The share of foreign-born people in the U.S. has reached its highest level in over a century, according to new figures from the Census Bureau.
Concretely, the figure rose to 14.3% in 2023, compared to 13.9% the previous year, the agency said in its annual American Community Survey, which seeks to delve into several aspects of life in the country. The last time the figure was higher was in 1910, when it clocked in at 14.7%.
Most of the growth came from Latinos, which continue to account for more than half of the foreign-born population (51.2% in 2023, compared to 50.3% the year before). It was the only demographic that saw an increase, as the share of foreign-born people from Europe and Asia dropped slightly.
Latinos also accounted for the vast majority of the overall U.S. population increase these past two years, according to a previous study by the Census Bureau. Concretely, they accounted for about 70% of the country's population growth, with that figure being primarily driven by births. In other words, Latinos people grew to just over 65 million, an increase of 1.16 million (1.8%) from the prior year, contributing to the nation's total population gain of 1.64 million in 2023, according to the report.
At the same time, the demographic's population is expanding at a much faster rate than their non-Latino counterparts.
"The annual increase of 1.8% was in sharp contrast to the 0.2% increase in the non-Hispanic population, whose growth was tempered by a decline among non-Hispanic Whites," said Kristie Wilder, a demographer in the Census Bureau's Population Division.
Wilder also explains that not only did White people see a population decline, but it was also the only group to experience a population loss. That trend seems to confirm a wide perception across the country— the U.S. is becoming less white and more Latino and Asian American, Axios reports.
Natural births were the primary cause of increase among Hispanics, with around 722,000 more births than deaths. Conversely, despite unprecedented numbers of migration in the past few years, this was only about one-third of the overall net gain in the Latino population, with 437,000 migrants coming into the country, according to the report.
And the group is set to continue increasing its share of the population: it is projected to rise to 26.9% by 2060 in the most probable scenario calculated by the Census Bureau, which also projected what the population would look like based on immigration variation. Concretely, it would be "27.8% in a high-immigration scenario, 26.2% in a low-immigration scenario, and to 24.6% in a zero-immigration scenario."
Overall, the U.S. population would drop by over 100 million people by the end of the century if immigration were to be cut off from the country, according the Census Bureau.
The figure, which the entity claims to be largely illustrative, shows that population declines in this scenario would begin next year. By the end of the century there would be 226 million people living in the country, compared to the current 335 million.
All scenarios consider that immigration will be the largest contributor to population growth, according to the Census Bureau. "In an ever-changing world, understanding population dynamics is crucial for shaping policies and planning resources," stated Sandra Johnson, a demographer at the entity, which also took into account assumptions about future births and deaths.
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