() — The United States is home to more immigrants than any other country: more than 45 million people, according to the latest census estimates.
That’s 13.6% of the US population, about the same as a century ago. But over the years, we have seen significant changes in where immigrants come from and where they end up once they get here.
Here’s a look at these key immigration trends and how they’ve changed over time.
One country has topped the list for decades
Mexicans represent the largest group of immigrants living in the United States. That has been the case since the 1980s, according to the Migration Policy Institute (MPI). And the Mexico-United States route is the largest migration corridor in the world.
But the total number of Mexican immigrants living in the US It has decreased for more than a decade.
An estimated 10.7 million Mexican immigrants were living in the US in 2021, approximately 1 million less than the previous decade.
Meanwhile, immigration from other countries, including India and China, has been on the rise, according to the MPI.
As one expert told last year, the variety of reasons people move to the US from different parts of the world is as varied as the list of countries these immigrants once called home. Some seek economic opportunities. Others are fleeing violence, persecution, or weather disasters. And others hope to reunite with relatives who are already here.
According to an analysis of MPI census data, the top 10 countries of origin for immigrants to the United States are in Latin America and Asia.
Mexico: 10.7 million
India: 2.71 million
China: 2.38 million
Philippines: 1.98 million
The Savior: 1.42 million
Vietnam: 1.34 million
Cuba: 1.28 million
Dominican Republic: 1.26 million
Guatemala: 1.11 million
Korea: 1.01 million*
These statistics include both immigrants who came to the United States legally and those residing in the country without authorization.
Looking only at the population of undocumented immigrants living in the United States, the list of top countries of origin changes slightly. A 2021 Department of Homeland Security report estimated that top six countries of origin of undocumented immigrants were Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, India, Honduras and China.
But the majority of immigrants living in the United States are not undocumented.
The latest estimates from the Pew Research Center indicate that about 10.5 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States. That means the vast majority of foreign-born people living in the US (77%) are here legally.
Flashing back to the 1960s reveals a different picture
Mexico did not always top the list. In 1960, for example, the portrait of American immigrants was radically different.
At that time, according to the Migration Policy Institute, the largest group of immigrants were Italians, followed by Germans and Canadians.
What changed? For decades, an original national quota system passed by Congress in 1924 it favored immigrants from northern and western Europe and excluded Asians. In 1965, the Immigration and Nationality Act created a new system that prioritized highly-skilled immigrants and those who already had family living in the country. That paved the way for millions of non-European immigrants to come to the United States.
“It fundamentally changed the demography of the country,” told in 2020 Pawan Dhingra, Professor of American Studies at Amherst College.
For decades, the immigrant population in the United States dwindled. But the new law also caused a dramatic increase in immigration in the decades that followed, fueled in large part by family reunification.
In 1965, 9.6 million immigrants living in the US made up just 5% of the population, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Now, more than 45 million immigrants make up almost 14% of the country.
While the total number of immigrants hit an all-time high, immigrants made up a larger portion of the American population in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Most states have seen their immigrant populations grow
The composition of who comes to the United States is not the only thing that has changed. There have also been notable changes in the fate of these immigrants.
Arriving immigrants often settled at historic immigrant gateways in major metropolitan areas such as New York City, Chicago, and Boston. But for more than a decade, a much broader swath of locations across the country have become gateways that are home to a growing immigrant population.
Today, California, Texas, Florida, New York, and New Jersey are home to the largest numbers of immigrants.
But looking at the total number of immigrants in each state only tells part of the story. Some states have a larger number of immigrants relative to their total population. In Hawaii, for example, immigrants make up nearly 19% of the state’s population.
A recent study from the Bush Institute found that many immigrants eventually move from traditional gateway cities to other areas of the country.
“Immigrants making secondary movements within the United States disproportionately choose the same places as native-born people: metropolitan areas with relatively affordable housing and pro-growth tax and business policies,” the study says. “Once there, they gravitate toward the fast-growing suburban counties.”
For many years, most immigrants lived in the Northeast and Midwest. But now, according to the last analysis According to the Pew Research Center, about two-thirds of immigrants live in the West and South.
And in recent years, some states have seen their immigrant populations grow at a faster rate.
As the Bush Institute study points out, job opportunities, affordable housing, family connections and pro-immigrant policies are among the factors immigrants consider when deciding where to move.
If current trends continue, experts say that in the coming years we could see immigrants make up a historically high share of the US population.
Now, with geopolitical turmoil around the world and ongoing divisive immigration debates in Washington, it’s hard to predict where future batches of immigrants will come from, or how quickly that milestone will be reached.
*Note: Data for foreign-born immigrants on the Korean Peninsula identified as Korean in US Census records include immigrants from South and North Korea.