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Resource explaining how the English language has evolved, providing valuable context for language diversity in classrooms.

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Who Speaks English?

World map coloured according to percentage of English speakers by country (from Wikipedia)

Today, English is the second or third most popular mother tongue in the world, with an estimated 350-400 million native speakers. But, crucially, it is also the common tongue for many non-English speakers the world over, and almost a quarter of the globe's population - maybe 1½-2 billion people - can understand it and have at least some basic competence in its use, whether written or spoken.

It should be noted here that statistics on the numbers around the world who speak English are unreliable at best. It is notoriously difficult to define quite what is meant by "English speaker", let alone the definitions of first language, second language, mother tongue, native speaker, etc. What level of competency counts? Does a thick creole (English-based, but completely incomprehensible to a native English speaker) count? Just to add to the confusion, there are at least 40 million people in the nominally English-speaking United States who do NOT speak English. In addition, the figures, of necessity, combine statistics from different sources, different dates, etc. You may well see large variations on any statistics quoted here.

But best recent estimates of first languages suggest that Mandarin Chinese has around 800-850 million native speakers, while English and Spanish both have about 330-350 million each. Following on, Hindi speakers number 180-200 million (around 240 million, or possibly much more, when combined with Urdu), Bengali 170-180 million, Arabic 150-220 million, Portuguese 150-180 million, Russian 140-160 million and Japanese roughly 120 million. If second-language speakers are included, Mandarin increases to around 1 billion, English to over 500 million, Spanish to 420-500 million, Hindi/Urdu to around 480 million, and so on, although some estimates for English as a first or second language rise to over a billion. In fact, among English speakers, non-native speakers may now outnumber native speakers by as much as three to one.

In terms of total population, in a world approaching 7 billion, the top three countries by population are China (1.3 billion), India (1.2 billion) and USA (about 310 million), followed by Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Russia and Japan. Thus, the USA is by far the most populous English-speaking country and accounts for almost 70% of native English speakers (Britain, by comparison has a population of just over 60 million, and ranks 22nd in the world). India represents the third largest group of English speakers after the USA and UK, even though only 4-5% of its population speaks English (4% of over 1.2 billion is still almost 50 million). However, by some counts as many as 23% of Indians speak English, which would put it firmly in second place, well above Britain. Even Nigeria may have more English speakers than Britain according to some estimates.

Braj Kachru's Three Circles of English (own graphic, adapted from Wikipedia)

English is the native mother-tongue of only Britain, Ireland, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and a handful of Caribbean countries. But in 57 countries (including Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Singapore, Philippines, Fiji, Vanuatu, etc), English is either as its "official language" or a majority of its inhabitants speak it as a first language. These are largely ex-colonial countries which have thoroughly integrated English into its chief institutions. The next most popular official language is French (which applies in some 31 countries), followed by Spanish (25), Arabic (25), Portuguese (13) and Russian (10).

Although falling short of official status, English is also an important language in at least twenty other countries, inluding several former British colonies and protectorates, such as Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cyprus, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates. It is the most commonly used unofficial language in Israel and an increasing number of other countries such as Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway and Germany. Within Europe, an estimated 85% of Swedes can comfortably converse in English, 83% of Danes, 79% of Dutch, 66% in Luxembourg and over 50% in countries such as Finland, Slovenia, Austria, Belgium, and Germany.

If the "inner circle" of a language is native first-language speakers and the "outer circle" is second-language speakers and official language countries, there is a third, "expanding circle" of countries which recognize the importance of English as an international language and teach it in schools as their foreign language of choice. English is the most widely taught foreign language in schools across the globe, with over 100 countries - from China to Russia to Israel, Germany, Spain, Egypt, Brazil, etc, etc - teaching it to at least a working level. Over 1 billion people throughout the world are currently learning English, and there are estimated to be more students of English in China alone than there are inhabitants of the USA. A 2006 report by the British Council suggests that the number of people learning English is likely to continue to increase over the next 10-15 years, peaking at around 2 billion, after which a decline is predicted.

English as a Lingua Franca

Top ten languages in the Internet (2010) (from Internet World Stats)

Any number of other statistics may be quoted, none of them definitive, but all shining some light on the situation. However, absolute numbers aside, it is incontrovertible that English has become the lingua franca of the world in the fields of business, science, aviation, computing, education, politics and entertainment (and arguably many others).

Over 90% of international airlines use English as their language of choice (known as "Airspeak"), and an Italian pilot flying an Italian plane into an Italian airport, for example, contacts ground control in English. The same applies in international maritime communications ("Seaspeak"). Two-thirds of all scientific papers are published in English, and the Science Citation Index reports that as many as 95% of its articles were written in English, even though only half of them came from authors in English-speaking countries. Up to half of all business deals throughout the world are conducted in English. Popular music worldwide is overwhelmingly dominated by English (estimates of up to 95% have been suggested), and American television is available almost everywhere. Half of the world newspapers are in English, and some 75% of the world mail correspondence is in English (the USA alone accounts for 50%). At least 35% of Internet users are English speakers, and estimated 70-80% of the content on the Internet is in English (although reliable figures on this are hard to establish).

Many international joint business ventures use English as their working language, even if none of the members are officially English-speaking. For example, it is the working language of the Asian trade group ASEAN and the oil exporting organization OPEC, and it is the official language of the European Central Bank, even though the bank is located in Germany and Britain is not even a member of the Eurozone. Switzerland has three official languages (German, French and Italian and also, in some limited circumstances, Romansh), but it routinely markets itself in English in order to avoid arguments between different areas. Wherever one travels in the word one see sees English signs and advertisements.

Reverse Loanwords

"A Dictionary Of European Anglicisms" (from Oxford University Press)

Although a huge number of words have been imported into English from other languages over the history of its development, many English words have been incorporated (particularly in the last century) into foreign languages in a kind of reverse adoption process. Anglicisms such as stop, sport, tennis, golf, weekend, jeans, bar, airport, hotel, etc, are among the most universally used in the world.

There is a strong movement within France, under the stern leadership of the venerable Académie Française, to reclaim French from this onslaught of anglicisms, and the country has even passed laws to discourage the use of anglicisms and to protect its own language and culture. New French replacements for English words are being encouraged, such as le logiciel instead of le soft (software), le disc audio-numérique instead of le compact disc (CD), le baladeur instead of le walkman (portable music player), etc. In Québec, the neologism le clavardage (a portmanteau word combining clavier - keyboard - and bavardage - verbal chat) is becoming popular as a replacement for the common anglicism le chat (in the sense of online chat rooms). Norway and Brazil have recently adopted similar measure to keep English out, and this kind of lexical invasion in the form of loanwords is seen by some as the thin end of the wedge, to be strenuously avoided in the interests of national pride and cultural independence.

Modern English Vocabulary

English words derived from different sources (from Wikipedia)

After centuries of acquisition, borrowing and adaptation, English has ended up with a vocabulary second to none in its richness and breadth, allowing for the most diverse and subtle shadings of meaning. No other language has so many words to say the same thing (consider the multiplicity of synonyms for big which are in daily use, for example). It is often considered to have the largest vocabulary of any language, although such comparisons are notoriously difficult (as an example, it is impossible to compare with Chinese, because of fundamental differences in language structure).

Just how many words there currently are in the English language is open to conjecture. The Global Language Monitor (a Texas-based company that analyzes and tracks worldwide language trends) claims that the English language now boasts over a million words, but in reality it is almost impossible to count the number of words in a language, not least because it is so hard to decide what actually counts as a word. For instance, how are we to treat abbreviations, hypenated words, compound words, compound words with spaces, etc? The latest full revision of the "Oxford English Dictionary", published in 1989 and considered the premier dictionary of the English language, contains about 615,000 word entries, listed under about 300,000 main entries. This includes some scientific terms, dialect words and slang, but does not include more specialized scientific and technical terms, nor the large number of more recent neologisms coined each passing year. "Webster's Third New International Dictionary", published in1961, lists 475,000 main headwords.

The working vocabulary of the average English speaker, though, is notoriously difficult to assess (it is hard enough to count the words used in written works - estimates of the number of words in the "King James Bible" range from 7,000 to over 10,000, and estimates of Shakespeare's vocabulary range from 16,000 to over 30,000). An average educated English speaker has perhaps 15,000 to 20,000 words at his or her disposal, although often only around 10% of these are used in an average week's conversation (typically, we "know" at least 25% more words than we ever actually use). Some studies suggest that just 43 words account for fully half of the words in common use, and just 9 ( and, be, have, it, of, the, to, will, you) account for a quarter of the words in any random sample of spoken English.

The English lexicon includes words borrowed from an estimated 120 different languages. Attempts have been made to put in context the various influences and sources of modern English vocabulary, although this is necessarily an inexact science. Some studies have put Germanic, French and Latin sources more or less equal at between 26-29% each, with the balance made up of Greek, words derived from proper names, words with no clear etymology and words from other languages. Other studies put the French input higher, the Latin lower and suggest that other languages have contributed as much as 10% of the vocabulary. None of the studies is considered definitive.

Early Modern English loans from Latin & French (from Scribd, originally from T. Nevaleinen "An Introduction to Early Modern English")

Also, despite the sheer volume of words in the language, there are still some curious gaps, which have arisen through quirks in its development over the centuries, such as the unused positive forms of common negative words like inept, ineffable, dishevelled, disgruntled, incorrigible, ruthless, disastrous, incessant and unkempt, most of which used to exist but have died out for unknown reasons.

Perhaps even stranger, given the generous availability of words, is English's tendency to load single words with multiple meanings. For example: fine has at least 14 definitions as an adjective, 6 as a noun, 2 as a verb and 2 as an adverb; round has 12 uses as an adjective, 19 as a noun, 12 as a verb, 1 as an adverb and 2 as a preposition; set has an incredible 58 uses as a noun, 126 as a verb and 10 as an adjective (the "Oxford English Dictionary" takes about 60,000 words - the length of a short novel - to describe them all).

As in any language, meanings have shifted over time, sometimes many times, but in some cases the same word can has even ended up with two contradictory meanings (contranyms), examples being sanction (which has conflicting meanings of permission to do something, or prevention from doing something), cleave (to cut in half, or to stick together), sanguine (hot-headed and bloodthirsty, or calm and cheerful), ravish (to rape, or to enrapture), fast (stuck firm, or moving quickly), oversight (watchful control, or something not noticed), etc.

Modern English Spelling

"The Tough Coughs As He Ploughs the Dough" by Dr. Seuss plays on the oddities of English spelling (from Amazon)

Largely as a result of the vagaries of its historical development, modern English is a maddeningly difficult language to spell correctly. The inveterate borrowing from other languages, combined with shifts in pronunciation and well-meaning reforms in orthography have resulted in a language seemingly at odds with itself. While Old English was about 90% phonemic (i.e. words sound the same as they look), modern English is probably closer to 40% phonemic. There are a large number of possible spelling rules (up to 100 by some counts), and a large number of exceptions to those rules, and the language continues to confound both native speakers and foreigners alike.

Often, the desire to standardize the language, such as occurred with the introduction of the printing press, has itself led to anomalies and inconsistencies in its spelling, or has at least frozen existing inconsistencies in place. Spelling reform, which took place at various times, both in Britain and particularly in the United States, has further complicated the picture, despite a professed desire for simplification, and we now have many differences between American and British spellings to add to its intrinsic difficulties (e.g. realize/ realise, center/ centre, dialog/ dialogue, aging/ ageing, traveler/ traveller, etc).

There is a whole catalogue of silent letters in English, often letters that were added to spellings during the English Renaissance out of a misplaced desire for etymological authenticity, or existing letters that have ceased to be pronounced for one reason or another. In fact, of the 26 letters of the alphabet, only 5 (F, J, Q, V and X) are NEVER silent! There are too many to detail, but some examples include: the silent "b" in comb, debt, climb, etc; the silent "c" in scene, scent, science, scissors, etc; the silent "k" in knife, knock, know, etc; the silent "n" in damn, hymn, column, etc; the silent "p" in psalm, psychiatry, ptarmigan, etc; the silent "gh" in night, through, taught, etc; the silent "g" in gnome, gnaw, sign, etc; the silent "l' in palm, salmon, yolk, etc; the silent "u" in biscuit, building, tongue, etc; the silent "w" in wreck, knowledge, sword, etc; and the silent "h" in hour, honour, honest, etc, as well as in annihilate, vehement, vehicle, ghost, rhyme, rhubarb, rhythm, exhaust, exhibition, exhort, etc.

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To confuse matters further, in some accents, some sounds have merged to the extent that they are no longer distinguishable (e.g. pin and pen, and merry, marry and Mary, in some American accents; talk and torque, and court and caught in some British accents). Simplified Americanized spellings of lite for light and thru for through have arisen in recent years, largely due to advertising campaigns.

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Today, English is the second or third most popular mother tongue in the world, with an estimated 350-400 million native speakers. But, crucially, it is also the common tongue for many non-English speakers the world over, and almost a quarter of the globe's population - maybe 1½-2 billion people - can understand it and have at least some basic competence in its use, whether written or spoken.

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Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants & Immigration (U.S.)

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Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants & Immigration (U.S.)

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2020 data providing insight into immigrant populations, ideal for understanding student backgrounds

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The year 2020 was a momentous one for U.S. immigration, marking the last year of an administration that had a nearly unprecedented focus on reducing immigration, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, which drastically chilled travel and migration to the United States and around the world.

Even prior to 2020, the immigrant population in the United States already had been growing at much slower rates than a decade ago. And origins for recent arrivals were shifting, with more new immigrants coming from Asia than other regions. The year had other notable developments: The most recent estimates revealed illegal immigration was on the decline, the United States resettled the smallest number of refugees in the history of the refugee resettlement program, and nearly half of recently arrived immigrants had a bachelor's degree or more.

To offer more context on the immigrants often at the center of political discussions, who numbered 44.9 million in 2019, this Spotlight offers information about some of the most frequently requested immigration-related issues by compiling the most authoritative and current data available. It answers questions such as: What are the historic immigration trends in the United States? Who is immigrating, and through which channels? In what occupations do immigrants work? How many immigrants become naturalized citizens? What immigration enforcement actions were taken during the year? What are income and poverty metrics, as well as health insurance coverage, for immigrants and the U.S. born alike?

This article draws on the most recent resources and data from the Migration Policy Institute (MPI); the U.S. Census Bureau (using its 2019 American Community Survey [ACS], 2020 Current Population Survey [CPS], and 2000 decennial census); and the U.S. Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and State. (Note: DHS and State Department data refer to fiscal years that begin on October 1 and end on September 30; ACS and CPS data refer to calendar years). For more detailed information on U.S. and global immigration data sources and one-click access to these datasets, see the MPI report Immigration Data Matters. And all of the data tools and maps linked to in this article also can be accessed through MPI's Migration Data Hub.

Click on the bullet points for more information on each topic:

Immigrants Now and Historically
How many immigrants reside in the United States?
More than 44.9 million immigrants lived in the United States in 2019, the historical numeric high since census records have been kept. Immigrants' share of the overall U.S. population has increased significantly from the record low of 4.7 percent in 1970. In 2019, immigrants comprised 13.7 percent of the total U.S. population, a figure that remains short of the record high of 14.8 percent in 1890.

The foreign-born population remained largely flat between 2018 and 2019, with an increase of 204,000 people, or growth of less than 0.5 percent. This is consistent with the 203,000 increase from 2017 to 2018 and much lower than the approximately 787,000 increase-or 2 percent growth-seen between 2016 and 2017. The slowing growth of the immigrant population over the past few years is mirrored by the slowing growth of the total U.S. population since 2015.
How have the number and share of immigrants changed over time?
In 1850, the first year the United States began collecting nativity data through the census, the country had 2.2 million immigrants, representing nearly 10 percent of the total population.

