Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States
March 14, 2019
By Jie Zong, Jeanne Batalova, and Micayla Burrows
Editor’s note: This article was updated on July 10, 2019 to include newly released Department of Homeland Security data on refugee resettlement, asylum grants, and deportations.
Immigration seems to be ever present in current political and public debate in the United States, with the topic central in the 2016 presidential campaign and since then, amid ongoing policy conversations about border wall construction, refugee resettlement cuts, family separation, and much more. Yet even as positions taken by political parties and individuals seem hardened, immigration flows and the makeup of the U.S. immigrant population have been changing in significant, though not always fully appreciated, ways.
Among the changes: The overall immigrant population continues to grow, but at a slower rate than before the 2007-09 recession. Recent immigrants are more likely to be from Asia than from Mexico, and are also more likely to have a college degree. The size of the unauthorized population appears to be on the decline. Deportations from within the United States are rising. And the United States in 2018 resettled the smallest number of refugees since formal creation of the refugee resettlement program in 1980.
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states#Demographic
