If current trends and policies continue, immigrants will account for the largest share of US population ever by 2023, and white Americans will become a minority by 2044, conservative groups are claiming, citing US Census Bureau data.
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), which supports reducing
immigration, pointed out that immigrants are expected to
account for 51 million US residents by 2023, or 14.8 percent. By
2060, the number of foreign-born US residents would be 78
million, or about a fifth of the total population, itself
projected to hit 417 million.
“Absent a change in immigration policy, immigrants who will
arrive in the future plus their descendants will account for
roughly three-fourths of future US population increase,”
wrote Karen Zeigler and Steven Camarota of the CIS, comparing the
development to “adding the combined populations of
California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Massachusetts to the
country.”
Their conclusions are based on the projections released last month by the Census Bureau,
which for the first time included a look at immigration numbers.
Previously, the Census Bureau estimated that by 2043, the US
would become a “majority-minority” country, with
Americans of European origin accounting for less than half the
population.
READ MORE: Whites will no longer be the majority
in the US by 2043
“The US population as a whole is expected to follow a similar
trend, becoming majority-minority in 2044,” the updated
Census Bureau report said. “The minority population is
projected to rise to 56 percent of the total in 2060, compared
with 38 percent in 2014.”
As early as 2020, more than half the children in the US are
expected to be “part of a minority race or ethnic group,” the
Census report said.
Paul Bedard, a columnist for the conservative-leaning Washington
Examiner, noted that the “surge” of legal and
illegal immigrants will hit a record high of 51 million in just
eight years, and eventually account for an astounding 82 percent
of all population growth in America between 2010 and 2060.
READ MORE: Protesters ask federal court to lift
injunction on Obama immigration action
“These numbers have important implications for workers,
schools, infrastructure, congestion and the environment,”
CIS’s Camarota told Bedard. “They also may have implications
for our ability to successfully assimilate and integrate
immigrants. Yet there has been almost no national debate about
bringing in so many people legally each year, which is the
primary factor driving these numbers.”
Bedard also cited a recent report by the Congressional Research
Service (CRS) to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which indicated
that the foreign-born population of the US has increased by 324.5
percent between 1970 and 2013, from 9,740,000 to 41,348,066.
Congress: Middle Class incomes drop as immigration surges
http://t.co/ZrL1mo9l1bpic.twitter.com/Zjn9prx60D
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) April
23, 2015
The CRS report argued that the effect of this surge in
immigration has been a decline in the average income of the
bottom 90 percent of US taxpayers, which recently dropped below
1970 levels to $30,980 in 2013.
“It defies reason to argue that the record admission of new
foreign workers has no negative effect on the wages of American
workers,” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) wrote recently in the New York Times, arguing
for curbing immigration. “Why would many of the largest
business groups in the United States spend millions lobbying for
the admission of more foreign workers if such policies did not
cut labor costs?”