Between 1860 and 1920, the immigrant share of the population fluctuated between 13 percent and almost 15 percent, peaking at 14.8 percent in 1890, largely due to high levels of immigration from Europe. Restrictive immigration laws in 1921 and 1924 kept permanent immigration open almost exclusively to northern and western Europeans. Combined with the Great Depression and World War II, this led to a sharp drop in new arrivals from the Eastern Hemisphere. The foreign-born share steadily declined, hitting a record low of 4.7 percent (or 9.6 million immigrants) in 1970 (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Size and Share of the Foreign-Born Population in the United States, 1850-2019
Source: Migration Policy Institute (MPI) tabulation of data from U.S. Census Bureau, 2010-19 American Community Surveys (ACS), and 1970, 1990, and 2000 decennial census. All other data are from Campbell J. Gibson and Emily Lennon, "Historical Census Statistics on the Foreign-Born Population of the United States: 1850 to 1990" (Working Paper no. 29, U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, DC, 1999).

Since 1970, the share and number of immigrants have increased rapidly, mainly because of large-scale immigration from Latin America and Asia. The vast diversification of immigration flows was ushered in by important shifts in U.S. immigration law (including the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 which abolished national-origin admission quotas; the creation of a formal refugee resettlement program with the Refugee Act of 1980; and the Cold War-era grant of preferential treatment to Cuban immigrants); the United States' growing economic and military presence in Asia and Latin America; economic ties, social linkages, and deep migration history between the United States and its southern neighbors; and major economic transformations and political instability in countries around the world.
How do today's top countries of origin compare to those 50 years ago?
In 2019, Mexicans comprised 24 percent of all immigrants in the United States a decline from 30 percent in 2000. Immigrants from India and China (including those born in Hong Kong and Macao but not Taiwan) were the next two largest immigrant groups, each making up about 6 percent of the foreign-born population. Other top countries of origin include the Philippines (5 percent); El Salvador, Vietnam, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic (each accounting for 3 percent); and Guatemala and Korea (each 2 percent). Together, these ten countries accounted for 57 percent of all immigrants in the United States in 2019.

The predominance of immigration from Latin America and Asia in the late 20th and early 21st centuries starkly contrasts with the trend in the mid-1900s, when immigrants were largely European. In the 1960s no single country accounted for more than 15 percent of the U.S. immigrant population. Italians were the top origin group, making up 13 percent of the foreign born in 1960, followed by Germans and Canadians (about 10 percent each).
How long have immigrants lived in the United States, and what are the leading sending countries?
Fifty percent of all immigrants in the United States in 2019 had entered the country prior to 2000 (29 percent entered before 1990 and 21 percent between 1990 and 1999), while 25 percent entered between 2000 and 2009 and the remaining 25 percent in 2010 or later.

While immigrants from Mexico have dominated the flows post-1970, the composition of new arrivals has changed since 2010. Recently arrived immigrants are more likely to come from Asia, with India and China leading the way. In fact, in 2013, India and China overtook Mexico as the top origin countries for new arrivals, displacing its longstanding position.

The number of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, Cuba, Venezuela, Guatemala, and El Salvador also increased between 2010 and 2019. By contrast, the number of Mexican immigrants in the United States declined by more than 779,000 during the same period, representing the biggest absolute decline of all immigrant groups.

Among the origin countries with at least 100,000 immigrants in the United States in 2019, the top five that experienced the fastest growth between 2010 and 2019 were Venezuela (an increase of 153 percent), Afghanistan (143 percent), Nepal (140 percent), Myanmar (also known as Burma; 84 percent), and Nigeria (79 percent).

Read more about Immigrants from New Origin Countries in the United States.

Check out Largest U.S. Immigrant Groups over Time, 1960-Present, an interactive tool showing the top ten source countries by decade.

To learn more about key immigrant populations, check out the Migration Information Source's Spotlights archive, which includes data profiles of individual immigrant groups in the United States, including Mexicans, Indians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Koreans, South and Central Americans, Europeans, sub-Saharan Africans, and those from the Middle East-North Africa region.

How many U.S. residents are of immigrant origin?
Immigrants and their U.S.-born children number approximately 85.7 million people, or 26 percent of the U.S. population, according to the 2020 Current Population Survey (CPS), a slight decline from 2019. The Pew Research Center has projected that the immigrant-origin share of the population will rise to about 36 percent by 2065.

Demographic, Educational, and Linguistic Characteristics
What is the median age for immigrants?
The immigrant population's median age in 2019 was 45.7 years, making it older than the U.S.-born population, which had a median age of 36.5 years. Children of immigrants who are born in the United States contribute to the younger median age of the U.S.-born population compared to the immigrant population, which is comprised of people who immigrate largely as adults.

Fewer than 1 percent of immigrants were under age 5 in 2019, compared to 7 percent of the U.S.-born population in this age group. Children and youth ages 5 to 17 years accounted for 5 percent of immigrants and 18 percent of the U.S.-born population. People of working age (18 to 64 years) comprised 78 percent of the immigrant population, a much higher figure than the 59 percent of U.S. born in this category. Approximately 17 percent of immigrants were 65 years and older, similar to the 16 percent of the U.S. born in this age group.
What is the female share of the immigrant population?
In 2019, about 52 percent of all U.S. immigrants were female. The share has fluctuated slightly over the past four decades: 53 percent in 1980, 51 percent in 1990, 50 percent in 2000, and 51 percent in 2010.
What is the racial makeup of immigrants?
In 2019, 45 percent of immigrants reported their race as single-race White, 27 percent as Asian, 10 percent as Black, and 15 percent as some other race. About 2 percent reported having two or more races.
How many immigrants are Hispanic or Latino?
In 2019, 44 percent of U.S. immigrants (19.8 million people) reported having Hispanic or Latino origins.

Note: The Census Bureau classifies Hispanic and Latino as ethnic categories, separate from the racial categories listed above (see Definitions box for more information).
How many Hispanics in the United States are immigrants?
The majority of U.S. Hispanics are U.S.-born. Of the 60.5 million people in 2019 who self-identified as Hispanic or Latino, 33 percent (19.8 million) were immigrants and 67 percent (40.6 million) were U.S.-born.

Use the MPI Data Hub's State Immigration Data Profiles to learn more about the demographic characteristics of immigrants and the U.S. born (including race and ethnicity) in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the United States.
Which languages are most frequently spoken at home?
In 2019, approximately 78 percent (241 million) of all 308.8 million people ages 5 and older regardless of nativity reported speaking only English at home. The remaining 22 percent (67.8 million) reported speaking a language other than English at home.

Among those who reported speaking a language other than English at home, 62 percent were Spanish speakers. Other top languages were Chinese (5 percent, including Mandarin and Cantonese); Tagalog (almost 3 percent); and Vietnamese, Arabic, French (including Cajun), and Korean (about 2 percent each) (see Table 1).
Table 1. Languages Spoken at Home Other than English (ages 5 and older), 2019
Source: MPI tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau 2019 ACS.

Spanish was the most common language after English in all but four states: Alaska (where the Eskimo-Aleut languages dominated), Hawaii (Ilocano, Samoan, Hawaiian, Marshallese, or other Austronesian languages), and Maine and Vermont (French) (see Figure 2).
Figure 2. Map of Most Commonly Spoken Languages other than English and Spanish, by State, 2019
Notes: Chinese includes Mandarin and Cantonese; Dakota+ includes Dakota, Lakota, Nakota, and Sioux; French includes Cajun; Ilocano+ includes Ilocano, Samoan, Hawaiian, Marshallese, or other Austronesian languages; Pennsylvania Dutch+ includes Pennsylvania German, Yiddish, or other West Germanic languages; and Tagalog includes Filipino.

Source: MPI analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau 2019 ACS for the United States and all states except Alaska, Arkansas, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming, as well as the District of Columbia. Data for these 15 jurisdictions are from the U.S. Census Bureau pooled 2015-19 ACS.
How many immigrants are Limited English Proficient (LEP)?
In 2019, approximately 46 percent (20.7 million) of the 44.6 million immigrants ages 5 and older were Limited English Proficient (LEP). Immigrants accounted for 81 percent of the country's 25.5 million LEP individuals.

Note: The term "Limited English Proficient" refers to persons ages 5 and older who reported speaking English "not at all," "not well," or "well" on their survey questionnaire. Individuals who reported speaking "only English" or speaking English "very well" are considered proficient in English.
What share of the immigrant population has a college education?
In 2019, 33 percent (12.9 million) of the 39.5 million immigrants ages 25 and older had a bachelor's degree or higher, similar to U.S.-born adults (see Figure 3). Notably, 48 percent of immigrants who entered the country between 2014 and 2019 held bachelor's degrees or higher, compared to 33 percent of the U.S.-born and overall immigrant populations.
Figure 3. Educational Attainment of U.S.-Born, Immigrant, and Recently Arrived Immigrant Residents, 2019
Note: Recently arrived immigrants are those who entered the United States between 2014 and 2019.

Source: MPI tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau 2019 ACS.

Educational attainment varies by country of origin. In 2019, almost 80 percent of Indian immigrant adults in the United States had a bachelor's degree or more. Other top countries were Zimbabwe (74 percent), Taiwan (73 percent), United Arab Emirates and Belarus (70 percent each), and Singapore (69 percent).

Immigrant Destinations
Which states have the largest number of immigrants and which ones have experienced the fastest growth of their immigrant populations?
In 2019, the top five U.S. states by number of immigrants were California (10.6 million), Texas (5 million), Florida (4.5 million), New York (4.4 million), and New Jersey (2.1 million).

When classified by immigrants' share of total population, the top five states in 2019 were California (27 percent), New Jersey (23 percent), New York (22 percent), Florida (21 percent), and Nevada (20 percent).

Interested in the top U.S. destinations for immigrants by country or region of origin? Use our interactive maps to see top immigrant concentrations at state and county or metropolitan-area levels.

While traditional immigrant destinations have the largest absolute number of new immigrants, other states have seen much larger relative growth in their immigrant populations. In some cases this is because the states' initial foreign-born populations were quite small, so a relatively small absolute increase has translated into high-percent growth (see Table 2).
Table 2. Top Five States by Absolute and Percent Growth in Immigrant Population, 2000-10 and 2010-19 Absolute Growth Percent Change
Source: MPI tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau 2010 and 2019 ACS and 2000 decennial census.

Immigrants in the Labor Force
How many immigrants are in the U.S. civilian labor force?
Immigrants constituted 17 percent (28.6 million) of the civilian labor force (166.3 million) in 2019. Immigrant participation in the labor force has more than tripled since 1970, when immigrants accounted for approximately 5 percent of the civilian labor force.
What types of jobs do immigrants perform?
Of the 27.6 million employed foreign-born workers ages 16 and older in 2019, the largest share (35 percent) worked in management, professional, and related occupations (see Figure 4).
Figure 4. Employed Workers in the U.S. Civilian Labor Force (ages 16 and older), by Nativity and Occupation, 2019
Note: Numbers may not add up to 100 as they are rounded to the nearest whole number.

Source: MPI tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau 2019 ACS.

Income and Poverty

In 2019, immigrant households had a median income of $63,550, compared to $66,040 for native-born households.

Fourteen percent of immigrants were poor (that is, with family incomes below the official poverty threshold), compared to 12 percent of the U.S. born.

Health Insurance Coverage
What share of immigrants have health insurance?
In 2019, approximately 58 percent of U.S. immigrants had private health insurance (compared to 69 percent of the U.S. born), and 30 percent had public health insurance coverage (compared to 36 percent of the U.S. born).

Since implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2014, health insurance coverage rates improved for both the U.S. born and immigrants. From 2013 to 2017, the rate of uninsured immigrants fell from 32 percent to 20 percent, and the rate for the native born fell from 12 percent to 7 percent. In 2017, the Trump administration made a number of changes to policies initiated by the ACA, including removing the individual coverage mandate, ending cost-sharing subsidies to insurers, and cutting funding for navigator programs. In 2019, the share of uninsured among the immigrant population remained at about 20 percent.

Note: Health insurance coverage is calculated only for the civilian, noninstitutionalized population. Since some people may simultaneously hold both private and public health insurance coverage, estimates of those with public health insurance and those with public coverage may overlap. Their sum therefore may be greater than the total number of people with health insurance.

Children of Immigrants
How many U.S. children live with immigrant parents?
In 2019, approximately 17.8 million U.S. children under age 18 lived with at least one immigrant parent. They accounted for 26 percent of the 68.9 million children under age 18 in the United States, up from 19 percent in 2000 and 13 percent in 1990.

Second-generation children, who were born in the United States to at least one foreign-born parent, accounted for 88 percent (15.6 million) of all children under age 18 with immigrant parents. The remaining 12 percent (2.2 million) were born outside the United States.
How has the number of children in immigrant families changed over time?
Between 2000 and 2010, the number of children ages 17 and under with immigrant parents grew 30 percent, from 13.1 million to 17 million. Between 2010 and 2019, the number grew by another 5 percent, reaching 17.8 million.

The population of first-generation children, who were born outside the United States, declined by 12 percent between 2000 and 2010, from 2.7 million to 2.4 million. It then declined further by another 9 percent between 2010 and 2019, to 2.2 million.

In contrast, the number of second-generation children has grown steadily since 2000. Between 2000 and 2010, the number increased by 40 percent, from 10.4 million to 14.6 million, followed by a 7 percent increase between 2010 and 2019, reaching 15.6 million.
How many children living with immigrant parents are in low-income families?
In 2019, there were 25.6 million children under age 18 living in families with incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty threshold. Of them, nearly 8 million (or 31 percent) were children of immigrants.

Children of immigrants were more likely to be in low-income families (45 percent of the 17.8 million) compared to children of U.S.-born parents (35 percent of the 51.1 million).
Which states have the largest number of children in immigrant families and which ones have experienced the fastest growth of this population?
In 2019, the top five states by the total number of children under age 18 living with immigrant parents were California (4 million), Texas (2.4 million), New York (1.4 million), Florida (1.4 million), and New Jersey (769,000). These states accounted for 56 percent of the 17.8 million U.S. children with immigrant parents.

The five states with the largest share of children with immigrant parents in 2019 were California (47 percent of all children in the state), New Jersey (41 percent), Nevada (38 percent), New York (36 percent), and Texas (35 percent).

While traditional immigrant destinations experienced the largest absolute growth in children with immigrant parents over time, other states have seen much larger relative growth (see Table 3). In some states, this is because the initial number of children with immigrant parents was quite small. Thus, relatively small absolute increases in the immigrant population in these states have translated into high percent growth.
Table 3. Top Five States by Absolute and Percent Growth in Children with Immigrant Parents, 2000-10 and 2010-19 Absolute Growth Percent Growth
Source: MPI tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau 2010 and 2019 ACS and 2000 decennial census.

Permanent Immigration
How many immigrants obtain lawful permanent residence (also known as getting a green card)?
In fiscal year (FY) 2019, 1 million immigrants became lawful permanent residents (LPRs, also known as green-card holders). The number of new LPRs in FY 2019 decreased by 64,800 from the prior year (a 6 percent drop). In the past decade, the annual number of new green-card recipients has ranged from 991,000 (FY 2013) to 1.2 million (FY 2016).

In recent years, immigrants obtaining LPR status have been, on average, about evenly divided between those already living in the United States who are adjusting their status and those applying from outside the country. More than 55 percent (or 573,000) of the 1 million new LPRs in FY 2019 received green cards from within the United States. Many of these new permanent residents are spouses, minor children, and parents of U.S. citizens, or persons who arrived as refugees or as temporary workers.

