U.S. Immigrant Population Hits Record High of 42.4 Million
Article publisher:
National Review
Article date:
22 September 2015
Article category:
National News
High
Article Body:
The U.S. immigrant population reached a record high of 42.4 million according to a new analysis of census data — and the growth rate of the foreign-born population is accelerating. A new Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) report shows the legal- and illegal-[alien] immigrant population grew by 2.4 million since 2010, with more than a million new arrivals in 2014.
The dramatic increases in immigration are evident in both absolute numbers of the foreign born and as a share of the U.S. population. “Immigrants (legal and illegal) comprised 13.3 percent or about one out of eight U.S. residents in 2014, the highest percentage in 104 years,” the report notes. And the growth in the immigrant population is accelerating rapidly, from an increase of a half million immigrants per year between 2010 and 2012 to over a million from 2013 to 2014.
The immigrant share of the population has more than doubled from what it was in 1980, when illegal and legal immigrants together made up just 6.2 percent of the country.
Additionally, when the 16.2 million U.S.-born children of immigrant parents are included, one in six U.S. residents is an immigrant or the child of an immigrant – a total of 58.6 million people in 2014...
