Dr. Camarota
Center for Immigration Studies
Wed Nov 27 03:28:35 2002
208.152.73.76

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Immigrants in the United States - 2002
A Snapshot of America's Foreign-Born Population

November 2002

By Steven A. Camarota

An analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies of the Current Population Survey (CPS) collected in March of this year by the Census Bureau indicates that 33.1 million immigrants (legal and illegal) live in the United States, an increase of two million just since the last Census. The March CPS includes an extra-large sample of minorities and is considered one of the best sources for information on persons born outside of the United States — referred to as foreign-born by the Census Bureau.1 For the purposes of this report, foreign-born and immigrant are used synonymously.2 The questions asked in the CPS are much more extensive than those in the decennial census, and therefore it can be used to provide a detailed picture of the nation’s population, including information about welfare use, health insurance coverage, poverty rates, entrepreneurship, and many other characteristics. The purpose of this Backgrounder is to examine immigration’s impact on the United States so as to better inform the debate over what kind of immigration policy should be adopted in the future.

Among the reports findings:

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There is no evidence that the economic slowdown that began in 2000 or the terrorist attacks in 2001 have significantly slowed the rate of immigration. More than 3.3 million legal and illegal immigrants have entered the country since January of 2000.

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By historical standards, the 33.1 million immigrants living in the United States is unprecedented. Even at the peak of the great wave of immigration in the early 20th century, the number of immigrants living in the United States was only 40 percent of what it is today (13.5 million in 1910).

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Immigrants account for 11.5 percent of the total population, the highest percentage in 70 years. If current trends continue, by the end of this decade the immigrant share of the total population will surpass the all time high of 14.8 percent reached in 1890.

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Immigration has become the determinate factor in population growth. The arrival of 1.5 million immigrants each year, coupled with 750,000 births to immigrant women annually, means that immigration policy is adding over two million people to the U.S. population each year, accounting for at least two-thirds of U.S. population growth.

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Although immigration has a very large effect on the overall size of the U.S. population, it has a much more modest effect on the age structure in the United States. The nearly 16 million immigrants who arrived in the United States since 1990 have lowered the average age in the United States by only four months.

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The percentage of immigrants without a high school diploma is 30 percent, more than 3.5 times the rate for natives. Since 1990, immigration has increased the number of high school dropouts in the labor force by 21 percent, while increasing the supply of all other workers by 5 percent.

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The poverty rate for immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 18) is two-thirds higher than that of natives and their children, 17.6 percent versus 10.6 percent. Immigrants and their minor children now account for almost one in four persons living in poverty.

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The proportion of immigrant-headed households using at least one major welfare program is 24.5 percent compared to 16.3 percent for native households.

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One-third of immigrants do not have health insurance — 2.5 times the rate for natives. Immigrants who arrived after 1989 and their U.S.-born children account for 95 percent (7.5 million) of the 7.8 million increase in the size the uninsured population since 1989.

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The low educational attainment and resulting low wages of many immigrants are the primary reasons so many live in poverty, use welfare, and lack health insurance, not their legal status or an unwillingness to work.

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Immigration accounts for virtually all of the national increase in public school enrollment over the last two decades. In 2002, there were 9.7 million school-age children from immigrant families in the United States.

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In 2002, 39.2 percent of immigrants 18 and older were citizens and they comprised 6 percent of all eligible voters.

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Immigrants and natives exhibit remarkably similar rates of entrepreneurship, with about 1 in 10 being self employed.

Because the CPS is primarily designed to gather data on people in the workforce, it does not include those living in "group quarters," such as prisons and nursing homes. However, it is possible to arrive at a total immigrant population of 33.1 million simply by adding the roughly 600,000 immigrants found to be living in institutions by the preliminary 2000 Census results to the 32.5 million immigrants in the CPS.3

Because all children born in the United States to immigrants are by definition natives, the sole reason for the dramatic increase in the immigrant population is new immigration. While some immigrants die and others return home, the issuance of 800,000 to one million permanent residency visas annually and the settlement of hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens each year greatly exceeds deaths and out-migration. The immigrant population in the CPS includes perhaps eight to nine million illegal aliens and 900,000 persons on long-term temporary visas, such as students and temporary workers.

click here for full report:

For a full discussion of how illegal aliens are able to take advantage of the EITC, see the recent CIS Backgrounder "Giving Cover to Illegal Aliens: IRS Tax ID Numbers Subvert Immigration Law," by Marti Dinerstein. Available online at www.cis.org/articles/2002/back1202.


Dr. Camarota is the Center for Immigration Studies' Director of Research

Center for Immigration Studies
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fax (202) 466-8076

center@cis.org

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