About 459,000 of the new LPRs (nearly 45 percent) were granted this status from abroad in FY 2019, a slight dip from previous years when the share of new arrivals was higher (48 percent in FY 2018 and 51 percent the prior year). Most new arrivals are immediate family members of U.S. citizens and LPRs.
Under which categories are permanent immigrants admitted?
There are four main pathways to obtain a green card: through a family relationship, employment sponsorship, humanitarian protection (for refugees and asylees), and the Diversity Visa (DV) lottery (also known as the green-card lottery).

Overall, of the 1 million immigrants who received green cards in FY 2019, 49 percent were immediate relatives of U.S. citizens (an uncapped visa category), followed by another 20 percent of family-related immigrants (whose admission is limited by visa and country caps).

Ten percent of new green-card holders adjusted from refugee or asylee status. About 14 percent of new LPRs were either sponsored by their employers or self-petitioned, including investors who create jobs. Approximately 4 percent were diversity lottery winners.
What are the top five countries of birth for new permanent immigrants?
The top five countries of birth in FY 2019 were Mexico (15 percent), mainland China (6 percent), India (5 percent), the Dominican Republic (5 percent), and the Philippines (4 percent). These countries represented about 36 percent of everyone who received a green card in FY 2019.
How many people are selected in the Diversity Visa lottery and where do they come from?
In FY 2019, 43,000 people from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States received a green card as diversity immigrants, representing approximately 4 percent of the 1 million new LPRs.

The leading countries of birth of DV immigrants were Egypt and Nepal, together accounting for about 14 percent of DV entrants adjusting to LPR status. Other top countries of origin were the Democratic Republic of the Congo (6 percent), Russia (5 percent), Albania (5 percent), Ukraine (4 percent), and Ethiopia, Cameroon, Turkey, and Algeria (3 percent each).

For some countries, the Diversity Visa lottery represents a major share of all new LPRs. For example, out of all nationals of Tajikistan adjusting to LPR status in FY 2019, 72 percent were DV immigrants. Shares were also high for nationals of Algeria (58 percent) and Azerbaijan (55 percent). DV lottery winners represented between 40 percent and 50 percent of new LPRs originally from Turkmenistan, Sudan, Benin, and Albania.

Created in 1990, the lottery sets aside 55,000 green cards annually, of which 5,000 must be used for applicants under the Nicaraguan and Central America Relief Act of 1997. Interest in the lottery is significantly higher than the amount of available visas; about 6.7 million qualified applications were registered for the DV-2021, covering 11.8 million applicants and their spouses and minor children. This number was down from 14.7 million in DV-2020 and 14.4 million in DV-2019. (The application number varies each year in part because of which countries are eligible.) Before receiving permission to immigrate, lottery winners must provide proof of a high school education or its equivalent or show two years of work experience within the past five years in an occupation that requires at least two years of training or experience. They also must pass a medical exam and a background check.

Read the most recent State Department Visa Bulletin for more on the DV lottery.

Temporary Visas
How many people have temporary visas?
According to the most recent Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimates available at this writing, 2.3 million foreign nationals on various temporary visas resided in the United States during FY 2016, up from about 2 million in FY 2015. Almost half (1.1 million) were temporary workers and their families, followed by 40 percent who were foreign students and their families (870,000).

Sixty-one percent were from Asia. Nationals of countries in Europe and North America accounted for 15 percent each. The top five countries of origin-India, China, Mexico, Canada, and South Korea-accounted for 57 percent of all residents on temporary visas.

Note: This estimate of temporary visa holders includes temporary workers, international students, exchange visitors, diplomats, and representatives of foreign governments and international organizations. It excludes tourists and other short-term visitors. North America includes Canada, Bermuda, Central America, and the Caribbean.
How many people entered the United States on nonimmigrant visas?
According to the most recently available data from DHS, 42.7 million individuals entered in FY 2016 as I-94 nonimmigrants on various temporary visas. On average, each I-94 nonimmigrant was admitted 1.8 times. This is the first time, and to date the only time, the DHS Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS) has estimated the number of unique individuals who came temporarily, as opposed to the number of nonimmigrant admissions or entries.

Most of these nonimmigrants-34.2 million-entered as tourists, followed by 3.7 million as business visitors. Of these, 15 million tourists and 1.7 million business travelers were from Visa Waiver Program countries, meaning they did not need a visa to enter the United States. Further, approximately 1 million international students entered on F-1 visas. OIS additionally estimated that about 290,300 individuals were admitted on high-skilled worker H-1B visas (mostly from India, China, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Mexico) and 81,600 on nonagricultural temporary or seasonal worker H-2B visas (mostly from Mexico, Jamaica, Guatemala, South Africa, and Canada).
How many nonimmigrant visas does the State Department issue?
In FY 2020, the annual number of nonimmigrant visas issued by the State Department decreased for the fourth time since 2015, to 4 million-a 54 percent decline from the 8.7 million issued in FY 2019.

Seventy-one percent of the 4 million nonimmigrant visas issued in FY 2020 were temporary business and tourist visas (B and BCC visas). The next largest visa class was for temporary workers and trainees and their family members (H visa categories), who comprised 12 percent of nonimmigrant visas issued in FY 2020. The third largest group was for academic students and exchange visitors and their family members (F and J visa categories), who comprised 6 percent of nonimmigrant visas.

In addition to the Trump administration's travel ban, which was extended to six other countries in early 2020, the sharp decline in nonimmigrant visa issuances in FY 2020 can be attributed to the worldwide slowdown in mobility amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the administration's accompanying immigration restrictions. On June 22, 2020, President Donald Trump issued a proclamation suspending the issuance of certain nonimmigrant visas. This proclamation applied to H-1B visas (for temporary workers in specialty occupations), H-2B visas (for nonagricultural workers), certain J visas (for exchange visitors), and L visas (for intracompany transferees), as well as visas issued to the dependents of these nonimmigrants.

Note: The number of visas issued does not necessarily match the number of foreign nationals who entered the United States in the same year because some nonimmigrant visas may not be used.
How many nonimmigrant admissions does DHS grant in a year?
DHS granted 186 million nonimmigrant admissions in FY 2019, of which 105 million were admissions of Canadians and Mexicans traveling for business or pleasure. These travelers are exempt from completing the I-94 arrival/departure form at the port of entry, thus DHS does not provide characteristics for this group.

In FY 2019, there were 81.6 million total temporary admissions of I-94 nonimmigrants, similar to the 81.3 million a year earlier (see Table 4).
Table 4. Nonimmigrant Admissions by Category, FY 2019 (I-94 only)
Note: Nonimmigrant admissions represent the number of entries. Individuals may have multiple entries within the year. The DHS Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS) reports characteristics of nonimmigrants who must complete an I-94 arrival/departure form at entry.

Source: DHS Office of Immigration Statistics, Yearbook of Immigration Statistics 2019.

Refugees and Asylum Seekers
How many refugees entered the United States, and where were they from?
Every year, the president in consultation with Congress sets the annual refugee admissions ceiling and allocations by region of origin. The Trump administration set the annual ceiling at 18,000 in FY 2020 and 15,000 in FY 2021, down from the 30,000 ceiling of FY 2019 and the lowest since the resettlement program was formally created in 1980. The Biden administration has pledged to reverse the cuts, including by raising the FY 2022 ceiling to 125,000 refugees.

In FY 2020, more than 11,800 refugees were resettled in the United States, amounting to 66 percent of the admission ceiling allocated for the year. This represents a 61 decrease from the 30,000 admissions in FY 2019.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Myanmar (also known as Burma), Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Iraq were the primary countries of nationality, accounting for 68 percent (8,100) of all refugees resettled in FY 2020. Rounding out the top ten were Syria, Eritrea, El Salvador, Moldova, and Sudan. Together, nationals of the top ten countries comprised 85 percent (10,000) of all refugee arrivals in FY 2020 (see Table 5).
Table 5. Top Ten Countries of Refugee Admissions by Nationality, FY 2020
Source: MPI tabulation of Worldwide Refugee Admissions Processing System (WRAPS) data from the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration.
What is the female share of the resettled refugee population?
In FY 2020, about 48 percent of all resettled refugees in the United States were female.
What are the most common religions of refugees?
Refugees who identified as Christian (including Pentecostalists, Catholics, and Baptists) made up 74 percent of all admitted refugees in FY 2020. Muslim refugees (including Sunni and Shiite) comprised 22 percent of resettled refugees. The remainder included Buddhists (1 percent) and Hindu (under 1 percent). About 1 percent of refugees reported not being affiliated with any religion or being atheists.

Overall, the United States admitted more Christian refugees in the past decade than Muslim ones. Between FY 2010 and FY 2020, Christians represented 48 percent (286,100) of the 601,000 refugees with known religion data. In comparison, 33 percent (201,000) of refugees admitted during the same period were Muslim.

FY 2016 marked the only time since 2010 when the United States resettled more Muslim refugees (38,900 individuals, or 46 percent of the total 85,000 refugees in FY 2016) than Christians (44 percent, 37,500 individuals). Since the Trump administration implemented restrictions on admissions of nationals of particular countries, additional vetting procedures, and historically low admissions ceilings, the proportion of resettled Muslim and Christian refugees has changed substantially in the last five years.
Note: Refugee demographic data is based on self-identification, so religious breakdowns include major religions as well as denominations. What are the most common languages spoken among refugees?
In FY 2020, the top languages spoken by resettled refugees were Ukrainian, Russian, Arabic, and Kiswahili. Rounding the top ten were Spanish, Kinyarwanda, Sgaw Karen, Kibembe, Tigrinya, and Dari. Speakers of the top ten languages made up 71 percent of all refugees resettled that year.
How many asylum applications were filed and where are asylum seekers from?
Approximately 92,800 affirmative asylum applications were received by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in FY 2020, the lowest number in five years. This marked the third year of declining applications after eight years of growth, and is at least partly due to the pandemic-related closure of USCIS offices for nearly three months. Applicants for affirmative asylum must be present in the United States, and do not include those seeking asylum through the defensive asylum process while in removal proceedings.

Meanwhile, 151,800 defensive asylum applications were filed with the Department of Justice's immigration court system, known as the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), in FY 2020-a similar number as FY 2019 and a 31 percent increase from the 116,000 applications filed in FY 2018.
What is the asylum approval rate?
According to USCIS data, 31 percent of affirmative asylum petitions adjudicated in FY 2019 were approved, a slight increase from the 30 percent in FY 2018 but a decline from the 37 percent in FY 2017 and 43 percent in FY 2016. (USCIS data for FY 2020 were not available at the time of writing.)

Asylum petitions handled by immigration courts have undergone a steadier downward trend. In FY 2020, 26 percent of such petitions were approved, versus 29 percent in FY 2019, 33 percent in FY 2018, 37 percent in FY 2017, and 43 percent in FY 2016.
How many people receive asylum status?
In FY 2019, 46,500 individuals, including principal applicants and their spouses and/or unmarried children under age 21, were granted asylum after seeking protection upon or after arrival in the United States-a 24 percent increase from 37,600 in FY 2018. An additional 3,300 individuals received derivative asylum status in the United States as immediate family members of principal applicants and 6,300 were approved for derivative status outside the United States. (Note that this number reflects travel documents issued to these family members, not their arrival in the United States.)

Nearly 60 percent of asylum grants came through USCIS (rather than in the immigration courts), of which there were 27,600 in FY 2019, up 13 percent from 24,400 in FY 2018 and up 77 percent from 15,600 in FY 2017. This increase is partly a result of a January 2018 policy change by USCIS to begin adjudicating asylum applications on a last-in, first-out basis, which the agency has said discourages non-meritorious cases.

China was the top country of origin for those receiving asylum in FY 2019, with 7,500 people (or 16 percent of total asylum grants), followed closely by Venezuela, with 6,800 individuals (accounting for 15 percent). Other top countries of origin were El Salvador (with 3,200), Guatemala (2,600), and India (2,300). Together, nationals of these five countries made up 48 percent of those receiving asylum in FY 2019.
What is the current asylum application backlog?
Due to the large application volume and limited resources, both the affirmative and defensive asylum systems have extensive backlogs. As of December 2020, according to USCIS, there were 350,000 affirmative cases pending; EOIR reported over 570,000 pending asylum cases.

Unauthorized Immigrants
How many unauthorized immigrants are in the United States?
The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) has estimated there were about 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States in 2018. Almost half resided in three states: California (24 percent), Texas (16 percent), and New York (8 percent). The vast majority (81 percent) lived in 178 counties with 10,000 or more unauthorized immigrants each, of which the top five-Los Angeles County, CA; Harris County, TX; Dallas County, TX; Cook County, IL; and Orange County, CA-accounted for 19 percent of all unauthorized immigrants.
Where are unauthorized immigrants from?
Mexicans and Central Americans accounted for roughly two-thirds (68 percent, or 7.4 million) of U.S. unauthorized immigrants as of 2014-18, MPI estimates. About 1.5 million (14 percent) were from Asia; 783,000 (7 percent) from South America; 648,000 (6 percent) from Europe, Canada, or Oceania; 406,000 (4 percent) from the Caribbean; and 230,000 (2 percent) from Africa.

The top five countries of birth for unauthorized immigrants were Mexico (51 percent), El Salvador (7 percent), Guatemala (5 percent), and India and Honduras (4 percent each).
How many unauthorized immigrants live with children under age 18?
About 4.4 million unauthorized immigrants (42 percent of all unauthorized immigrants ages 15 and older) lived with one or more children under age 18 as of 2014-18, MPI estimates. Of this group, about 84 percent (3.7 million) resided with at least one U.S.-citizen child under age 18 and 16 percent (704,000) lived with only non-U.S.-citizen children.
How many children under age 18 live with at least one unauthorized immigrant parent?
Approximately 5.2 million children under age 18 lived with an unauthorized immigrant parent during the 2014-18 period, representing 7 percent of the U.S. child population. About 85 percent (4.4 million) of these children were U.S. citizens, another 14 percent (728,000) were themselves unauthorized, and 1 percent (63,000) were legally present, including LPRs and those with temporary visas.
How many people are eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program under original rules and how many applications have been received since its launch in 2012?
The DACA program, announced on June 15, 2012, offers a two-year grant of deportation relief and work authorization to eligible young unauthorized immigrants. Requirements for eligibility include:

being at least 15 years old;

having entered the United States before the age of 16;

having continuously resided in the United States since June 15, 2007;

being enrolled in school, having earned a high school diploma or its equivalent, or being an honorably discharged veteran; and

having not been convicted of a felony, a significant misdemeanor, or three or more misdemeanors; or otherwise posing a threat to public safety or national security.

On September 5, 2017, the Trump administration announced the termination of DACA, with a six-month wind-down. Multiple court challenges over the decision led to preliminary injunctions that allowed DACA recipients to renew their protections starting January 2018, but only for current holders or those who held DACA in the past. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2020 that the DACA recission violated federal law.

After additional federal district court rulings, including one in November 2020 invalidating a DHS policy memo seeking to bar new DACA applicants and shorten work authorization periods, USCIS has been accepting new DACA applications. On his first day in office, President Joe Biden announced his intent to preserve the DACA program.

MPI estimates that 1.7 million individuals were DACA-eligible as of December 2020, 1.3 million of whom were immediately eligible under the program's age and educational requirements.

Between August 15, 2012 (when the government began accepting applications) and September 30, 2020, a total of 827,100 applicants were approved, suggesting this is the maximum number of people who have ever held DACA status at one point or another during the life of the program. The agency granted 90 percent of the 914,600 initial applications; 9 percent (82,400) were denied, and 4,000 remained pending.

