Now, a nation of more immigrants than ever

The nation of immigrants has notched a new record: It has more foreign-born and first-generation residents than ever before.

One in 5 Americans either was born abroad or born of parents who were born abroad, according to a new Census Bureau report. The dramatic jump is not only returning the United States to its early 20th-century roots, when it welcomed in another huge wave of immigrants to its shores, it is also fueling anew the debate over exactly how many foreigners the nation should let in.

And the debate is likely to intensify as the numbers increase. "This is just the beginning," says George Borjas, an economist at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Mass. "Unless we cut immigration ... who knows when it will max out."

Immigration proponents say the population boost makes the nation more dynamic demographically, culturally, and economically. The US, alone among the developed nations, is expected to see its population grow this century. But critics point out that the rapid influx is straining social services - particularly in cities - and taking jobs away from other Americans.

"Immigration is importing large numbers of people with much lower levels of education than native-born people," says Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, DC. "That affects the job market and the government coffers."

Thanks to the immigration boom of the 1980s and 1990s, the foreign-born population reached a record 28.4 million people last March, according to the new Census report. That's up from 19.8 million in 1990 and 9.6 million in 1970. The surge of immigrants is returning the country to an earlier era when millions of Europeans arrived to start a new life.

At the peak of immigration from 1901 to 1910, residents born abroad represented just under 15 percent of the total population. Wars, immigration restrictions, and the Great Depression shrank that share to less than 5 percent by 1970. Since then, the proportion has been climbing and now stands at 10.4 percent - the highest since the 1930s.

Add in the sons and daughters of immigrants and the proportion rises to 20.4 percent. That's up from the 1970s but not up to the period from 1890 to 1930, when one out of three Americans was either foreign-born or born of foreign-born parents.

But the share should keep rising, the Census report says, because foreign-born women account for a large and rising share of the nation's births. In 1970, immigrants accounted for one in 20 US births. By 2000, they were responsible for one in five.

If the surge in immigrant numbers looks similar to a century ago, its composition has changed dramatically. While most of America's early immigrants came from Europe, Asia and Latin America account for as many as nine out of the top 10 leading countries of origin now.

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