education, according to the data.
When the Brookings Institution examined the numbers, it found 41 percent of those who arrived since 2010 came from Asia, ahead of the 39 percent figure from Latin America. Around 45 percent who immigrated after 2010 had a college education, as opposed to 30 percent between 2000 and 2009.
“This is quite different from what we had thought,” said William H. Frey, the senior demographer at the Brookings Institution, according to The New York Times.
“We think of immigrants as being low-skilled workers from Latin America, but for recent arrivals, that’s much less the case. People from Asia have overtaken people from Latin America,” he said.
However, Mexico remained the largest single source of immigrants with 11.3 million immigrants, the New York Post reported. That number was down by 441,000 from 2010.
The Pew Research Center looked at immigration numbers in a 2017 study and found that education levels vary widely.
The study found that 57 percent of immigrants from Mexico and 49 percent from Central America were less likely to be high school graduates than are Americans. Only 9 percent of Americans have not completed high school. Immigrants who came from South and East Asia, Europe, Canada, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, on the other hand, were more likely than Americans to have a bachelor’s or advanced degree, the study reported.
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