The top five states of residence for accepted initial applications since the program's inception are California (28 percent), Texas (16 percent), Illinois and New York (5 percent each), and Florida (4 percent). The top five countries of origin of accepted applicants are Mexico (78 percent), El Salvador (4 percent), Guatemala (3 percent), Honduras (2 percent), and South Korea (1 percent).
How many people still have DACA status?
USCIS reports as of September 30, 2020, 640,700 individuals had active DACA status.

The top states of residence for DACA active participants were California (29 percent), Texas (16 percent), and Illinois (5 percent), followed by New York, Florida, North Carolina, and Arizona (about 4 percent each).

The top countries of origin of active DACA program participants were Mexico (81 percent), El Salvador (4 percent), Guatemala (3 percent), Honduras (2 percent), and Peru, South Korea, Brazil, and Ecuador (about 1 percent each).
How many people are covered by Temporary Protected Status?
Since the Immigration Act of 1990, the United States has occasionally granted a form of humanitarian relief called Temporary Protected Status (TPS) when the origin countries of foreign nationals in the United States experience natural disasters, armed conflicts, or other circumstances making return unsafe. TPS offers work authorization and protection from deportation for six- to 18-month periods. El Salvador was the first country to be designated for TPS, in 1990, to protect Salvadorans who had fled its civil war.

Since 1990, 22 countries have been designated for TPS. Ten countries currently are designated: El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. In 2020, an estimated 319,000 people from these ten countries had maintained active status under TPS, with the largest groups being Salvadorans (195,000), Hondurans (57,000), and Haitians (46,000).

The Trump administration attempted to halt extension of TPS for immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Sudan; court cases challenged the effort and TPS protections have been extended for those countries through October 4, 2021.
How many unaccompanied children and families have been apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border?
Enforcement encounters at the Southwest border decreased significantly in FY 2020, dropping sharply during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing slightly in the last couple months of the fiscal year. (The term "enforcement encounters," used by DHS, covers both apprehensions and the expulsions of most Southwest border arrivals since a pandemic-related public-health order took effect in March 2020.) The U.S. Border Patrol made 52,200 encounters of children and adults travelling as families (known as "family units") and about 30,600 unaccompanied children along the Southwest border in FY 2020. This represents an 85 percent decrease from the 474,000 family units and 76,000 unaccompanied minors apprehended in FY 2019.

The apprehensions in FY 2019 were the highest recorded since recordkeeping began in FY 2008 for unaccompanied children and in FY 2012 for family units. But the FY 2020 encounters were also much lower than the 107,200 family units and 50,000 unaccompanied children apprehended in FY 2018, pointing to the impact of COVID-19 on activity at the border. In April, shortly after adopting new restrictions in response to the pandemic, only slightly more than 700 family units were intercepted at the Southwest border, a 79 percent decrease from the previous month. These children and families were primarily from Mexico, with smaller numbers from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala

Note: The term "family unit" refers to individuals-either a child under 18 years old, parent, or legal guardian-apprehended with a family member by the U.S. Border Patrol.

Immigration Enforcement

Note: The government fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30. All figures for immigration control and enforcement given here are for the fiscal year. The data presented here are the most recent offered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
How many apprehensions of unauthorized immigrants occur at the border annually?
CBP reported 405,000 enforcement encounters at both the southern and northern borders in FY 2020, a significant decrease from 859,500 a year earlier.

Note: Apprehensions and expulsions are events, not individuals. In other words, the same individual can be apprehended more than once, with each apprehension counted separately. The recidivism rate has increased sharply since the expulsions policy began, given intercepted migrants are not being put into formal removal proceedings that could trigger criminal sanctions upon a future re-entry.
How many people are arrested by ICE within the United States yearly?
ICE made 103,600 administrative arrests in FY 2020, down 28 percent from a year earlier. ICE has attributed the drop to a change in focus during COVID-19. An administrative arrest is the arrest of an individual for a civil violation of U.S. immigration law, which is subsequently adjudicated by an immigration judge or through other administrative processes.
How many people are deported per year?
Removals and returns, which are carried out both by ICE and CBP, result in the confirmed movement of inadmissible or deportable aliens out of the United States. DHS reported a total of 531,300 removals and returns during FY 2019. CBP carried out 264,100 removals and returns in FY 2019, up 39 percent from 190,300 a year earlier. ICE carried out 267,300 removals and returns in FY 2019, a 4 percent increase from the prior year.

CBP data on FY 2020 returns and removals were not available at the time of writing, but ICE effectuated 185,900 removals and returns, a 30 percent decrease from FY 2019.
How many immigrants are naturalized citizens?
In FY 2019, 23.2 million immigrants were naturalized U.S. citizens, accounting for approximately 52 percent of the total foreign-born population (44.9 million) and 7 percent of the U.S. population (328.2 million), according to ACS estimates.

Of the 23.2 million naturalized citizens, 32 percent were naturalized between FY 2010 and 2019, 28 percent between FY 2000 and 2009, and 39 percent prior to FY 2000.
How many immigrants become U.S. citizens annually?
USCIS naturalized about 844,000 green-card holders in FY 2019, an 11 percent increase from the 762,000 in FY 2018. The number of petitions for naturalization filed in FY 2019 (831,000) fell by 1 percent from a year earlier (837,000). At the same time, the number of denied petitions increased by 6 percent, from 93,000 in FY 2018 to 98,000 the following year. USCIS is taking longer to process naturalization applications, with average processing time increasing from 5.6 months in FY 2016 to 9.9 months in FY 2019.

From a historical perspective, naturalizations have increased dramatically in recent decades. On average, fewer than 120,000 LPRs became citizens each year between 1950 and 1969, 210,000 in the 1980s, 500,000 in the 1990s, and 680,000 during the 2000s. Naturalizations reached an all-time high in FY 2008, increasing 59 percent from 660,000 the prior year to 1,047,000. This came as a result of impending application fee increases and the promotion of U.S. citizenship in advance of the 2008 presidential election. Between 2010 and 2019, an average 730,000 immigrants received U.S. citizenship annually.
How many foreign nationals become U.S. citizens through military naturalization?
In FY 2019, 3,800 foreign-born military personnel became U.S. citizens, a 16 percent drop from the prior year (4,500) and the lowest number since FY 2002.
Where are newly naturalized citizens from?
Of the new U.S. citizens in FY 2019, 14 percent were born in Mexico, 8 percent in India, and 5 percent each in the Philippines and China (see Table 6). Immigrants from these four countries, together with those from Cuba, Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, Iraq, El Salvador, and Jamaica comprised the top ten countries of birth for newly naturalized citizens in FY 2019. These countries accounted for 48 percent of the 844,000 new U.S. citizens that fiscal year.
Table 6. Top Ten Countries of Origin of Newly Naturalized Citizens, FY 2019
Source: DHS Office of Immigration Statistics, Yearbook of Immigration Statistics 2019.
Where do newly naturalized citizens live?
In FY 2019, 55 percent of the newly naturalized lived in one of five states: California, with 18 percent (148,800); followed by 12 percent in Texas (97,700); 11 percent in Florida (96,100); 10 percent in New York (85,400); and 4 percent in New Jersey (36,700).

The top five metropolitan areas with the largest number of naturalizations were New York-Newark-Jersey City (108,000), Miami-Ft Lauderdale-Pompano Beach (60,600), Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim (56,900), Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land (33,800), and Washington-Arlington-Alexandria (30,800). These five metro areas accounted for 34 percent of all naturalizations in FY 2019.
How many green-card holders are eligible to naturalize?
According to the latest available DHS estimates, about 9.1 million of the 13.6 million green-card holders residing in the United States on January 1, 2019 were eligible to naturalize.
How long does it take on average for green-card holders to naturalize?
On average, immigrants held green cards for eight years before becoming U.S. citizens in 2019, unchanged from the year before. The time varied by country of origin: African-born immigrants spent an average six years in LPR status before naturalization, followed by those born in Asia (seven years), South America (eight years), Europe (nine years), and Oceania and North America (including Central America, ten years each).

In general, naturalization requires being at least 18 years of age, passing English and civic exams, and for most, residing in the United States with LPR status continuously for at least five years (three years for those married to a U.S. citizen).

Visa Backlogs
How many visa applications for permanent immigration (green cards) are backlogged?
Because of limits on certain visa categories and per-country caps, the U.S. government in some cases is still processing applications that are more than two decades old. In February 2021, the State Department was processing some family-sponsored visa applications dating to September 1996, and employment-related visa applications from April 2009.

According to data on petitions submitted to the State Department, there were almost 4 million applicants (including spouses and minor children) who were on the waiting list as of November 1, 2020, a 10 percent increase from the same point in 2019 (when there were 3.6 million applicants).

The overwhelming majority of backlogs were family-sponsored applicants (3.8 million, which includes the principal applicant and his or her immediate family members). About 216,000 were employment-sponsored applicants and their families.

Of the overall 4 million applicants, 1.2 million were citizens of Mexico, followed by those from the Philippines (318,000), India (310,000), mainland China (247,000), and Vietnam (218,000). Family- and employment-based prospective immigrants who are waiting to adjust their status to lawful permanent residence from within the United States are not included in the State Department estimates.

USCIS also publishes backlog statistics, but only for petitions approved in one of the five employment-based categories. As of November 2020, slightly more than 500,000 approved employment-based immigrant petitions were awaiting a priority date. The figure corresponds to the number of primary applicants covered by these petitions but excludes their dependents. To MPI's knowledge, USCIS has not published backlog statistics on other types of green-card applications the agency adjudicates.

In other words, the overall number of people waiting for a green card-within and outside of the United States-is likely to be larger than the 4 million reported by the State Department and 500,000 reported by USCIS (as of November 2020).

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Jeanne Batalova Jeanne Batalova, Mary Hanna, and Christopher Levesque

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Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States

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Have a question about U.S. immigration trends and the country's immigrant population? This article collects in one place the most sought-after information about the world's largest immigrant population and how it has changed over time.

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This article provides data on the top languages spoken across the U.S., offering valuable insight into the linguistic diversity teachers may encounter in their classrooms.

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There is no official language in the United States, a fact that is unknown to many of its citizens. American greatness has always relied on an organic cultural tapestry woven together through the mixing and harboring of many people groups. Integration without assimilation is a dominant ideal in US culture, which explains the many linguistic sounds a traveler through this 'New World' will end up hearing. A US census categorized the frequency and popularity of languages in the States, thereby painting a picture of a diversity-rich nation. . So next time you feel lost in translation while wandering America, do not worry; you are not alone. Here, the languages are ranked by the number of people aged five years or more, speaking them at home in the US, as per a US Census Bueau record of 2017-2021.

1. English - 245 million

English is one of the most spoken languages in the world, with 1.5 billion global speakers. Moreover, 245 million people speak only English at home in America. It's not hard to see why it is so popular: Many learners widely regard English as relatively easy to learn compared to other languages and have labeled it "the world's favorite second language." Additionally, much of American culture originates from its British colonial past, making English a familiar choice for many living in the United States. Learning English in America represents more than just having an easier time communicating - it is a vital part of learning about the history and culture of this great nation.

2. Spanish - 41.3 million

As one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, Spanish holds a special place in US cultural identity. Derived from Vulgar Latin, it is the first language of 360 million people across the globe. It is gaining even more presence in the United States - with just over 41 million individuals speaking only Spanish at home. Not only this, but its reach extends to many dialects and countries outside of Spain due to its diffusion during Spain's colonial period. Many may know that Spain had significant influence in South America during this time, but it is also worth noting that they colonized much of North America. In this way, Spanish has shaped not only the fabric of American languages but US heritage as well.

3. Chinese - 3.4 million

According to the US Census Bureau, Chinese is the third most spoken language in America, with an estimated 3.4 million people speaking it in their homes. A massive influx of immigration from mainland China in recent decades has contributed to this rise in popularity - today, there are 1.1 billion Chinese speakers worldwide. Interestingly, most Chinese-speaking households reside on either the East or West coasts of the United States, where immigration from Asia has been at its highest. As a result, Chinese has become an important language for many aspects of American life. This range extends from businesses doing trade and commerce overseas to those who wish to explore the deep cultural heritage within the United States' sizeable Chinese-American community.

4. Tagalog - 1.72 million

Tagalog, also known as Filipino, is the fourth most spoken language in the United States. It is a major language of the Philippines and has a history dating back centuries. Tagalog is spoken across the United States by people of Filipino descent and other immigrants from the Philippines. The largest concentrations of Tagalog speakers are mainly in California, Nevada, Texas, Washington, Illinois, and New York. Tagalog is especially popular among Filipino Americans residing in large cities and metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley, Las Vegas, Seattle, Houston, Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio. These regions have become a hub for Filipino communities where their native language Tagalog is widely spoken. In addition, one can find the Tagalog-speaking community in Illinois, primarily in Chicago.

5. Vietnamese - 1.52 million

Vietnamese is one of the most commonly spoken languages in the United States, with more than 1.5 million people speaking it throughout the country. The Vietnamese language has a long and storied history in the United States, beginning with early Vietnamese immigrants in the 19th century and increasing in numbers with the arrival of refugees following America's involvement in the Vietnam War. Vietnamese is also across the United States, with more significant concentrations found primarily in California, Texas, Washington State, and Virginia. Vietnamese speakers in California are found primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles metropolitan areas. Additionally, smaller pockets of Vietnamese speakers are located around Austin, Texas. Moreover, the Washington State Seattle-Tacoma area is home to sizeable numbers of Vietnamese Americans. At the same time, Northern Virginia, particularly Arlington County, has become one of the most significant communities for immigrants from Southeast Asia, including those who speak the Vietnamese language.

6. Arabic - 1.39 million

Arabic is the sixth most spoken language in the United States and has been part of the American landscape for centuries, which is represented by the nation's 1.39 million speakers. The earliest Arabic speakers arrived in America with European colonists before and during the Revolutionary War. The number of Arabic-speaking people living in America increased significantly with large immigration waves from Middle East countries before and after World War II and again during more recent civil wars in Iraq and Syria. The largest concentrations of Arabic-speaking people are throughout New York, California, Michigan, Florida, New Jersey, Texas, Illinois, and Virginia. In New York City, Boroughs like Brooklyn and Queens are home to many communities from the Arab world, while upstate regions such as Albany also have sizeable populations. In California, cities like Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco host large numbers of immigrants whose native tongue is Arabic. At the same time, the Detroit metropolitan area in Michigan is especially renowned for its sizable Arabic population, whose roots stretch as far as Lebanon and Palestine.

7. French - 1.18 million

French has been known for some time as the language of love, and it continues to be an essential language in America. With around 1.18 million Americans speaking French at home, it is the seventh most spoken language in the United States. Most of this is due to its global presence through its language, which owes its spread to France's colonization period, as well as its proximity to Canad a, where many French-speaking individuals reside and regularly cross into the United States. In addition, this language has a long-standing history in America due to French immigration and their families who wished to make this country their permanent home, keeping their language alive while they did so.

8. Korean - 1.07 million

Korean is spoken by over a million residents in the United States and has a long history dating back to the late 19th century when the first Korean immigrants began to settle in Hawaii. After the Korean War, a large influx of refugees began arriving in America, and communities of Korean Americans quickly grew across many states. Today, California, New York, Texas, Virginia, and Georgia are home to some of the largest Korean-speaking populations in the United States. For example, California is home to more than 450 thousand people who speak Korean, with concentrations around the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the Northern parts of Silicon Valley, and the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition, new York City boroughs such as Queens have also become increasingly diverse and host sizable populations from Pacific Rim countries, including South Korea. In Texas, the Houston-Dallas region is home to many Koreans, while cities like Austin and San Antonio also have strong Asian communities.

