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Immigration trends build more diverse society

By Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, February 17, 2002

Immigration trends account for much of the increasing diversity of America's population. In 2000, the number of foreign-born residents topped 28 million, just over 10% of the population. This is the largest percentage of foreign-born since the end of the last great wave of immigration that took place between the 1890s and the 1930s.

The Center for Immigration Studies, based in Washington, D.C., points out that the number of immigrants living in the United States has nearly tripled since 1970. As a percentage of the total population, immigrants have gone from 4.7% in 1970 to 10.4% in 2000.

The number of immigrants increased by 8.6 million in the '90s, more than a fourth of the total U.S. population growth for the decade. Add to that the 1.7 million children those immigrants had after they came to the United States, and the group accounted for about a third the population growth in the decade.

Six states — California, New York, Florida, Texas, New Jersey and Illinois — are home to more than 70% of the nation's immigrant population. These same six states account for 39% of the nation's total population.

Overall, the nation's immigrant population increased by 44% between 1990 and 2000. Of the 15 states with the largest numerical increases, four — Colorado, North Carolina, Nevada and Arizona — more than doubled their immigrant population. Six more — Florida, Texas, Virginia, Georgia, Michigan and Maryland — saw their immigrant population increase faster than the national average.

Unlike the immigrants who came to America in the early part of the century, the largest percentage of immigrants who came to the United States in the 1990s were from Mexico, Central and South America.

The number of immigrants from Asian countries also increased dramatically in the last decade. Immigrants play heavily in the Hispanic and Asian population explosion in the '90s.

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15 states with the largest increase in the number of immigrants in the 1990s
State	Immigrant population 1990	2000	Number increase	Percent increase
All states	19,767	28,379	8,612	44%
California	6,459	8,781	2,322	36
Florida	1,663	2,768	1,105	66
Texas	1,524	2,443	918	60
New York	2,852	3,634	782	27
Arizona	278	630	352	126
Colorado	142	413	270	190
New Jersey	967	1,207	241	25
North Carolina	115	333	218	189
Virginia	312	526	214	69
Illinois	952	1,155	203	21
Massachusetts	574	769	195	34
Nevada	105	294	189	180
Georgia	173	345	172	99
Michigan	355	518	163	46
Maryland	313	457	144	46
States that have more than doubled their immigrant population are shown in bold.
Source: Center for Immigration Studies, 2001

15 states with the largest increase in the number of immigrants in the 1990s
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