Source: CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES, 10/16/17


On September 14, 2017, the Census Bureau released some data from the 2016 American Community Survey (ACS) that shows uneven growth in the immigrant population in the last year. The number of immigrants (legal and illegal) from the Middle East, Latin American countries other than Mexico, Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa grew significantly, while the number from some places, such as Mexico, Europe, and Canada, grew not at all or even declined. The Census Bureau refers to immigrants as the foreign-born, which includes all those who were not U.S. citizens at birth. The Department of Homeland Security has previously estimated that 1.9 million immigrants are missed by the ACS, so the total immigrant population in 2016 was likely 45.6 million.1

Among the findings in the new data:
• The nation's immigrant population (legal and illegal) hit a record 43.7 million in July 2016, an increase of half a million since 2015, 3.8 million since 2010, and 12.6 million since 2000.
• As a share of the U.S. population, immigrants (legal and illegal) comprised 13.5 percent, or one out of eight U.S. residents in 2016, the highest percentage in 106 years. As recently as 1980, just one out of 16 residents was foreign-born.
• Between 2010 and 2016, 8.1 million new immigrants settled in the United States. New arrivals are offset by the roughly 300,000 immigrants who return home each year and annual natural mortality of about 300,000 among the existing foreign-born population.2 As a result, growth in the immigrant population was 3.8 million 2010 to 2016.3
• In addition to immigrants, there were slightly more than 16.6 million U.S.-born minor children with an immigrant parent in 2016, for a total of 60.4 million immigrants and their children in the country.4 Immigrants and their minor children now account for nearly one in five U.S. residents.
• Mexican immigrants (legal and illegal) were by far the largest foreign-born population in the country in 2016. Mexico is the top sending country, with 1.1 million new immigrants arriving from Mexico between 2010 and 2016, or one out of eight new arrivals. However, because of return migration and natural mortality among the existing population, the overall Mexican-born population has not grown in the last six years.5
• The sending regions with the largest numerical increases in the number of immigrants living in the United States 2015 to 2016 were the Caribbean (up 120,522), the Middle East (up 109,113), Central America (up 70,664), Sub-Saharan Africa (up 67,198), South Asia (up 64,902), and South America (up 61,462).6
• Longer term, the regions with the largest numerical increases 2010 to 2016 were East Asia (up 892,209), South Asia (up 889,878), the Caribbean (up 554,903), the Middle East (up 471,029), Sub-Saharan Africa (up 456,989), Central America (up 402,784), and South America (up 249,660).
• The sending countries with the largest numerical increases since 2010 were India (up 654,202), China (up 550,022), the Dominican Republic (up 206,134), El Salvador (up 172,973), Cuba (up 166,939), the Philippines (up 164,077), Honduras (up 128,478), Vietnam (up 112,218), Venezuela (up 106,185), Guatemala (up 104,883), Nigeria (up 87,565), Pakistan (up 83,271), Haiti (up 81,074), Bangladesh (up 80,949), Jamaica (up 76,532), Ethiopia (up 71,332), Brazil (up 69,982), Colombia (up 68,032), Iraq (up 61,787), Burma (also known as Myanmar, up 60,294), Nepal (up 59,992), and Saudi Arabia (up 54,833).
• The sending countries with the largest percentage increases in the number of immigrants living in the United States since 2010 were Saudi Arabia (up 122 percent), Nepal (86 percent), Afghanistan (up 74 percent), Burma (up 73 percent), Syria (up 62 percent), Venezuela (up 58 percent), Bangladesh (up 53 percent), Kenya (up 46 percent), Ethiopia (up 41 percent), Nigeria (up 40 percent), Iraq (up 39 percent), Ghana (up 37 percent), India (up 37 percent), Egypt (up 32 percent), Pakistan (up 28 percent), and China (up 25 percent).
• The states with the largest numerical increases in the number of immigrants from 2010 to 2016 were Texas (up 587,889), Florida (up 578,468), California (up 527,234), New York (up 238,503), New Jersey (up 171,504), Massachusetts (up 140,318), Washington (up 134,132), Pennsylvania (up 131,845), Virginia (up 120,050), Maryland (up 118,175), Georgia (up 95,353), Nevada (up 78,341), Arizona (up 78,220), Michigan (up 74,532), Minnesota (up 73,953), and North Carolina (up 70,501).
• The states with the largest percentage increases in the number of immigrants 2010 to 2016 were North Dakota (up 48 percent), West Virginia (up 41 percent), South Dakota (up 39 percent), Delaware (up 24 percent), Nebraska (up 20 percent), Minnesota (up 20 percent), Wyoming (up 19 percent), Pennsylvania (up 18 percent), Alaska (up 16 percent), Indiana (up 16 percent), Florida (up 16 percent), Nevada (up 15 percent), Washington (up 15 percent), Iowa (up 15 percent), Maryland (up 15 percent), Massachusetts (up 14 percent), Texas (up 14 percent), Utah (up 13 percent), Wisconsin (up 13 percent), and Virginia (up 13 percent).

For more of this story, click here.