9. Russian - 1.04 million

Russian has just over a million speakers in the United States and has been part of American linguistics since the late 1800s when Russian immigrants began settling in different parts of North America. The largest concentrations of Russian-speaking people settled throughout New York, California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. In New York City, Boroughs like Brooklyn and Queens are home to many communities from former Soviet Union countries, while Long Island also has a sizeable population. In California, cities like San Francisco Bay Area host large numbers of immigrants whose native tongue is Russian. At the same time, the Miami Metropolitan area in Florida is especially renowned for its sizable Russian-speaking population, whose roots stretch as far as Ukraine and Belarus. Boston metropolitan region, including Cambridge in the Massachusetts area, is also home to a notable Russian American community.

10. Portuguese - 937,000

Portuguese rounds off this list at number ten with about 937,000 people speaking this European language. The language is spoken by both immigrants to the country from Portugal as well as from former Portuguese colonies like Brazil. The Portuguese people and their language have a very long history in the US dating back to 1634. The language has a significant number of speakers in Hawaii, Rhode Island and Massachusetts which have sizeable Portuguese-American communities.

Other Spoken Languages

The United States also hosts many additional African dialects and other languages that represent a large number of migrated communities from many distinct countries. People from all corners of the world brought their tongues with them when they migrated to America. In many cities across the US, it's possible to hear foreign lingoes mixed into daily conversation, reminding us that although many speak English, we live in a vibrant multicultural community. Understanding another language can also greatly enrich our lives; not only do we gain access to new cultures and customs, but studying linguistics can help unearth fascinating insights into how language works at a fundamental level.

The Absence Of Native American Languages

Without a doubt, the United States is a highly multicultural country. It has received immigrants from all over the world who have contributed to the nation's linguistic diversity. However, one must not forget the indigenous languages of the native Americans that are under significant threat today. It is important to note that no native American language makes it to the list of the top 25 languages spoken in the US. The Navajo language, the most widely spoken Native American language, has roughly 170,000 speakers only. Thus, the state of preservation and growth of Native American languages is a significant issue in the country.

English may be the most spoken language in America, but that doesn't mean it's the only language spoken there. There are more than 350 languages spoken in America. The top 10 languages spoken in America are: English, Spanish, Chinese, French, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Arabic, Korean, Russian, and German. In addition, more than half of Americans speak a language other than English at home. So don't limit yourself to just one language - learning multiple languages can open up all the opportunities this iconic nation offers.

The 25 Most Spoken Languages In America

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There is no official language in the United States, a fact that is unknown to many of its citizens. American greatness has always relied on an organic cultural tapestry woven together through the mixing and harboring of many people groups.

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Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States

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Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States

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Current statistics from the Migration Policy Institute offering a detailed look at immigrant populations, essential for understanding the diverse backgrounds of multilingual learners in U.S. schools.

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The United States is in the midst of an historic period in its immigration history, facing a changing composition of the immigrant population, pandemic-related pent-up demand for permanent and temporary visas resulting in extensive backlogs, record pressure at the U.S.-Mexico border, and somewhat decreasing public support for expanded immigration.

Legal permanent and temporary immigration rose in 2022 after a few years of chill brought about by the COVID-19 public-health crisis and the Trump administration's restrictive policies and rhetoric. Amid crises around the world, the Biden administration extended or expanded Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for certain eligible immigrants already in the United States and announced special humanitarian parole programs allowing some migrants from several countries to enter the United States and stay temporarily.

At the southwest border, record numbers of migrant encounters in 2022 accompanied court orders preventing the Biden administration from revoking the Title 42 public-health order authorizing the rapid expulsion of asylum seekers and other migrants. The administration has proposed a revised system to govern asylum at the border, but as of this writing the situation remains in flux. To promote orderly arrival and processing of asylum seekers and expedite the expulsion of unauthorized migrants, in January 2023 the Biden administration announced another humanitarian parole program to include up to 30,000 authorized newcomers from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela every month if they have a U.S. sponsor. This program was followed by controversial proposed changes to U.S. asylum system.

Worldwide, the United States is home to more international migrants than any other country, and more than the next four countries-Germany, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the United Kingdom-combined, according to the UN Population Division's mid-2020 data. While the U.S. population represents about 5 percent of the total world population, close to 20 percent of all global migrants reside in the United States.

This Spotlight offers information about the approximately 45.3 million immigrants in the United States as of 2021, by compiling the most authoritative and current data available. It provides an overview of historic immigration trends in the United States, sociodemographic information about who is immigrating, through which channels, and how many immigrants become naturalized citizens. It also provides data on the government's enforcement actions and adjudication efforts to process visas.

This article draws on statistics from the Migration Policy Institute (MPI); the U.S. Census Bureau (using its 2021 American Community Survey [ACS], 2022 Current Population Survey [CPS], and 2000 decennial census); and the U.S. Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and State. (Note: DHS and State Department data refer to fiscal years that begin on October 1 and end on September 30; ACS and CPS data refer to calendar years). For more detailed information on U.S. and global immigration data sources and one-click access to these datasets, see the MPI report Immigration Data Matters. All the data tools and maps linked to in this article also can be accessed through MPI's Migration Data Hub.
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Click on the bullet points for more information on each topic:

Immigrants Now and Historically
How many immigrants reside in the United States?
Nearly 45.3 million immigrants lived in the United States in 2021, the most since census records have been kept. In 2021, immigrants comprised 13.6 percent of the total U.S. population, a figure that remains short of the record high of 14.8 percent in 1890 and slightly below the 13.7 percent share they comprised in 2019.

The foreign-born population remained largely flat between 2019 and 2021, with an increase of 337,000 people, or growth of less than 1 percent. While the immigrant population has generally been growing, the increase over the last two years was smaller than the change from 2017 to 2019 (407,000) and much smaller than between 2014 and 2016 (1.3 million). The slowing growth of the immigrant population over the past few years is mirrored by the slowing growth of the overall U.S. population since 2015.
Note: 2020 was an unusual year in many ways, including in immigration flows and in data collection efforts. Many fewer people were able to move across international borders because of pandemic-related border restrictions and policies of sending and receiving countries alike. At the same time, the U.S. Census Bureau experienced significant challenges collecting data in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and released only a few data points from its 2020 ACS. Because of these data challenges, it is difficult to assess the real extent of the changes in the last couple of years. How have the number and share of immigrants changed over time?
In 1850, the first year the United States began collecting nativity data through the census, the country had 2.2 million immigrants, representing nearly 10 percent of the total population.

Between 1860 and 1920, immigrants' share of the population fluctuated between 13 percent and 15 percent, peaking at 14.8 percent in 1890 amid high levels of immigration from Europe. Restrictive immigration laws in 1921 and 1924 limited permanent immigration almost exclusively to those from Northern and Western Europe. Combined with the Great Depression and onset of World War II, this led to a sharp drop in new arrivals from the Eastern Hemisphere. The foreign-born share steadily declined, hitting a record low of 4.7 percent (or 9.6 million immigrants) in 1970 (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Size and Share of the Foreign-Born Population in the United States, 1850-2021
Sources: Migration Policy Institute (MPI) tabulation of data from U.S. Census Bureau, 2010-21 American Community Surveys (ACS), and 1970, 1990, and 2000 decennial census. All other data are from Campbell J. Gibson and Emily Lennon, "Historical Census Statistics on the Foreign-Born Population of the United States: 1850 to 1990" (Working Paper no. 29, U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, DC, 1999).

Since 1970, the share and number of immigrants had increased rapidly, mainly because of increased immigration from Latin America and Asia following important shifts in U.S. immigration law such as the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which abolished national-origin admission quotas, the creation of a formal refugee resettlement program with the Refugee Act of 1980, and the Cold War-era grant of preferential treatment to Cuban immigrants. Other factors were the United States' growing economic and military presence in Asia and Latin America, as well as economic and social ties with the United States' southern neighbors, and major economic transformations and political instability in countries around the world. It remains unclear whether the recent leveling off represents a change in the long-term trend or a temporary blip.
Where are most immigrants from originally?
Mexicans are the largest group of U.S. immigrants, comprising 24 percent of the total immigrant population in 2021, which is a decline from 30 percent in 2000. India and China (including Hong Kong and Macao but not Taiwan) were the next two largest sending countries, accounting for approximately 6 and 5 percent, respectively, of the overall foreign-born population. Other top countries of origin include the Philippines (4 percent); El Salvador, Vietnam, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic (each 3 percent); and Guatemala and Korea (each 2 percent).

Together, these ten countries accounted for 56 percent of all immigrants in the United States in 2021.
How do today's top countries of origin compare to those of the past?
The large numbers of immigrants from Latin America and Asia in recent decades represent a sharp turnaround from the mid-1900s, when immigration largely came from Europe. In the 1960s, no single country accounted for more than 15 percent of the U.S. immigrant population, but Italians were the top origin group, making up 13 percent of the foreign born in 1960, followed by Germans and Canadians (about 10 percent each).

Immigrants from Mexico have been the most numerous since 1980, but the composition of new arrivals has changed since 2010. Now, immigrants are more likely to come from Asia, especially India and China. In fact, these two nations displaced Mexico as the top origin countries for new arrivals from 2013 to 2021, but amid the pandemic and related mobility restrictions Mexico has regained its position as the origin of most new arrivals.

In terms of the total size, the immigrant population from India increased by 929,000 and from China/Hong Kong by 572,000 between 2010 and 2021. In contrast, the number of Mexican immigrants in the United States declined by more than 1 million during the same period, representing the largest absolute decline of all immigrant groups.

The number of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Guatemala, Honduras, Brazil, Nigeria, Colombia, the Philippines, and El Salvador has increased by at least 200,000 each since 2010. Among the groups numbering at least 100,000 in 2021, the Venezuelan immigrant population increased by the fastest rate between 2010 and 2021 (by 196 percent), followed by immigrants from Nepal (151 percent), Afghanistan (127 percent), Myanmar (also known as Burma, 111 percent), and Nigeria (102 percent). In comparison, the total foreign-born population grew by 13 percent between 2010 and 2021.
How long have current immigrants resided in the United States?
Forty-eight percent of all immigrants in the United States in 2021 arrived prior to 2000 (28 percent entered before 1990 and 20 percent between 1990 and 1999), 24 percent entered between 2000 and 2009, and 28 percent have come since 2010.
How many U.S. residents are from immigrant families?
Immigrants and their U.S.-born children number approximately 87.7 million people, or close to 27 percent of the U.S. population in the 2022 CPS, an increase of approximately 14.7 million (or 20 percent) from 2010.

Demographic, Educational, and Linguistic Characteristics
What is the median age for immigrants?
The immigrant population's median age in 2021 was 47 years, making it older than the U.S.-born population, which had a median age of 37 years. One reason for this difference is that immigrants arrive largely as adults, whereas immigrants' children born in the United States contribute to the younger median age of the native-born population.

Fewer than 1 percent of immigrants were under age 5 in 2021, compared to 6 percent of the U.S.-born population. Children and youth ages 5 to 17 accounted for 5 percent of immigrants and 18 percent of the U.S. born. People of working age (18 to 64 years) comprised 77 percent of the immigrant population, a much higher figure than the 59 percent of those born in the United States. Approximately 17 percent of both immigrants and the U.S. born were 65 years and older.
What is the sex ratio of the immigrant population?
About 51 percent of all U.S. immigrants were female in 2021, compared to 50 percent of the native born. The share has fluctuated slightly over the past four decades, but immigrant women and girls tend to be a slight majority over men and boys. They accounted for 53 percent of the immigrant population in 1980, 51 percent in 1990, 50 percent in 2000, and 51 percent in 2010.
What is the racial makeup of immigrants?
In 2021, 27 percent as Asian of immigrants reported their race as single-race Asian, 21 percent as White, 9 percent as Black, and 20 percent as some other race. About 22 percent reported having two or more races.
Note: These statistics reflect changes in how the Census Bureau asks about race that have been made since the 2020 decennial census. How many immigrants are Hispanic or Latino?
In 2021, 44 percent of U.S. immigrants (19.9 million people) reported having Hispanic or Latino ethnic origins.

Note: The Census Bureau classifies Hispanic and Latino as ethnic categories, separate from the racial categories listed above (see Definitions box for more information).
How many Hispanics in the United States are immigrants?
Most U.S. Hispanics are U.S. born. Of the 62.5 million people in 2021 who self-identified as Hispanic or Latino, 32 percent (19.9 million) were immigrants and 68 percent (42.6 million) were native born.
Which languages are most frequently spoken at home?
Regardless of nativity, in 2021 approximately 78 percent (245.5 million) of all 313.2 million U.S. residents ages 5 and older reported speaking only English at home. The remaining 22 percent (67.8 million) reported speaking a language other than English at home.

Among those who reported speaking a language other than English at home, 61 percent spoke Spanish. Other top languages were Chinese (including Mandarin and Cantonese, 5 percent); Tagalog (almost 3 percent); and Vietnamese, Arabic, French (including Cajun), and Korean (about 2 percent each) (see Table 1).
Table 1. Top Languages Spoken at Home Other than English (ages 5 and older), 2021
Note: Table shows languages with at least 500,000 speakers.
Source: MPI tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau 2021 ACS.

Not including English, Spanish was the most common language spoken at home in all but three states: Hawaii (Ilocano) and Maine and Vermont (French). Not including English or Spanish, Chinese, German, French and Vietnamese were among the commonly spoken languages (see Figure 2).
Figure 2. Map of Most Commonly Spoken Languages other than English and Spanish by State, 2021
Notes: Chinese includes Mandarin and Cantonese; Dakota+ includes Dakota, Lakota, Nakota, and Sioux; French includes Cajun; German includes Pennsylvania Dutch and Swiss; and Tagalog includes Filipino.
Sources: MPI analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau 2021 ACS for the United States.
How many immigrants are Limited English Proficient (LEP)?
In 2021, approximately 46 percent (20.8 million) of the 45 million immigrants ages 5 and older were Limited English Proficient (LEP). Immigrants accounted for 80 percent of the country's 25.9 million LEP individuals.

Note: The term "Limited English Proficient" refers to persons ages 5 and older who indicated on the ACS questionnaire that they spoke English less than "very well."

What share of the immigrant population has a college education?

In 2021, 34 percent (13.6 million) of the 40.2 million immigrants ages 25 and older had a bachelor's degree or higher, a rate similar to that of U.S.-born adults (see Figure 3). However, newer arrivals tend to be better educated; 47 percent of immigrants who entered the country between 2017 and 2021 held at least a bachelor's degree.
Figure 3. Educational Attainment of U.S.-Born, Immigrant, and Recently Arrived Immigrant Adults, 2021
Note: Data are for adults ages 25 and older. Recently arrived immigrants are those who entered the United States between 2017 and 2021.
Source: MPI tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau 2021 ACS.

Educational attainment levels vary by immigrants' countries of origin. Approximately 80 percent of immigrant adults from India had a bachelor's degree or more in 2021, more than any other origin country. Other top countries were the United Arab Emirates (78 percent), Saudi Arabia (77 percent), Taiwan (73 percent), Bulgaria, France, and Singapore (67 percent each). Among immigrants who arrived between 2017 and 2021, the share who were college graduates was the highest among Indians (86 percent), followed by those from France, Taiwan, and Spain (between 81 percent and 82 percent). The college-educated share is also high among Venezuelans, who represent the fastest growing U.S. immigrant group. Fifty-seven percent of all Venezuelan immigrant adults and 62 percent of recent arrivals have at least a bachelor's degree.

Immigrant Destinations
Which U.S. states have the largest numbers of immigrants?
The U.S. states with the most immigrants in 2021 were California (10.5 million), Texas (5.1 million), Florida (4.6 million), New York (4.4 million), and New Jersey (2.1 million).

