IMMIGRATION
What are the states with the highest and lowest immigration rates in the USA?
The United States has more immigrants than any other country in the world. Which states do they live in?
The population of the United States currently stands at more than 336.7 million, with studies showing that approximately 46.2 million immigrants reside stateside, a figure higher than in any other country in the world.
What is an immigrant?
Dictionary definitions of the word ‘immigrant’ broadly agree an immigrant is “a person who has come to a different country in order to live there permanently,” as Cambridge puts it. In the era of multi nationality, what constitutes a “different” country for one person or another is not always easy to define, though.
A recent study carried out by the US Census Bureau looked at the number of ‘foreign-born’ people living in the United States between 2010 and 2022, the vast majority of which - if not all - would be considered immigrants under most definitions.
The study defined ‘foreign-born’ people as “people who were not US citizens at birth, including naturalized US citizens, lawful permanent residents (immigrants), temporary migrants (such as foreign students), humanitarian migrants (such as refugees and asylees), and unauthorized migrants.”
Which US states have the highest immigration rates?
According to the figures uncovered, foreign-born people accounted for 13.9% of the total population of the United States in 2022, and for more than 20% of the population in four individual states.
California leads the way with 26.7%, followed by New Jersey (23.5%), New York (22.7%) and Florida (21.7%). Nevada (18.9%) rounds out the top five.
In 12 more states, more than 10% of residents were not considered US citizens at birth. They are Massachusetts, Texas, Hawaii, Maryland, Connecticut, Washington, District of Colombia, Rhode Island, Illinois, Arizona, Virginia and Georgia.
Check out the full results of The Foreign-Born Population in the United States: 2022, the study carried out by the US Census Bureau.
Which US states have the lowest immigration rates?
At the opposite end of the spectrum, West Virginia (1.8%) is the state which has the lowest representation of foreign-born residents. The bottom five states are Mississippi (2.2%), Montana (2.3%), Wyoming (3.1%) and South Dakota (3.5%).