The United States’ immigrant population, including the legal residents and undocumented, reached a record 43.7 million in 2016, according to a report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).
This represents an increase of half a million since 2015; 3.8 million since 2010; and 12.6 million since 2000.
However, the Department of Homeland Security estimates that 1.9 million immigrants have been misplaced by the American Community Survey (ACS) – the principal source of information about the change in population, housing and workforce in the United States – which would raise the number to probably 45.6 million.
If the U.S. children born to immigrants are included – some 16.6 million with at least one parent born outside – last year’s total of persons of immigrant origin was 60.4 million.
Center for Immigration Studies Statistics
One out of eight residents in the United States is currently an immigrant, “the highest percentage of the last 106 years,” and Mexico is confirmed as the principal origin, added the report.
The numbers are growing in relation to 1980, when the proportion was one out of 16 residents, says the report of CIS analysts Steven Camarota and Karen Zeigler.
Between 2010 and 2016, a total of 8.1 million immigrants arrived in the United States, compared to the close to 300,000 who left the country annually and a similar number who passed away. A total of 1.1 million new immigrants arrived from Mexico between 2010 and 2016, one out of eight of the total.
In this period, the biggest increases were for India (with 654,202 new residents), China (550,022), Dominican Republic (206,134), El Salvador (172,973), Cuba (166,939), the Philippines (164,077), Honduras (128,478), Vietnam (112,218), Venezuela (106,185) and Guatemala (104,883).
In the case of the Cubans, in just four fiscal years (2013-2016), the irregular entry through the Mexican border and by sea surpassed the 131,000, 76 percent of the total of those who arrived since 2009.
According to the Pew Research Center, the number of Cuban immigrants who arrived in the United States went from 24,278 in the 2014 fiscal year to 43,159 in 2015, and to 46,635 in the first 10 months of 2016.
More than two million Cubans emigrated in the last half century and almost 80 percent did so to the United States and especially to Florida.
The regions most represented from 2010 to 2016 were Eastern Asia (892,209), Southern Asia (889,878), the Caribbean (554,903), Middle East (471,029), Sub-Saharan Africa (456,989), Central America (402,784) and South America (249,660).
From 2010 to 2016, the five states with the highest increases were Texas (587,889), Florida (578,468), California (527,234), New York (238,503) and New Jersey (171,504).
With 27.2 percent of immigrants, California is the state with the biggest foreign population, followed by New York (23), Florida (20.6), New Jersey (22.5) and Nevada (20), points out the report, which used information from the census to made it.
The Census Bureau considers as immigrant population those born abroad who were not U.S. citizens at the time of birth.
