U.S. Immigrants Touch 42.4 Million

By R. Siva Kumar - 23 Sep '15 09:26AM

In July last year, the immigrant population shot upto 42.4 Million, says the 2014 American Community Survey (ACS).

Immigrants are "foreign-born" residents who are working here temporarily, including students, and even individuals that are green card holders, according to The Census Bureau. Children who are born in the US, even of foreign-born persons, are considered US citizens at that point.

The records stated that since 2010, the population for legal and illegal immigrants has shot up by 2.4 million. Only now in 2014, over a million are arriving, reported the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). The report showed that the population has more than doubled since the numbers recorded in 2012-2013, from 520,000 to 1.04 million in 2013-14.

Interestingly, one in six U.S. citizens is either an immigrant or a child of an immigrant.

As the US releases one million green cards per year, it helps the immigrants to get citizenship. Yet, there are tens-of-thousands of refugees who try to illegally cross the southern borders so that they can improve their lifestyles, explained the Daily Caller.

In 2014, the US recorded the largest population in North America, with 11.7 million legal and illegal Mexican immigrants. The data that was reported by ACS, "Allows for a more detailed analysis [of the immigrant population] by country of origin and state of residence," said Steven A. Camarota and Karen Zeigler, authors of the study.

The break-up of immigrants from various countries is listed in the following manner:

Saudi Arabia (up 93 percent); Bangladesh (up 37 percent); Iraq (up 36 percent); Egypt (up 25 percent); Pakistan, India, and Ethiopia (all up 24 percent); Nigeria and Ghana (both up 21 percent); Venezuela (up 17 percent); and China (up 16 percent), according to HNGN.