Study: Immigrant Population in U.S. Booms to 44M, Majority from Mexico

WASHINGTON, D.C. — There is now a record level of immigrants living in the United States – standing at roughly 44 million people nationwide – who entered the U.S. both  illegally and legally from a foreign country.

Research conducted by the Center for Immigration Studies’ Steven Camarota reveals the massive scope of the U.S. immigrant population, which has contributed to keeping American wages stagnant while driving up costs of social services.

Camarota’s research reveals that in 2016, there were between 43 and 45 million immigrants in the U.S.,  nearly quadruple the immigrant population in 2000.

Mexico, as noted by Camarota, has the largest group of legal and illegal foreign nationals in the U.S., with 1.1 million immigrants from the country arriving in the U.S. between 2010 and 2016. Mexican nationals make up roughly one in eight new arrivals to the U.S.

Legal and illegal immigrants now make up close to 14 percent of the entire U.S. population, or roughly one out of every eight American residents. Camarota says this is the largest percentage in 106 years.

The largest increases from 2015 to 2016 to immigration to the U.S. have come from the Middle East, the Carribean, Central America, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

The booming foreign-born population is largely due to family-based chain migration, which was established by the 1965 immigration legislation allowing new arrivals to the U.S. to bring their foreign family members, spouses, children, and extended family to the U.S.

For instance, as Breitbart News has reported, on average, for every new legal immigrant from Mexico, the immigrant brings six relatives to the U.S. years later when they obtain U.S. citizenship.

President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, most recently, have called for an end to chain migration, slamming it for its negative impact on American workers and the country’s working-class, who are often forced to compete with new arrivals for blue-collar jobs.

“A merit-based system, by definition, would be safer than a lottery or even extended family-based immigration,” Sessions said during a speech in New York City, New York.  “We want the best and the brightest in America.  The President’s plan is essential to protecting our national security, while also banning drunk drivers, fraudsters, gang members, and child abusers.”

Harvard University economist George Borjas, an immigration expert, recently said the current family-based chain migration system is “really hard to justify as a rational immigration policy.”