As a percentage of the total population, immigrants made up the largest shares in California (27 percent), New Jersey (23 percent), New York (22 percent), Florida (21 percent), Hawaii (19 percent), and Nevada (18 percent).

For more information on the top states of residence for the foreign born over time, see the interactive tool Immigrant Population by State, 1990-Present.

Want to know where immigrants from a particular region or country of origin settled in the United States? The Migration Data Hub's interactive maps show top immigrant concentrations at state and county or metropolitan-area levels.

Which states have experienced the fastest growth of their immigrant populations?
Traditional immigrant destinations have the largest absolute number of new immigrants, but other states have seen much larger relative growth in their immigrant populations. In some cases, this is because the states' initial foreign-born populations were quite small, so a relatively small absolute increase has translated into high-percent growth (see Table 2). For instance, more immigrants moved to Florida between 2010 and 2021 than any other state (951,000), but the size of the immigrant population in North Dakota grew by the largest relative share (103 percent).
Table 2. Top States by Absolute and Percent Growth in Immigrant Population, 2010-21
Source: MPI tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau 2010 and 2021 American Community Surveys (ACS).

Immigrants in the Labor Force
How many immigrants are in the U.S. civilian labor force?
Immigrants constituted 17 percent (28.6 million people) of the civilian labor force (166.9 million) in 2021, which comprises both employed and unemployed people. Immigrants' share of the labor force has more than tripled since 1970, when they accounted for approximately 5 percent of the civilian labor force.
What types of jobs do immigrants perform?
Of the 26.8 million employed foreign-born workers ages 16 and older in 2021, the largest share (37 percent) worked in management, professional, and related occupations (see Figure 4).
Figure 4. Employed Workers in the U.S. Civilian Labor Force (ages 16 and older), by Nativity and Occupation, 2021
Note: Numbers may not add up to 100 as they are rounded to the nearest whole number.
Source: MPI tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau 2021 ACS.

Income and Poverty

Immigrants tend to have very similar incomes to the native born. Immigrant households in 2021 had a median income of $69,622, compared to $69,734 for native-born households.

Fourteen percent of immigrants were poor (that is, with family incomes below the official poverty threshold of $27,500 for a family of four with two children in 2021), compared to 13 percent of the U.S. born.

Health Insurance Coverage
What share of immigrants have health insurance?
Approximately 57 percent of immigrants had private health insurance in 2021 (compared to 69 percent of the U.S. born), and 32 percent had public health insurance coverage (compared to 38 percent of the U.S. born). Meanwhile, 19 percent lacked health insurance (compared to 7 percent of the U.S. born).

Since implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2014, health insurance coverage rates have improved for the U.S. population as a whole. In 2013, 32 percent of immigrants were uninsured (compared to 12 percent for the native born), a number that fell to 20 percent in 2017 (and 7 percent for the native born). The Trump administration made multiple changes to ACA policies, including eliminating the individual coverage mandate penalty, ending cost-sharing subsidies to insurers, and cutting funding for navigator programs. The rates of those uninsured have since remained mostly level.

Note: Health insurance coverage is calculated only for the civilian, noninstitutionalized population. Since some people may simultaneously hold both private and public health insurance coverage, estimates of those with public health insurance and those with public coverage may overlap. The sum of these rates therefore may be greater than the total share of people with health insurance.

Children of Immigrants
How many U.S. children live with immigrant parents?
Approximately 18 million U.S. children under age 18 lived with at least one immigrant parent in 2021. They accounted for 26 percent of the 69.7 million children under age 18 in the United States, up from 19 percent in 2000 and 13 percent in 1990.

Most of these children are native born. Second-generation immigrant children born in the United States to at least one foreign-born parent accounted for 88 percent (15.8 million) of all children with immigrant parents. The remaining 12 percent (2.2 million) were born outside the United States.
Note: The data here include only children between ages 0 and 17 (regardless of nativity) who reside with at least one parent. This means that the number of children shown here is smaller than the overall number of U.S. children under 18. Since 2013, the U.S. Census Bureau includes children of same-sex married couples in its count of children in families and subfamilies. How has the number of children in immigrant families changed over time?
Between 2010 and 2021, the number of children ages 17 and under with immigrant parents grew by 6 percent, from 17 million to 18 million. This was a significantly smaller rate of growth than during the era from 2000-2010, when the number grew by 30 percent, from 13.1 million.

This growth has been driven by the steadily increasing number of U.S.-born children born with immigrant parents. Their numbers increased by 9 percent between 2010 and 2021, from 14.6 million up to 15.8 million. This followed rapid growth of 40 percent between 2000-when their population was 10.4 million-to 2010.

Meanwhile, the population of first-generation immigrant children has declined over the last 20 years. It dropped by 8 percent between 2010 and 2021, from 2.4 million to 2.2 million, after a 12 percent decline from 2000 to 2010, at the start of which there were 2.7 million first-generation immigrant children.
How many children living with immigrant parents are in low-income families?
Regardless of nativity, 25.1 million children under 18 lived in families with incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty threshold in 2021 (amounting to $55,000 for a family of four with two children). Of them, 7.7 million (or 31 percent) had one or more foreign-born parent.

Of the 18 million children of immigrants, 43 percent were in low-income families, a higher rate than for children of U.S.-born parents (34 percent of the 51.6 million).
In which states do most children in immigrant families live?
In terms of absolute numbers, the top states for children under age 18 living with immigrant parents in 2021 were California (3.8 million), Texas (2.4 million), New York and Florida (1.4 million each), and New Jersey (803,000). These states accounted for 55 percent of the 18 million U.S. children with immigrant parents.

In terms of the share of children who had immigrant parents, the top states in 2021 were California (where 46 percent of all children had immigrant parents), New Jersey (41 percent), New York (37 percent), and Florida and Nevada (35 percent each).
Which states have experienced the fastest growth of the number of children in immigrant families?
Traditional immigrant destinations such as Florida and Texas experienced the largest absolute growth in the number of children with immigrant parents between 2010 and 2021, but other states have seen much larger relative growth (see Table 3). In states such as North Dakota, the initial number of children with immigrant parents was quite small, so relatively small absolute increases have translated into high-percent growth.
Table 3. Top U.S. States by Absolute and Percent Growth in Children with Immigrant Parents, 2010-21
Source: MPI tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau 2010 and 2021 ACS.
How many immigrants obtain lawful permanent residence (also known as getting a green card)?
Permanent Immigration

In fiscal year (FY) 2021, 740,000 immigrants became lawful permanent residents (LPRs, also known as green-card holders). This was a 5 percent increase over the 707,000 new green cards issued in FY 2020, which covered the end of the Trump administration and the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic and marked the lowest number since 2003 and the first time the figure dropped below 1 million since 2013, when 991,000 people obtained green cards. The number of new LPRs in FY 2021 represented a decrease of 444,000 (37 percent) from the recent high of almost 1.2 million in FY 2016.

Much of the recent decline in new LPRs is due to the fewer granted to individuals living outside the country, as result of processing and other delays during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the past decade, immigrants obtaining LPR status have been about evenly divided between those already living in the United States who are adjusting their status and those applying from abroad. But in FY 2021, the 227,000 new green cards issued to applicants abroad represented just 31 percent of the total, and an almost 50 percent decline from the nearly 454,000 issued in FY 2019. The overwhelming majority of these new arrivals (83 percent) were immediate family members of U.S. citizens and LPRs.
Under which categories are permanent immigrants admitted?
Meanwhile, approximately 69 percent (513,000) of the 740,000 new LPRs in FY 2021 received green cards from within the United States. Most of these new permanent residents were spouses, children, and parents of U.S. citizens and LPRs, followed by people who obtained their green cards through employment or after initially entering the country as refugees and asylees.

There are four main pathways to obtain a green card: through a family relationship, employment sponsorship, humanitarian protection (for refugees and asylees), and the Diversity Visa (DV) lottery (also known as the green-card lottery). Some categories within these pathways are capped at the number of new green cards that can be issued each year.
What are the most common countries of origin for new permanent immigrants?
Of the 740,000 immigrants receiving green cards in FY 2021, 52 percent were immediate relatives of U.S. citizens (an uncapped visa category), followed by 9 percent who were family-related immigrants (whose admission is limited by visa and country caps). About 26 percent of new LPRs were sponsored by their employers or self-petitioned, including investors who create jobs, a jump from 21 percent of new LPRs in FY 2020 and 14 percent in FY 2019. Meanwhile, 8 percent adjusted from refugee or asylee status and approximately 2 percent were diversity lottery winners.
How many people are selected in the Diversity Visa (DV) lottery and where do they come from?
The top six countries of birth for new LPRs in FY 2021 were Mexico (14 percent), India (13 percent), mainland China (7 percent), the Philippines (4 percent), and the Dominican Republic and Cuba (3 percent apiece). Together, these countries represented about 44 percent of all new green-card recipients in FY 2021.

The Diversity Visa lottery is available to individuals from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. Created in 1990, the lottery sets aside 55,000 green cards annually, of which 5,000 must be used for applicants under the Nicaraguan and Central America Relief Act of 1997.

Interest in the lottery is significantly higher than the amount of available visas; about 6.7 million qualified applications were filed for the DV-2021, covering 11.8 million applicants plus their spouses and minor children. This number was down from 14.7 million applications in DV-2020 and 14.4 million in DV-2019. (The number of applications varies each year in part because the list of eligible countries is modified annually.) Before receiving permission to immigrate, lottery winners must provide proof of a high school education or its equivalent or show two years of work experience within the past five years in an occupation that requires at least two years of training or experience. They also must pass a medical exam and a background check.

In FY 2021, 15,000 people received a green card as diversity immigrants, representing approximately 2 percent of the 740,000 new LPRs. The two leading countries of birth of DV recipients were Nepal and Ukraine, together accounting for about 13 percent of the 15,000 DV recipients in FY 2021. Other top countries of origin were Morocco and Algeria (5 percent each), followed by Albania, Cameroon, Venezuela, and Turkey (4 percent each).

For some countries, the Diversity Visa lottery represents a major share of all new LPRs. For example, 40 percent of all nationals of Fiji and 38 percent of those from Algeria who obtained LPR status in FY 2021 did so through the green-card lottery. Shares were also high for nationals of Tajikistan (31 percent), Djibouti (27 percent), and Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, and Albania (26 percent).

Read the most recent State Department Visa Bulletin for more on the DV lottery.
How many nonimmigrant visas does the State Department issue each year?
Temporary Visas

The 6.8 million nonimmigrant visas issued by the State Department in FY 2022-which include tourists and other short-term visitors-represented a non-surprising, post-pandemic rapid increase of 144 percent from the 2.8 million issued in FY 2021, the lowest number since 1996.

Sixty-six percent of nonimmigrant visas issued in FY 2022 were temporary business and tourist visas (B and BCC visas). The next largest visa class was for academic students and exchange visitors and their family members (F and J visa categories) and temporary workers and trainees and their family members (H visa categories), which each comprised about 11 percent.

The COVID-19 pandemic and Trump administration's travel ban were some of the reasons for the sharp decline in nonimmigrant visa issuances in FY 2021. In FY 2022, the State Department began to issue visas at a rate surpassing pre-COVID levels in categories for students as well as temporary workers, trainees, and their family members. For these nonimmigrant visas (temporary workers, research scholars, short-term scholars, and specialists included), the State Department has waived the interview requirement in an attempt to reduce wait times to enter the country.
How many temporary employment-based visas does the State Department issue each year?
Note: The number of visas issued does not necessarily match the number of foreign nationals who entered the United States that year because some nonimmigrant visas may not be used.
Note: Temporary workers and trainees include workers in specialty occupations (H-1B visa), seasonal agricultural workers (H-2A), seasonal nonagricultural workers (H-2B), workers with extraordinary ability or achievements (O-1 and O-2), athletes and artists (P-1, P-2, and P-3), intracompany transferees (L-1), treaty traders and investors (E-1, E-2, and E-3), people working for employers in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and their immediate families (CW-1 and CW-2), representatives of foreign information media (I-1), workers in international cultural exchange programs (Q-1), workers in religious occupations (R-1), and TN visas reserved for Canadian and Mexican professionals, as well as their spouses and minor children. How many nonimmigrant admissions does DHS grant each year?
Roughly 1 million foreign nationals (along with their immediate family members) receive employment-based temporary visas each year. In FY 2022, the Department of State issued a total of 1.1 million such visas in multiple categories, up from 965,000 in FY 2019. Among these were approximately 298,000 H-2A seasonal agriculture workers visas, 208,000 H-1B specialty occupation worker visas, 125,000 H-2B seasonal nonagricultural worker, and 73,000 L-1 intracompany transferee visas.

Foreign nationals were admitted into the United States for nonimmigrant purposes 35.3 million times in FY 2021-a 59 percent decrease from the 86.1 million in FY 2020 and an 81 percent decrease from the 186.2 million in FY 2019. Of the 35.3 million admissions, 21.7 million were admissions of Canadians and Mexicans traveling for business or pleasure, who are exempt from completing the I-94 arrival/departure form at the port of entry; DHS does not provide characteristics for this group.

The remaining 13.6 million temporary admissions of nonimmigrants who filled out the I-94 form were 63 percent fewer than the 37.2 million admissions a year earlier and 83 percent fewer than the 81.6 million in 2019.
Table 4. Nonimmigrant Admissions by Category, FY 2021 (I-94 only)
Most of the I-94 admissions in FY 2021 were those of tourists (66 percent) or temporary workers and their families (14 percent), followed by business travelers (10 percent; see Table 4).

Notes: Nonimmigrant admissions represent the number of entries. Individuals may have multiple entries within the year. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Immigration Statistics only reports characteristics of nonimmigrants who must complete an I-94 arrival/departure form at entry.
Source: MPI tabulation of data from DHS, 2021 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics (Washington, DC: DHS Office of Immigration Statistics, 2022), available online.

These data are for the number of times people were admitted into the country-not the number of individuals who were admitted (in other words, a single individual can be admitted multiple times in a year). Often, temporary visitors stay in the United States for only a short period, such as for the duration of their vacation or business trip.
Note: Nonimmigrant admissions represent the number of entries. Individuals may have multiple entries within the year. How many U.S. residents have temporary visas?
Only once has the DHS Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS) estimated the number of individuals who came temporarily, in FY 2016. For that year, DHS estimated that 42.7 million individuals entered as I-94 nonimmigrants on various temporary visas, each of whom was admitted 1.8 times on average. Of these nonimmigrants, 34.2 million entered as tourists and 3.7 million entered as business visitors; 15 million tourists and 1.7 million business travelers were from Visa Waiver Program countries, meaning they did not need a visa to enter the United States. An additional 1 million international students entered on F-1 visas. OIS additionally estimated that about 290,000 individuals were admitted on high-skilled worker H-1B visas (mostly from India, China, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Mexico) and nearly 82,00 on nonagricultural temporary or seasonal worker H-2B visas (mostly from Mexico, Jamaica, Guatemala, South Africa, and Canada).

Approximately 3.2 million foreign nationals on various temporary visas resided in the United States during FY 2019, according to the most recent available data from DHS, up from about 2.8 million in FY 2018. About half (1.6 million) were temporary workers and their families, followed by 35 percent who were foreign students and their families (1.1 million).

Sixty percent of temporary-visa holders residing in the United States were from Asia, 17 percent were from elsewhere in North America, and 14 percent were from Europe. The top countries of origin were India (27 percent), China (14 percent), Mexico (9 percent), Canada (6 percent), and South Korea (3 percent). Together, these five countries accounted for approximately 60 percent of all foreign-born U.S. residents on temporary visas.

