Despite President Donald Trump’s tough-on-immigration policy, the United States’ immigrant population recently reached a record of nearly 44 million, according to statistics divulged on Monday by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).
When adding the 1.9 million immigrants that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimates are missed by CIS’s 2016 American Community Survey (ACS), a closer tally would put the total at around 45.6 million immigrants.
More immigrants than ever
Numbers show that the number of immigrants soared since the turn of the century.
“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,” the CIS study revealed.
In addition, the proportion of immigrants in the U.S. is higher than its been in more than a century.
“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,” CIS Director of Research Steven A. Camarota and CIS Demographer Karen Zeigler announced in their report. “As recently as 1980, just one out of 16 residents was foreign-born.”
Since the beginning of the decade, several million immigrants have made the U.S. their new home.
“Between 2010 and 2016, 8.1 million new immigrants settled in the United States,” Camarota and Zeigler added. “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. As a result, growth in the immigrant population was 3.8 million 2010 to 2016.”
When including immigrants’ children into the equation, this population makes for a substantial proportion of the U.S. population.
“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,” the research indicated. “Immigrants and their minor children now account for nearly one in five U.S. residents.”
Camarota maintains that such a rise in immigrant numbers has to take its toll on America in more ways than one.
“The enormous number of immigrants already in the country coupled with the settlement of well over a million newcomers each year has a profound impact on American society – including on workers, schools, infrastructure, hospitals and the environment,” Camarota told the Washington Examiner. “The nation needs a serious debate about whether continuing this level of immigration makes sense.”
Out of all the countries in 2016, Mexico is stands out far above the rest as the number one country when it comes to sending immigrants (legal and illegal) to the U.S. Newsmax noted that the number of immigrants arriving in America from south of the border is not dramatically increasing from year to year at the rate it did in the past.
“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,” CIS number show. “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.”
A global perspective
There are a number of areas around the globe that have shown a spike in the number of immigrants they have sent to America.
“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),” Camarota and Zeigler informed. “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 two most populous nations on the planet are at the top when it comes to immigrants departing to the U.S.
“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 CIS statistics read.
The Middle East represents many of the nations with an uptick in the number is immigrants sent to the U.S.
“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 CIS report states.
How the numbers stack up in the U.S.
The four most populous states in the U.S. are also the states with the biggest surges in immigration.
“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),” Camarota and Zeigler noted.
When it comes to states taking in more immigrants than previous years, ones located in the Midwest placed in three of the top five slots.
“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),” the researchers pointed out.
Still in his first year in office, it still remains to be seen if Trump will reverse this escalating trend of immigration in the U.S. – especially when it comes to illegal aliens.
“Concerns about the explosion of immigration – especially of illegals – helped Donald Trump win the presidency and has prompted his administration to crack down on illegal immigration and refugees,” the Washington Examiner reported. “The new report does not break down the percentage of legal and illegal immigrants in the U.S., although there are an estimated 12 million undocumented aliens in the country.”
Even though illegal border crossings are reportedly down this year, most illegals still enter the U.S. through the southern border states of Texas, California, Arizona and New Mexico.
“A sizable number [of the 8 million immigrants since the year 2000] came from Mexico and Latin America – the source of most illegal immigrants,” the Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist Paul Bedard explained.
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Copyright American Family News. Reprinted with permission.
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