Census: Highest immigrant population in 100 years, over half Latinos

Washington Examiner – by Paul Bedard

America’s foreign-born population has reached its highest level in over 100 years, driven by immigrants from Latin America, according to new Census Bureau data.

What’s more, the Pew Research Center has found that most Latinos feel the percentage of foreigners in the United States is just about right, though 14 percent said America needs more.  

The analysis from Pew showed that the last 50 years have seen the biggest surge in immigration into the U.S. since before the Civil War. There are currently 44-45 million foreign-born in the U.S., 14 percent of the total population.

“Today, immigrants from Latin America make up more than half of the roughly 45 million immigrants living in the country, including the majority of unauthorized immigrants,” said Pew.

What’s more, the immigrant share of the U.S. population is just below what it was during the great migrations at the turn of the 19th Century.

In its Fact Tank blog, Pew found a shift among Latin American immigrants over their percentage in the country. While in the past many felt there were too many immigrants in the United States, now they feel good with the population.

Said Pew:

The share of Latinos who say there are too many immigrants living in the United States has declined sharply over the past decade and a half, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey of Hispanic adults. This finding comes as the foreign-born share of the U.S. population approaches a record high and as the issue of immigration is a top policy priority for many Americans.

A quarter of Latinos in the U.S. say there are too many immigrants living in the country, while about half (48 percent) say there are the right amount and 14 percent say there are too few, according to the survey, conducted between July and September 2018. These numbers represent a dramatic shift from 2002 – the first time the Center asked this question – when 49 percent of Latinos said there were too many immigrants in the country, 37 percent said there were the right amount and 8 percent said there were too few.

In another report tagged by the Pew Fact Tank blog, it revealed the historic percentages of immigrants in the U.S. writing:

Nearly 14 percent of the U.S. population was born in another country, numbering more than 44 million people in 2017, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.

This was the highest share of foreign-born people in the United States since 1910, when immigrants accounted for 14.7 percent of the American population. The record share was 14.8 percent in 1890, when 9.2 million immigrants lived in the United States.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/census-highest-immigrant-population-in-100-years-over-half-latinos