WASHINGTON D.C.- The Indian American population has overtaken Filipino Americans as the second top Asian immigrant group in the United States, according to computations made by an Asian Indian group citing the newly-released 2005 American Community Survey of the Census Bureau.
In 2000, the Census ranked Asian Indians as the third largest Asian American group after Chinese Americans and Filipino Americans. However, the ACS said Asian Indian population growth has continued to outpace that for all other major Asian groups since 2000, with a 34% growth rate during the first four years of this decade alone.
An Asian Indian group said that based on
ACS projections, Asian Indians already number more than 2.2 million, and have
now-for the first time-slightly eclipsed the Filipino American population to
become the second largest Asian group in the United States. But other estimates
put the total Filipino American population at over 2.3 million.
The survey said immigrants constitute
about 12.4 percent of the nation’s population, up from 11.2 percent in 2000,
according to estimates made by the bureau of census. That represents about 4.9
million additional immigrants in five years, for a total of 35.7 million.
It said Hawaii topped the states with a big Asian
American population, reaching 42 per cent of the total population by 2005. This
was followed by California with 12.4 percent, New Jersey, 7.3 percent, New York
6.7 percent, Washington state 6.6 percent, Nevada, 5.8 percent, Maryland
4.7 percent, Massachusetts
4.7 percent and Virginia with 4.5 per cent.
The bureau’s American Community Survey
also showed that out of the 7,332,605 total population, 342,239 are Asian
Americans; in Washington DC, out of the total 515,118 population,
15,566 are Asians
The rise in the immigrant population
since 2000 seems to indicate that the blazing pace of immigration seen
throughout the 1990s has continued into the first half of this decade.
And along with the increase in the
overall number of immigrants, the survey found an increase in the numbers who
are not U.S.
citizens — an estimated 2.4 million more since 2000. The survey did not try to
distinguish between noncitizens in the country legally.
The number of immigrants living in
American households rose 16 percent over the last five years, fueled largely by
recent arrivals from Mexico.
And increasingly, immigrants are
bypassing the traditional gateway states like California and New York and
settling directly in parts of the country that until recently saw little
immigrant activity — regions like the Upper Midwest, New England and the Rocky
Mountain states.
The six states with the largest numbers
of immigrants are in California, New York, Texas, Florida, New Jersey and Illinois. Immigrants,
mostly Latinos, have gr5own in states like Georgia
and North Carolina
because of the availability of jobs. Indiana saw a 34 percent increase in the number of
immigrants; South Dakota saw a 44 percent
rise; Delaware 32 percent; Missouri
31 percent; Colorado 28 percent; New Hampshire 26
percent.
What will increasingly rile the
anti-immigrant groups is a statement by Steven Camarota, director of research
at the Center for Immigration Studies, who said this was “a continuation of the
Mexicanization of U.S. Immigration."
More of America’s immigrants, legal or
not, come from Mexico than any other country, an estimated 27.5 million in
2005, compared to 10.4 million Chinese and 5.8 million Indians.
Conversely, the percentage of immigrants
who were born in European countries has dropped sharply — 29.4 percent in the
last five years, demographers say, because immigrants who came to the United States
in the mid-20th century are now dying.
ther findings:
Education levels increased in every state
from 2000 to 2005.
Every state is getting older. Nationally,
the median age -the one at which half the population is older and half is
younger - went from 35.3 in 2000 to 36.4 last year.
Hispanics increased their hold as the
country’s largest minority group, at 14.5 percent of the population, compared
with 12.8 percent for blacks.
