Rise in U.S. Immigrants From El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras Outpaces Growth From Elsewhere
The increase from these countries exceeded modest growth of the overall foreign-born population and came amid a decline in immigrants from Mexico.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
The increase from these countries exceeded modest growth of the overall foreign-born population and came amid a decline in immigrants from Mexico.
The largest wave of immigration in history from a single country to the United States has come to a standstill.
The U.S. population in 2010 included 39.9 million foreign-born residents. This estimate, the latest available for the foreign-born population, is 1.5 million, or 4%, higher than the survey’s 38.5 million estimate in 2009.
There were 11.9 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States in March 2008. The size of the unauthorized population appears to have declined since 2007.
As it continues to grow, the composition of the Hispanic population is undergoing a fundamental change: Births in the United States are outpacing immigration as the key source of growth. Over the next twenty years this will produce an important shift in the makeup of the Hispanic population with second-generation Latinos–the U.S.-born children of immigrants– emerging as the largest component of that population. Given the very substantial differences in earnings, education, fluency in English, and attitudes between foreign-born and native-born Latinos, this shift has profound implications for many realms of public policy, and indeed for anyone seeking to understand the nature of demographic change in the United States.
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