Note: The population of residents holding temporary visas includes temporary workers, international students, exchange visitors, diplomats, and representatives of foreign governments and international organizations. It excludes tourists and other short-term visitors. North America includes Bermuda, Canada, the Caribbean, and Central America.
How many refugees enter the United States each year, and where were they from?
Refugees and Asylum Seekers

Every year, the president in consultation with Congress sets the annual refugee admissions ceiling and allocations by region of origin. The Biden administration set the ceiling at 125,000 each for FY 2022 and FY 2023, an increase from the revised FY 2021 limit of 62,500 (the Trump administration had originally set the FY 2021 ceiling at 15,000, but the Biden administration modified it after entering office). The lowest limit since the resettlement program was formally created in 1980 was set by the Trump administration for FY 2020, at 18,000.

This number is a ceiling, and the number of resettled refugees does not always reach this limit. Due to the reduced capacity of the resettlement program and COVID-19-related logistic challenges, slightly fewer than 25,500 refugees were resettled in the United States in FY 2022, amounting to 20 percent of the 125,000 allocated spaces for the year. For the first five months of FY 2023 (October 2022 through February 2023), 12,300 refugees arrived in the United States, which is 10 percent of the number of available spaces.
Table 5. Top Countries of Refugee Admissions by Nationality, FY 2022
In FY 2022, refugees' primary countries of nationality were the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, Myanmar, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Ukraine. Combined, the nearly 19,400 refugees from these countries accounted for 76 percent of all refugees resettled that year. Another 2,600 refugees were resettled from Guatemala, El Salvador, Moldova, and Iraq. Together, nationals of these ten countries comprised 87 percent (more than 22,000) of all refugee arrivals in FY 2022 (see Table 5).
What is the sex ratio and median age of the admitted refugee population?
Source: MPI tabulation of Worldwide Refugee Admissions Processing System (WRAPS) data from the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, available online.
What are the most common religions of admitted refugees?
About 49 percent of refugees admitted into the United States in FY 2021 were female. The median age of all FY 2021 arrivals was 22 years old.

Refugees who identified as Christian made up 57 percent of all admitted refugees in FY 2022. Muslim refugees comprised 39 percent of admitted refugees. The remainder included Buddhists (2 percent), Hindus and Jews (less than 0.2 percent combined), and those who reported no religious affiliation or being atheists (about 2 percent).
Note: Refugee demographic data is based on self-identification, so religious breakdowns include major religions as well as denominations. What are the most common languages spoken by refugees?
Overall, the largest share of refugees admitted to the United States have been Christians. Between FY 2010 and FY 2022, Christians represented 48 percent (307,800) of the 637,800 refugees, compared to 34 percent (214,400) who were Muslim. FY 2016 marked the only year since 2010 when the United States resettled more Muslim refugees (38,900 individuals, or 46 percent of the total 85,000 refugees resettled that year) than Christians (37,500 individuals, or 44 percent of the total).
How many asylum applications are filed each year?
In FY 2020, the top languages spoken by refugees were Ukrainian, Russian, Arabic, and Kiswahili. Rounding out the top ten were Spanish, Kinyarwanda, Sgaw Karen, Kibembe, Tigrinya, and Dari. Speakers of these ten languages made up 71 percent of all refugees resettled that year.

In FY 2022, nearly 198,000 affirmative applications were filed with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), representing a 224 percent increase from FY 2021 and the highest number of affirmative applications filed since FY 2017.
What is the asylum approval rate?
Meanwhile, 226,000 defensive asylum applications were filed with the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) in FY 2022. This was the most on record and marks a significant increase from FY 2021, when 65,000 applications were filed.
What is the current asylum application backlog?
The approval rate in FY 2022 for asylum applications filed with USCIS was 34 percent, an increase from 28 percent in FY 2021. Approval rates from applications filed through EOIR also increased, to 47 percent in FY 2022 up from 34 percent in FY 2021.
How many people receive asylum status?
Due to the large application volume and limited resources, both the affirmative and defensive asylum systems have extensive backlogs. Based on USCIS data, the backlog in September 2022 was 605,000 cases, up from nearly 413,000 at the end of FY 2021. In FY 2022, the total backlog for EOIR (including affirmative and defensive claims) was 703,000, down from 714,000 in FY 2021.

In FY 2021, 17,700 individuals were granted asylum after seeking protection upon or after arrival in the United States, including principal applicants, their spouses, and unmarried children under age 21. This represented a 43 percent decrease from the almost 31,000 grants in FY 2020 and a 61 drop from the 46,000 people granted asylum in FY 2019. In FY 2021, an additional 2,150 individuals received derivative asylum status in the United States as immediate family members of principal applicants and 2,170 were approved for derivative status outside the United States. (Note that this number reflects travel documents issued to these family members, not their arrival in the United States.)
Where are most asylum seekers from?
Fifty-eight percent of asylum grants came affirmatively through USCIS (rather than defensively through the immigration courts), of which there were 10,300 in FY 2021, down 37 percent from 16,400 in FY 2020 and 62 percent from 27,000 in FY 2019, the highest since FY 2003.

Venezuela was the top country of origin for those receiving asylum in FY 2021, with 2,100 people (or 12 percent of total asylum grants), followed closely by China, with close to 2,000 individuals (11 percent). Other top countries of origin were El Salvador (with 1,500 individuals), Guatemala (1,300), and Turkey (1,100). Together, nationals of these five countries made up 45 percent of those receiving asylum in FY 2021.
How many unauthorized immigrants are in the United States?
Unauthorized Immigrants
Figure 5. Citizenship and Legal Status of the U.S. Foreign-Born Population, 2019
The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) estimates there were about 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States in 2019, accounting for 23 percent of the U.S. immigrant population. The unauthorized population was largely stable in size from 2007 to 2019. While more recent data are yet not available, the population has likely increased since 2019, due to the large number of border arrivals in recent years.

Notes: DACA is Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and TPS is Temporary Protected Status.
Sources: These 2019 data result from MPI analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2015-19 American Community Survey (ACS), pooled, and the 2008 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), weighted to 2019 unauthorized immigrant population estimates provided by Jennifer Van Hook. Data on DACA recipients are from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), "Approximate Active DACA Recipients: As of June 30, 2019," accessed December 8, 2021, available online. Data on TPS beneficiaries are from Jill H. Wilson, Temporary Protected Status: Overview and Current Issues (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2018), available online. Data on asylum seekers are from USCIS, "Form I-765 Application for Employment Authorization, All Receipts, Approvals, Denials Grouped by Eligibility Category and Filing Type," accessed December 8, 2021, available online.
What are unauthorized immigrants' countries of birth?
Almost half of the 11 million unauthorized immigrants resided in three states as of 2019: California (25 percent), Texas (16 percent), and New York (8 percent). The vast majority (81 percent) lived in 176 counties with 10,000 or more unauthorized immigrants each, of which the top five-Los Angeles County, California; Harris County, Texas; Dallas County, Texas; Cook County, Illinois; and Orange County, California-accounted for 20 percent of all unauthorized immigrants.

Mexicans and Central Americans accounted for roughly two-thirds (67 percent, or 7.4 million) of U.S. unauthorized immigrants in 2019, according to MPI estimates. About 1.7 million (15 percent) were from Asia; 907,000 (8 percent) from South America; 440,000 (4 percent) from Europe, Canada, or Oceania; 327,000 (3 percent) from the Caribbean; and 295,000 (3 percent) from Africa.
How many unauthorized immigrants live with children under age 18?
Unauthorized immigrants' top countries of birth were Mexico (48 percent), El Salvador and Guatemala (7 percent each), India (5 percent), and Honduras (4 percent).
How many children under age 18 live with at least one unauthorized immigrant parent?
About 4.3 million unauthorized immigrants (41 percent of all unauthorized immigrants ages 15 and older) lived with one or more children under age 18 in 2019, MPI estimates. Of this group, about 81 percent (3.5 million) resided with at least one U.S.-citizen child under age 18, and 19 percent (806,000) lived with one or more children who were not U.S. citizens.
How many people are eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program under original rules and how many applications have been received since its launch in 2012?
Approximately 5.5 million children under age 18 lived with an unauthorized immigrant parent as of 2019, representing 7 percent of the U.S. child population. About 86 percent (4.7 million) of these children were U.S. citizens, 13 percent (726,000) were themselves unauthorized, and 1 percent (61,000) were legally present, including LPRs and those with temporary visas.

The DACA program, announced in 2012, offers two years of deportation relief and work authorization to eligible young unauthorized immigrants. To be eligible, one must be at least 15 years old; have entered the United States before age 16; have continuously resided in the United States since June 15, 2007; be enrolled in school, have earned a high school diploma or its equivalent, or be an honorably discharged veteran; and have not been convicted of a felony, a significant misdemeanor, or three or more misdemeanors; or otherwise pose a threat to public safety or national security.

The Trump administration attempted to terminate DACA in 2017, but after multiple court challenges the program has remained alive, albeit closed to new entrants. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2020 that rescinding DACA violated federal law, and USCIS briefly began accepting new applications. The Biden administration attempted to revive and expand the program, but ongoing court challenges mean that as of this writing DHS is prohibited from granting DACA requests and accompanying requests for employment authorization made by new applicants.

MPI estimates that as of December 2022, 1.5 million individuals were eligible for DACA under its original rules, 1.2 million of whom were immediately eligible under the program's age and educational requirements (the rest were eligible aside from the education requirements or were too young but estimated to be eligible once they reached age 15).

Between August 15, 2012 (when the government began accepting applications) and September 30, 2022, nearly 835,100 applicants were approved, suggesting this is the maximum number of people who have ever held DACA status during the life of the program. USCIS granted 82 percent of the 1 million accepted initial applications; 8 percent (83,600) were denied, and 94,700 remained pending.
How many people currently have DACA status?
Among the 1 million accepted initial applications since the program's inception (as of September 30, 2022), individuals' top states of residence are California (28 percent), Texas (17 percent), Illinois and New York (5 percent each), and Florida (4 percent). The top five countries of origin of accepted applicants are Mexico (79 percent), El Salvador (4 percent), Guatemala (3 percent), Honduras (2 percent), and South Korea (1 percent).

USCIS reports that 589,660 individuals had active DACA status as of September 30, 2022.

The top states of residence for active DACA participants were California (29 percent), Texas (16 percent), and Illinois (5 percent), followed by New York, Florida, North Carolina, and Arizona (about 4 percent each).
How many people are covered by Temporary Protected Status?
Active DACA program participants' top countries of origin of were Mexico (81 percent), El Salvador (4 percent), Guatemala (3 percent), Honduras (2 percent), and Peru, South Korea, Brazil, Ecuador, and Colombia (about 1 percent each).

Since the Immigration Act of 1990, the United States has occasionally granted a form of humanitarian relief called Temporary Protected Status (TPS) when the origin countries of foreign nationals in the United States experience natural disasters, armed conflicts, or other circumstances making return unsafe. TPS offers work authorization and protection from deportation for periods of six months to 18 months. El Salvador was the first country to be designated for TPS in 1990, to protect Salvadorans who had fled its civil war. Since then, more than 20 countries have been designated for TPS.

In 2021, the Biden administration added Myanmar and Venezuela to the list of eligible countries and expanded eligibility for those from Haiti. Certain Liberians and residents of Hong Kong were designated for Deferred Enforced Departure, a similar status offering temporary protection from deportation and work authorization. In 2022, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, and Ukraine were also added to the list of TPS countries, and eligibility for those from South Sudan and Sudan was expanded. In January 2023, DHS extended and redesignated TPS for eligible nationals of Somalia for an additional 18 months.

Collectively, nearly 537,000 individuals in the United States had TPS as of November 2022. Sixteen countries are currently designated: Afghanistan, Cameroon, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela, and Yemen.
How many times are unauthorized immigrants stopped at the border each year?
Immigration Enforcement

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported nearly 2.8 million combined enforcement encounters at the southern and northern borders in FY 2022, a major increase from 2 million in FY 2021 and 647,000 in FY 2020, when the pandemic suppressed movement around the world.

The vast majority of these FY 2022 encounters (2.4 million) were at the U.S.-Mexico border. This is the highest number of encounters on record, beating the previous high of 1.6 million in FY 2000. Enforcement encounters at the Southwest border increased significantly starting in March 2021. Motivations for migrants seeking protection in the United States vary, but overall the rapid increase in arrivals reflects uneven economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; crises in the Americas, including major displacement from Cuba Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, as well as ongoing violence in Central America; political persecution and other factors driving emigration from China, India, Russia, and Turkey; the change in U.S. presidential administrations and perception of a unique window of opportunity; ever more sophisticated smuggling networks; and other factors.
How many families and unaccompanied children have been detained at the U.S.-Mexico border?
Notably, data on encounters refer to individual actions, not the number of people who attempted to cross the border without authorization. The Title 42 order to immediately expel migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic, which remains in place at least until mid-May 2023, has changed the consequences for individuals crossing the border, and many have responded by repeating attempts on multiple occasions, contributing to higher numbers of encounters.

In FY 2022, authorities recorded 561,000 encounters of family units (children and adults travelling as families) at the border, up from 480,000 in FY 2021. There were also 152,000 encounters of unaccompanied minors at the border in FY 2022, up from 147,000 the previous year.
Note: The term "family unit" refers to individuals-either a child under 18 years old, parent, or legal guardian-apprehended with a family member by the U.S. Border Patrol. How many people are arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) within the United States each year?
Family units made up 24 percent of encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in FY 2022, unaccompanied minors comprised 6 percent, and single adults accounted for 70 percent) of all encounters. In FY 2022 the largest number of family units came from Honduras, while the plurality of unaccompanied minors were from Guatemala.
How many people are deported per year?
ICE made 142,800 administrative arrests in FY 2022, up from 74,100 the year before. The increase in administrative arrests was largely in the "other immigration violation" category, which ICE attributes to the increase in Southwest border apprehensions and the ICE's assistance to CBP in processing those arrivals.
Note: Removals and returns, which are carried out both by ICE and CBP, result in the confirmed movement of inadmissible or deportable aliens out of the United States. Title 42 expulsions carried out at the border are not included in these numbers.
In FY 2022 ICE conducted nearly 72,200 removals and 117,200 Title 42 expulsions.
How many immigrants are naturalized citizens?
Naturalization Trends

More than 24 million immigrants were naturalized U.S. citizens in 2021, accounting for approximately 53 percent of all 45.3 million immigrants and 7 percent of the total U.S. population (331.9 million).
How many immigrants become U.S. citizens annually?
Of these naturalized citizens, 37 percent were naturalized between 2010 and 2021, 27 percent between 2000 and 2009, and 36 percent prior to 2000.

USCIS naturalized about 814,0000 green-card holders in FY 2021, a 30 percent increase from the 628,000 people who became citizens in FY 2020. There were 789,100 petitions for naturalization filed in FY 2021, a decrease of 18 percent from a year earlier (968,000). At the same time, the number of denied petitions decreased by 6 percent, from 80,600 in FY 2020 to 85,200 in FY 2021.

The amount of time USCIS takes to process naturalization applications increased from an average of 5.6 months in FY 2016 to 11.5 months in FY 2021, but has since declined to 6.7 months as of the end of January 2023.

