MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Most immigrants to US now come from China and India displacing Mexico

Census Bureau 2013 data shows that 2013 China ranked in number one position with 147,000 immigrants: India followed with 129,000 and Mexico 125,000

New data from the U.S. Census Bureau, indicate that China and India have replaced Mexico as the top countries sending immigrants to the United States. Although people from Latin America still dominate the population of legal and undocumented immigrants in the U.S., it is now China and India that send more immigrants to the United States, the data said.

 According to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, China is ranked at the number one position with 147,000 immigrants arriving in the U.S. in 2013, while India is second, with 129,000 immigrants, and Mexico ranked third with 125,000 immigrants. Korea, the Philippines and Japan are also leading countries of origin. The data includes undocumented immigrants.

The new numbers were presented on May first at the Population Association of America conference in San Diego, California.

Eric Jensen, a statistician/demographer with the Census Bureau’s Population Division said that China’s rise to the top comes amid a decade-long surge in Asian migration, and a simultaneous decline in people arriving from Mexico.

The U.S. Census Bureau says the racial and ethnic composition of immigration flows to the United States has also been shifting. In 2000, nearly half of all foreign-born immigrants, 41.2%, were Hispanic, compared with 23.6% for the non-Hispanic Asian alone population.

Since 2009, a greater proportion of foreign-born immigrants have been non-Hispanic Asian alone (34.7%) than Hispanic (30.1%). By 2013, the percentage of non-Hispanic Asian alone had increased to 40.2% of the total immigration flow, while the percentage Hispanic had dropped to 25.5%.

While Hispanics are still the largest racial or ethnic minority group, a larger percentage of the Asian population was foreign-born (65.4%) compared with the Hispanic population (35.2%) in 2013.