Foreign-Born Population in U.S. Projected to Hit Record 70M by 2060

The foreign-born population in the United States is currently projected to hit a record nearly 70 million by the year 2060 if current legal immigration levels go unreduced.

Analysis of Census Bureau data  by Center for Immigration Studies researchers Steven Camarota and Karen Zeigler reveal the extent to which the nation’s annual inflow of about 1.2 million green card-holders is set to grow the foreign-born population to unprecedented levels.

Specifically, by 2060, Camarota and Zeigler project that the foreign-born population will hit a record-shattering 69.3 million. Today’s foreign-born population, at 46.2 million, is already the “largest number of immigrants ever recorded in American history in any census or survey collected by the government,” the researchers note.

Whereas in 1970, immigrants made up less than five percent of the entire U.S. population, today they make up about 14.2 percent of the population and by 2060, they are expected to make up more than 17 percent.

Camarota and Zeigler write that the projects assume “immigration levels will remain extremely high” where about 1.2 million foreign nationals are awarded green cards every year and another 1.5 million foreign nationals are provided temporary work visas.

In addition, hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens are added to the U.S. population annually. While researchers have claimed the illegal alien population stands at a steady 11 million, others estimate that the total is anywhere between 14 million and 22 million.

As Breitbart News has previously reported, past waves of record levels of immigration have been followed by near immigration moratoriums.

The country’s last immigration boom — between 1900 and 1920 — was eventually met with an immigration halt. Between 1925 and 1966, the yearly U.S. legal immigration level did not exceed 327,000 admissions, a four-decades-long near moratorium that allowed the massive inflows of immigrants from before 1925 the ability to assimilate.

Since major changes were enacted in 1965, and expanded on in the 1990s by former President George H.W. Bush, legal immigration levels have continued booming for more than five decades.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.