Coming to America

Look around your town, your neighborhood, or even your classroom: How many people do you know who were born in another country or are the children of people born somewhere else?

Chances are it’s more than a few. According to the federal government, the share of the United States population that’s foreign-born—13.7 percent—is now greater than it’s been in more than a century. Not since 1910, when immigrants seeking the American dream were streaming into Ellis Island in New York Harbor, has so big a percentage of the population been foreign-born.

It’s not just that the immigrant population of the U.S. is bigger—it’s changing too. For years, the biggest chunk of newcomers came from Latin America, but new Census numbers show that Asians are now the biggest group of new immigrants. The data also shows that these more recent immigrants are better educated than previous generations of immigrants: About 45 percent have college degrees, compared with 30 percent of native-born Americans.

“We think of immigrants as being low-skilled workers from Latin America, but for recent arrivals, that’s much less the case,” says William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution who analyzed the new census data. “People from Asia have overtaken people from Latin America.”

The new data comes as the nation’s changing demography has become a flash point in American politics. President Trump has sounded alarms about immigration and suggested the government needs to restrict both the number and types of people coming into the country and obtaining citizenship.

The last historic peak in immigration to the U.S. came around the turn of the 20th century, when large numbers of Europeans fled poverty and violence in their home countries. Some of the largest numbers came from Germany, Italy, and Poland (see charts, below). That wave peaked in 1910, when the foreign-born population stood at nearly 15 percent. But after Congress imposed quotas in the 1920s that sharply restricted immigration and gave preference to Northern Europeans, the foreign-born population fell sharply in the middle of the 20th century, eventually dipping to below 5 percent.

In 1965, a new immigration law did away with the quotas and radically changed the nation’s immigration dynamic. The idea was to treat people from all countries equally, and the law was centered on giving American citizens the ability to bring family members in their home countries to the U.S.

The 1965 law opened up the U.S. to a new wave of immigration from Latin America and countries like India, China, and the Philippines. And over time, the policy of allowing immigrants to bring their relatives to the U.S. began to change the country’s demographics.

Consider the story of the Patel family. Jagdish Patel came to America from India in 1968, when he was 23. He had a good education but little else. He got a job at a nuclear test site and built a home in Nevada. By the mid-1980s, he had brought his wife, his mother, five sisters, and a brother over from India.

Years later, Patel’s siblings sponsored their own family members to come, and their clan now stretches from Nevada to Florida, New Jersey to Texas—more than 90 people.

“I am so glad that I came to America,” says Patel, now 72. “I brought everyone here, and we have provided valuable service to this country.”

Patel’s American-born children reaped the benefits of his hard work: His son is a venture capitalist in San Francisco; his daughter is an interior designer in Salt Lake City with 140,000 followers on Instagram.

The last historic peak in immigration to the U.S. came around the turn of the 20th century. During that period, large numbers of Europeans fled poverty and violence in their home countries. Some of the largest numbers came from Germany, Italy, and Poland (see charts, below). That wave peaked in 1910, when the foreign-born population stood at nearly 15 percent.

However, Congress imposed quotas in the 1920s that sharply restricted immigration. These quotas gave preference to Northern Europeans. As a result, the foreign-born population fell sharply in the middle of the 20th century. In fact, it eventually dipped to below 5 percent.

In 1965, a new immigration law did away with the quotas. This move radically changed the nation’s immigration dynamic. The idea was to treat people from all countries equally. The law sought to give American citizens the ability to bring family members in their home countries to the U.S.

The 1965 law opened up the U.S. to a new wave of immigration. People immigrated from Latin America and countries like India, China, and the Philippines. And over time, the policy of allowing immigrants to bring their relatives to the U.S. began to change the country’s demographics.

Consider the story of the Patel family. Jagdish Patel came to America from India in 1968, when he was 23. He had a good education but little else. He got a job at a nuclear test site and built a home in Nevada. By the mid-1980s, he had brought his wife, his mother, five sisters, and a brother over from India.

Years later, Patel’s siblings sponsored their own family members to come. Their clan in the U.S. now has more than 90 people. And it stretches from Nevada to Florida, New Jersey to Texas.

“I am so glad that I came to America,” says Patel, now 72. “I brought everyone here, and we have provided valuable service to this country.”

Patel’s American-born children reaped the benefits of his hard work. His son is a venture capitalist in San Francisco. His daughter is an interior designer in Salt Lake City with 140,000 followers on Instagram.

Kevin Sullivan/Digital First Media/Orange County Register via Getty Images

Asians are now the biggest group of new immigrants to the U.S.

Asian families like the Patels helped launch a demographic shift that has accelerated in recent years. For many years, Mexico was the single largest contributor of immigrants. But since 2010, the number of immigrants arriving from Mexico has declined, while those from China and India have surged, the recent data shows.

Another interesting finding is where the new immigrants are settling. Some of the largest gains were in states with the smallest immigrant populations, suggesting that immigrants are spreading out across the country. In fact, the state with the biggest increase is North Dakota, where the 2017 foreign-born population of 31,000 is almost double what it was in 2010. In recent years, North Dakota has taken in refugees from countries including Iraq, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The fact that immigrants are moving to places they haven’t traditionally gone could be behind some of the anxiety we’re seeing nationally about immigration, says David Bier, an immigration expert at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. But it’s also a reason to be hopeful.

“There’s great evidence that when people are initially exposed to diversity, there’s resistance and people react negatively,” says Bier. “But familiarity does not breed contempt. It’s the other way around: As Americans become more familiar with immigrants, they accept them.”