Immigration Facts

Senator Harry Reid now wants a deadline for debating an immigration bill in the Senate. Via FR, here are some key immigration facts to consider:

Since 1990, the US population has increased by 53 million people. 3/4 of this increase is due to immigration, legal and illegal. Almost one in eight people resident in America is foreign born, i.e., 12.1%. According to Bureau of the Census projections, we will have a population of 364 million by 2030, which translates into an additional 63 million people in the next 23 years.

What is going on today is unprecedented in our nation's history. Here are some facts gleaned from Bureau of the Census data that provide an indication of what is really happening:

---The 35.2 million immigrants (legal and illegal) living in the country in March 2005 is the highest number ever recorded -- two and a half times the 13.5 million during the peak of the last great immigration wave in 1910.

---Between January 2000 and March 2005, 7.9 million new immigrants (legal and illegal) settled in the country, making it the highest five-year period of immigration in American history.

---Immigrants account for 12.1 percent of the total population, the highest percentage in eight decades. If current trends continue, within a decade it will surpass the high of 14.7 percent reached in 1910.

---Of adult immigrants, 31 percent have not completed high school, three-and-a-half times the rate for natives. Since 1990, immigration has increased the number of such workers by 25 percent, while increasing the supply of all other workers by 6 percent.

---The proportion of immigrant-headed households using at least one major welfare program is 29 percent, compared to 18 percent for native households.

---The poverty rate for immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 18) is 18.4 percent, 57 percent higher than the 11.7 percent for natives and their children. Immigrants and their minor children account for almost one in four persons living in poverty.

---One-third of immigrants lack health insurance -- two-and-one‑half times the rate for natives. Immigrants and their U.S.‑born children account for almost three-fourths (nine million) of the increase in the uninsured population since 1989.

By 2050, the Latino population will have tripled, the Census Bureau projects. One in four Americans will be Hispanic.