The amount of immigrants living in the United States, both legal and illegal, has reached a record high. A new report issued by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), based upon data from the Census Bureau, says that the United States is now home to 41.3 million immigrants, the highest figure ever recorded.
Immigrants now make up around 13% of the population of the United States, according to the report, with around one in eight people born overseas. The CIS says that this is the highest percentage in 93 years. Back in 1980, just 6.2% of the nation’s populace had been born overseas. 16% of the country’s adult population is immigrant, with 1.4 million immigrants arriving between the years 2010 and 2013.
There remains a strong influx from the western hemisphere and the United States is also continuing to take in more people from different countries. “The new data makes clear that while Latin America and the Caribbean are still a significant source of immigration, the growth is being driven in large part by immigration from Asia, the Middle East and Africa,” says the director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, Steven Camarota.
The largest increases have been from the Caribbean, East Asia, the Middle East, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Nations showing the largest rise in immigrants between 2000 and 2013 include Bangladesh, China, Guatemala, India, Jamaica, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.