Maps: Dramatic Growth of Immigrant Population at County Level

by Marguerite Telford, Center for Immigration Studies: A new series of maps by the Center for Immigration Studies based on Census Bureau data shows detailed information on the nation's immigrant population (legal and illegal) at the county level in 1990, 2000, and 2014. The analysis focuses on adults because they have the most immediate impact. Adults directly affect the job market as workers, they impact politics as constituents and potential voters, and they begin to reshape the culture in receiving communities as soon as they arrive.

The data shows that growth in the adult immigrant population in some counties has been nothing short of astonishing, while in other areas it has grown little. The findings make clear that Washington may set immigration policy, but it is local communities that feel the impact.

View the entire report here!

Among the findings:

• In 1990 immigrants were at least 20 percent of the adult population (+18) in 44 counties, by 2014 they were 20 percent in 152 counties.
• In 1990, only one out of eight Americans lived in a county in which at least 20 percent of adults were immigrants, by 2014 nearly one in three Americans lived in such counties.
• Since 1990 the immigrant share of adults has more than quadrupled in 232 counties.
• Examples where the immigrant share of adults more than quadrupled from 1990 to 2014:
  • In Georgia: Stewart County, <1 21="" 23="" 2="" 32="" 6="" and="" county="" echols="" gwinnett="" li="" percent.="" percent="" to="">
    
  • In North Carolina: Mecklenburg County, 4 to 17 percent; Durham County 4 to 16 percent; and Duplin County, 2 to 15 percent.
  • In Kansas: Scott County, 2 to 15 percent; and Hamilton County, 3 to 21 percent.
  • In Nebraska: Colfax County, 3 to 30 percent; Dawson County <1 24="" 28="" 6="" and="" county="" dakota="" li="" percent.="" percent="" to="">
    
  • In Minnesota: Nobles County, 2 to 24 percent; and Watonwan County, 3 to 13 percent.
  • In Oklahoma: Texas County, 2 to 28 percent; and Harper County, 2 to 14 percent
  • In Virginia: Manassas Park city 7 to 40 percent; and Loudoun County, 7 to 30 percent.
  • In Texas: Garza County, 5 to 48 percent; and Dallam County, 3 to 17 percent.
• Other examples include: Buena Vista County Iowa, 3 to 22 percent; and Jerome County Idaho, 4 to 22 percent.
• While the immigrant share of adults has often increased the most in counties with smaller populations, growth since 1990 has also been dramatic in many large counties with over a million residents:
  • Dallas County, Texas 13 to 29 percent
  • King County, Washington 11 to 25 percent
  • Clark County, Nevada 11 to 27 percent
  • Alameda County, California 21 to 38 percent
  • Sacramento County, California 12 to 25 percent
  • Fairfax County, Virginia 18 to 37 percent
  • Montgomery County, Maryland, 22 to 40 percent

Methodological note: The data for this analysis comes from the 1990 and 2000 Census and 2010 to 2014 five-year file of the American Community Survey. We refer to the five-year data as 2014 data, though it was collected by the Census Bureau from 2010 to 2014. Also, our quadrupling figures exclude counties in which immigrants were less than 5 percent of the adult population in 2014. So for example an increase from 1 percent to 4 percent is a quadrupling, but because the population is still under 5 percent in 2014 it is not including in our count of counties that increased 4 fold.

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