Asians to become largest USA immigrant group

However, the survey found that people’s attitudes toward immigration depend on their political affiliation – with Democrats more favorable than Republicans – and also on whether a person knows an immigrant personally, said Mark Lopez, director of Hispanic research at Pew and a coauthor of the report.

“Fifty years after passage of the landmark law that rewrote USA immigration policy, almost 59 million immigrants have arrived in the United States, pushing the country’s foreign-born share to a near record 14%”.

It also predicted that the largest wave of immigration to the U.S. – which is already home to the largest immigrant population in the world – would come not from the Americas but from Asia. “Between 2015 and 2065, they are projected to account for 88% of the US population increase, or 103 million people, as the nation grows to 441 million”. About 45 percent of Americans agree that immigrants make the US a better country.

The data used to develop the projections for the study was a combination of Pew’s own data combined with the information gathered from the Census Bureau.

While these European migrants faced discrimination and xenophobia, their numbers weren’t restricted by immigration policy the way Chinese and Hispanic immigrants were (at least not in the 19th century).

“Hispanic population growth is coming from people born here in the United States”, he said. In 1965, 84 percent of the US was white, 4 percent was Hispanic, and 1 percent was Asian. The bilingual online survey of 3,147 adults was conducted from March 10 to April 6 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percent.

“If you take a look at those who know someone who is an immigrant, fewer will say that crime and the economy are worse for it”, Lopez informed the Los Angeles Times. GOP frontrunner Donald Trump launched his campaign by making racist remarks about Mexicans in the United States, and his rival Jeb Bush has come under fire for using the term “anchor babies” to refer to babies born of immigrant parents in the United States.

The Pew report said that by 2065, Hispanics will still retain a large share of the USA population at 24%, up from 18% in 2015, while Asian immigrants will make up 14% of the overall U.S. population, up from 6% now. According to the analyzed data, the tipping point will occur in 2055, with the estimates extended up to year 2065.

Amid the swelling chorus of insane fury against illegal immigration, the Pew Research Center has released a huge survey of immigration patterns into the United States.