Census Releases Data on Foreign Born in 2010 – Nearly 40 Million!!



Yesterday the Census Bureau released its first set of data on the size of the foreign-born population in 2010.

The estimate based on the American Community Survey (ACS) – which supplements data collected in the Census – is that there were nearly 40 million immigrants – 13 percent of the population. The ACS data for 2010 takes into consideration the results of the 2010 Census and adjusts its estimates accordingly. So, it is noteworthy that the estimate of the foreign-born population jumped from the 2009 ACS estimate by nearly 1.5 million persons. That compares with an annual average increase in the ACS estimated foreign-born population between 2000 and 2009 of slightly more than 800,000.

The implication here is that the ACS sampling was significantly underestimating the amount of the foreign-born population increase. This is not surprising. A similar finding occurred after the 2000 Census, at which time, the Census Bureau conceded that the discrepancy likely resulted from an underestimate of the illegal alien population by the annual survey used to make estimates at that time.

About Author

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Jack, who joined FAIR’s National Board of Advisors in 2017, is a retired U.S. diplomat with consular experience. He has testified before the U.S. Congress, U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform and has authored studies of immigration issues. His national and international print, TV, and talk radio experience is extensive (including in Spanish).

2 Comments

  1. avatar

    The little country of Luxembourg has a foreign-born population of almost 40%, i.e. 200,000 out of 500,000 total population. Most of those are well-educated workers at the EU Justice Department which is based in Luxembourg. The US foreign-born make-up is quite different: the largest group being Latino, of which the largest contingent is Mexican. The problem is the fact that this, in my view, amounts to DE FACTO DISCRIMINATION as the government permits this lopsided “immigration” to happen at the legal as well as illegal level. Ironically, these are the same folks who “justify” their presence on US land by claiming that the pre-1965 country-quota system was discriminatory since it favored Europeans. Favoring minorities is apparently not discriminatory….When will FAIR use that argument? afraid to be called “racist”?…they call us racist anyway!