New Report on the Nation’s Foreign-Born Population

From 2010 to 2022, the nation’s foreign-born population increased by 15.6%. According to a new report The Foreign-Born Population in the United States: 2022 released by the U.S. Census Bureau today, the foreign-born population was 46.2 million (13.9% of the total population) in 2022 compared to 40.0 million (12.9% of the total population) in 2010.

The report compares 2010 and 2022 American Community Survey (ACS), 1-year estimates to provide insight into the changing composition of the foreign-born population in the United States. The foreign-born population consists of anyone living in the United States who was not a U.S. citizen at birth, including naturalized U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents (immigrants), temporary migrants such as foreign students, humanitarian migrants (for example, refugees and asylees) and unauthorized migrants.

Other highlights from the report:

• From 2010 to 2022, the total foreign-born population increased by 15.6%. In Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota and West Virginia, the foreign-born populations grew by 40% or more.
• From 2010 to 2022, the median age of the foreign-born population increased by over 5 years (from 41.4 to 46.7), while the median age of the native population rose by only 1 year (from 35.9 to 36.9).
• A higher percentage of foreign-born individuals completed high school or higher in 2022 (75.1%) than in 2010 (68.3%).

The Census Bureau also released a data visualization, Highlights of the Foreign-Born Population, and related America Counts story, Where Do Immigrants Live? How Immigrants Have Dispersed Throughout the Country. These products feature 2018-2022 ACS, 5-year estimates on the foreign-born population at various levels of geography (national, state and county).

 

Highlights from the data visualization:

• Immigrants made up over one-fifth of the population in four states: California (26.5%), New Jersey (23.2%), New York (22.6%) and Florida (21.1%).
• Almost one-half (49.1%) of all immigrants in the United States entered the country before 2000.
• An estimated 63.5% of the foreign-born population (16 years and older) was employed, with over one-third of the civilian employed foreign-born population (16 years and older) in management, business, science and arts occupations.

The American Community Survey provides a wide range of statistics about the nation’s people and housing, such as language spoken at home, education, commuting, employment, mortgage status and rent, income, poverty and health insurance coverage. It is the only source of local estimates for most of the 40-plus topics it covers.

For information on sampling and estimation methods, confidentiality protection and sampling and nonsampling errors, refer to the 2010 ACS Accuracy of the Data document, 2012 ACS Accuracy of the Data document and 2022 ACS Accuracy of the Data document.