From a historical perspective, the number of annual naturalizations has increased dramatically in recent decades. On average, fewer than 120,000 LPRs became citizens each year between FY 1950 and FY 1969, 150,000 in the 1970s, 210,000 in the 1980s, 500,000 in the 1990s, 680,000 during the 2000s, and 721,000 between 2010 and 2020.
How many foreign nationals become U.S. citizens through military naturalization?
Naturalizations reached an all-time high in FY 2008, increasing 59 percent from 660,000 the prior year to 1,047,000. This came as a result of impending application fee increases and the promotion of U.S. citizenship in advance of the 2008 presidential election.
Where are newly naturalized citizens from?
In FY 2021, about 4,500 foreign-born military personnel became U.S. citizens, a 72 percent increase from FY 2020 (2,600) and roughly on par with FY 2018 (4,500).
Table 6. Top Countries of Origin of Newly Naturalized Citizens, FY 2021
Of the new U.S. citizens in FY 2021, 14 percent were born in Mexico, 7 percent in India, and 6 percent each in the Philippines and Cuba (see Table 6). Immigrants from these four countries, together with those from China, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Jamaica, El Salvador, and Colombia accounted for 50 percent of the 814,000 immigrants who naturalized that year.
Where in the United States do newly naturalized citizens live?
Source: DHS Office of Immigration Statistics, 2021 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics.

Nearly 60 percent of people naturalized as U.S. citizens in FY 2021 lived in one of five states: California (21 percent, or 171,900 individuals); Florida (13 percent, or 109,200); New York (11 percent, or 90,000); Texas (9 percent, or 77,000); and New Jersey (5 percent, or 40,000).
How many green-card holders are eligible to naturalize?
The top metropolitan areas with the largest number of new naturalizations were the greater New York (116,200), Los Angeles (80,700), Miami (68,900), Washington, DC (30,100), and Dallas (26,200) metropolitan areas. These five metro areas were the home to 40 percent of all newly naturalized citizens in FY 2021.

According to the latest available DHS estimates, about 9.2 million of the 12.9 million green-card holders residing in the United States on January 1, 2022 were eligible to become naturalized citizens based on how long they had held LPR status. The top five nationalities of LPRs eligible to naturalize were Mexico (2.5 million), China (490,000), the Philippines (360,000), Cuba (340,000), and the Dominican Republic (330,000).
How long does it take on average for green-card holders to naturalize?

See the USCIS dashboard on LPRs eligible to naturalize by country of birth, state, or metropolitan area.

On average, immigrants who became U.S. citizens in FY 2021 had previously held green cards for about seven years, the same length of time as those being naturalized in FY 2020 and a decrease from an average of eight years the three previous years. The time varied by region of origin: immigrants born in Africa spent an average of six years in LPR status before naturalization; those born in Asia, the Caribbean, and South America spent an average of seven years in that status; Europeans spent an average of eight years, new citizens from Oceania spent an average of nine years; and those from Central America spent ten years with a green card.
At what rate do immigrants naturalize?
In general, the requirements for naturalization are being at least 18 years of age, passing English and civic exams, residing in the United States with LPR status continuously for at least five years (three years for those married to a U.S. citizen).

The number of green-card holders who naturalize every year depends on many factors, including the number of people who are eligible, application processing times, and stringency and length of background checks. This number can also be affected by barriers to naturalize, such as high application fees, as well as personal motivations. For instance, green-card holders from mainland China may be less inclined to become U.S. citizens because China prohibits dual citizenship, whereas immigrants from countries that allow dual citizenship may have greater incentive.

The share of green-card holders who naturalize within a certain time period, such as within ten years of receiving a green card, varies by country and region of birth and class of admission. This is known as a naturalization rate.

Overall, 53 percent of the immigrant cohort who became LPRs in FY 2008 naturalized by FY 2018, the most recent year for which data are available. A ten-year naturalization rate was the highest for those born in Africa (76 percent) and South America (64 percent) and the lowest for LPRs from North America, including Mexico and Canada (27 percent). The ten-year naturalization rate was nearly 70 percent for Indian-born green-card holders, 60 percent for those from the Philippines, 52 percent for Cubans, 44 percent for LPRs from China, and 27 percent for Mexicans.

In terms of classes of admission, approximately 68 percent of humanitarian migrants and employment-based green-card holders who became LPRs in FY 2008 had become naturalized citizens by FY 2018. Ten-year naturalization rates were lower for those who were immediate relatives of U.S. citizens or other family members of U.S. citizens and LPRs (about 47 percent each).
How many visa applications for permanent immigration (green cards) are backlogged?
Visa Backlogs

Because of limits on certain visa categories and per-country caps, the U.S. government in some cases is still processing applications that are more than two decades old. In March 2023, the State Department was processing some family-sponsored visa applications dating to November 1997, and employment-related visa applications from June 2012.

Nearly 4.1 million applicants (including spouses and minor children) were on the State Department's immigrant visa waiting list as of November 1, 2022, a 1 percent decline from the more than 4.1 million applicants in the backlog a year previous.

The overwhelming majority of backlogs were among family-sponsored applicants (more than 3.9 million, including principal applicants and their immediate family members). About 168,000 backlogged applicants were for employment-sponsored channels and their families.

Of the overall 4.1 million applicants, the largest number (1.2 million) were citizens of Mexico, followed by those from the Philippines (296,000), India (294,000), the Dominican Republic (284,000), and Vietnam (229,000). Family- and employment-based prospective immigrants already within the United States who are waiting to adjust their status are not included in the State Department estimates.

USCIS also publishes backlog statistics for petitions approved in one of the five employment-based categories. As of March 2022 (the latest available data as of this writing), nearly 497,000 approved employment-based immigrant petitions were awaiting a priority date. This figure corresponds to the number of primary applicants covered by these petitions but excludes their dependents. To MPI's knowledge, USCIS has not published backlog statistics on other types of green-card applications the agency adjudicates.

In other words, the overall number of people waiting for a green card-within and outside the United States-is likely to be larger than the nearly 4.1 million applicants reported by the State Department (as of November 2022) and 497,000 reported by USCIS (as of March 2022).

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Jeanne Batalova Nicole Ward and Jeanne Batalova

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Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States

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Want to check a fact about U.S. immigration? Interested in putting recent trends into perspective? This article compiles authoritative, up-to-date information about the U.S. immigrant population and how it has changed over time. Data cover immigrants' demographic, educational, and linguistic characteristics; their top states of residence; enforcement activities; refugees and asylum seekers; naturalization trends; visa backlogs; and more.

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Migration Policy Institute: ELL Information Center

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Migration Policy Institute: ELL Information Center

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A comprehensive resource hub providing research, data, and policy updates focused on English Language Learners (ELLs) in the United States. Ideal for teachers seeking to stay informed on national trends and support strategies for ELs.

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Charting a New Regional Course of Action: The Complex Motivations and Costs of Central American Migration

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The English Language Learner (ELL) Information Center examines the demography and trends of immigrant families and their children who are English Language Learners. The share of ELL students in K-12 schools in the United States increased by more than 50 percent between 1997-98 and 2007-08. While mos…

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Outlines what multilingual learners can do at each stage of language development to help guide instruction.

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1. Resource Library

2. Fostering Active Comprehension: Asking and Answering Questions

WIDA Video Contest Winner

Shadia Salem encourages her first-grade students to engage in authentic inquiry before reading a text. By asking questions about the topic, students’ reading focus is linked to finding answers to their questions. Shadia’s students stay engaged by working in pairs.

Submitted by Shadia Salem, a first grade Transitional Arabic Bilingual Teacher at Dorn Elementary in Hickory Hills, IL.

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Fostering Active Comprehension: Asking and Answering Questions

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Shadia Salem encourages her first-grade students to engage in authentic inquiry before reading a text. By asking questions about the topic, students' reading focus is linked to finding answers to their questions. Shadia's students stay engaged by working in pairs.

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Simple guide promoting meaningful partnerships with families of ELs.

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Krashen's Theory of Second Language Acquisition (PDF)

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Krashen's Theory of Second Language Acquisition (PDF)

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In-depth PDF summary of Krashen's Five Hypotheses and their classroom application.

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Activity 5: Krashen (2013) Five Hypotheses.pdf

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Explanation of Jim Cummins' theory distinguishing conversational fluency (BICS) and academic language (CALP).

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The acronyms BICS and CALP refer to the length of time required by immigrant children to develop conversational skills in the target language and grade appropriate academic proficiency in that language. Understanding the difference between social language and academic language acquisition is an important concept for teachers working with non-native students. Learn more in our academic language resource section.
BICS = social language
Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) refer to linguistic skills needed in everyday, social face-to-face interactions. For instance, the language used in the playground, on the phone, or to interact socially with other people is part of BICS. The language used in these social interactions is context embedded. That is, it is meaningful, cognitively undemanding, and non-specialized. It takes the learner from six months to two years to develop BICS.
CALP = academic language
Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) focuses on proficiency in academic language or language used in the classroom in the various content areas. Academic language is characterized by being abstract, context reduced, and specialized. In addition to acquiring the language, learners need to develop skills such as comparing, classifying, synthesizing, evaluating, and inferring when developing academic competence. It takes learners at least five years to develop CALP. Research from Collier and Thomas (1995) has shown that it may take children with no prior instruction or no support in native language development at least seven years to develop CALP.

The distinction between BICS and CALP was made by Professor Jim Cummins.

Learn more in Explaining BICS and CALP from EverythingESL.

Video: BICS and CALP

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The acronyms BICS and CALP refer to the length of time required by immigrant children to develop conversational skills in the target language and grade appropriate academic proficiency in that language. Understanding the difference between social language and academic language acquisition is an important concept for teachers working with non-native students.

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ACCESS for ELLs: Information & Sample Items

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ACCESS for ELLs: Information & Sample Items

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Helps teachers understand and prepare students for the ACCESS English proficiency assessment.

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ACCESS for ELLs: Scoring & Reports Information

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ACCESS for ELLs: Scoring & Reports Information

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Overview of interpreting ACCESS test results to inform instruction.

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Top Things to Keep in Mind

Keep the following in mind when using the information in the report.

Proficiency levels are domain specific

For example, a sixth grader who earns a scale score of 370 in Listening is at proficiency level 4.3. If that same student earns a scale score of 370 in Reading, they will have a Reading proficiency level of 3.8.

Proficiency level scores should not be compared across grades

A second grader with a 4.0 in Listening and an eighth grader with a 4.0 in Listening are exposed to very different, grade-level appropriate content as they test. While their score reports reflect the same proficiency level, the eighth grader is demonstrating more skill by responding to more challenging content.

Scale scores precisely track student growth over time and across grades

Because scale scores consider differences in item difficulty, they place all students on a single continuum that stretches from kindergarten through grade 12. In addition, scale scores allow you to compare student performance across grades, within each domain, with more granularity than you'll see with proficiency levels. For example, using scale scores, you can track how much a student's listening ability increases from grade 6 to grade 7, or you might compare the speaking skills of your school's second graders to those of the fifth graders when evaluating curricula.
Note: 2025-2026 WIDA ACCESS scale scores have been reset as part of ensuring the assessments reflect the WIDA ELD Standards Framework, 2020 Edition. For this reason, treat this year's scale scores as a new baseline to measure growth against (you can't compare scale scores from previous years).

Scale scores are not raw scores

A raw score is simply a tally of correct responses. Raw scores are not reported for ACCESS because they do not provide a meaningful measure of student performance. For example, consider two students taking ACCESS Online. As the students move through the test, their performance determines which questions they see. The student at beginning proficiency sees easier items, and the higher-proficiency student sees more difficult items.

Confidence bands are included on the Individual Student Report

A scale score is reported as a single point within a confidence band that shows the Standard Error of Measurement. The Standard Error of Measurement is commonly included in score reports and can help test experts understand student performance.

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WIDA provides sample ACCESS score reports and additional resources to help students, families and educators understand ACCESS scores. Check out the following key resources:For FamiliesWIDA ACCESS: Understanding Your Child's Scores is a family-focused flyer, available in 18 languages, that explains the terms in the score report.WIDA ACCESS Parent Letters are family-focused letters, available in 49 languages including English, that may accompany score reports to help introduce the report to families.

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Clear, practical guide to creating language objectives that support content learning for ELs.

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This article provides an overview of how to use language objectives in content-area instruction for English learners and offers classroom-based examples from different grade and subject levels.

This article written for Colorín Colorado provides an overview of how to use language objectives in content-area instruction for English learners and includes:

what a language objective is

steps that teachers can take to create language objectives

how to implement language objectives in a general education classroom

how to align objectives to content and language standards

ideas and resources on how to support teachers as they become familiar with this practice

how to use language objectives in distance learning environments.

Language Objectives: An Overview
Mrs. Shell has been teaching eighth grade math for twelve years. She has deep content area knowledge and wants to provide all of her students with authentic activities and tasks to relate the significance of the mathematical concepts that she teaches to their lives. Mrs. Shell has always felt successful at teaching her classes but this year has been different. Her sections include students with more diverse backgrounds than previous years, particularly more English learners. As Mrs. Shell was beginning to feel frustrated with her inability to reach all her students because of their needs, she learned about one way to make her content more comprehensible to all her students - creating and posting objectives that tell the students not just what content concepts they will learn in each lesson, but also the academic language they will need to learn and use to meet the state's math standards. With this knowledge, Mrs. Shell is now confident that she not only knows what to teach, but also how to teach it so that all her students can be successful.

Generally speaking, academic English is the language of schooling and the language that helps students acquire and use the content area knowledge taught in schools (Anstrom, DiCerbo, Butler, Katz, Millet, & Rivera, 2010).

Teaching content to ELs: The challenge

In my work supporting general education and ESL/bilingual teachers who provide sheltered instruction for English learners (ELs), I have met many teachers like Mrs. Shell. While these teachers want to provide effective instruction for their ELs, often they don't see themselves as language teachers and so they aren't sure where to begin with their students.

These teachers aren't alone, however, and they are facing a challenge shared by teachers across the country. We know that for school-age students, academic language is crucial for school success (Francis, Rivera, Lesaux, Kieffer, & Rivera, 2006). In addition, research allows us to state with a fair degree of confidence that English learners best acquire English when language forms are explicitly taught and when they have many opportunities to use the language in meaningful contexts (Goldenberg, 2008).

Yet while the explicit instructional support that ESL and bilingual teachers provide is essential to English learners' academic language development, English learners receive a majority of their instruction from general education and content area teachers who may not have experience teaching academic language development.

The question becomes then: What do general education classroom teachers need to do in order to support the academic English development of language learners in both face-to-face and virtual environments, especially when English learners are one of many types of students they serve?

Teaching content to ELs: The solution

One principle that teachers of English learners can begin to apply immediately is creating and posting language objectives for their lessons (whether in the classroom or online in a virtual space. Many teachers are familiar with using content objectives to identify what students will learn and be able to do in the lesson. However, they are less likely to include language objectives that support the linguistic development of their students.

Implementing language objectives can be a powerful first step in ensuring that English learners have equal access to the curriculum even though they may not be fully proficient in the language. This is because the second language acquisition process requires opportunities for the language learner to be exposed to, practice with, and then be assessed on their language skills (Echevarria, Short, & Vogt, 2008).

To this end, language objectives:

articulate for learners the academic language functions and skills that they need to master to fully participate in the lesson and meet the grade-level content standards (Echevarria, Short, & Vogt, 2008).

are beneficial not only for language learners but for all students in a class, as everyone can benefit from the clarity that comes with a teacher outlining the requisite academic language to be learned and mastered in each lesson.

Now let's take a closer look at some examples and how to write language objectives.

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Writing Language Objectives

Interview with Dr. Jennifer Himmel

Learn more about language objectives in this podcast interview with Dr. Himmel from Teaching Multilingual Learners, produced by Tan Huynh.

What is a language objective?

Language objectives are lesson objectives that specifically outline the type of language that students will need to learn and use in order to accomplish the goals of the lesson. Quality language objectives complement the content knowledge and skills identified in content area standards and address the aspects of academic language that will be developed or reinforced during the teaching of grade-level content concepts (Echevarria & Short, 2010).

These objectives involve the four language skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing), but they can also include:

Below are examples of language objectives for different content areas and grade levels. They come from the Common Core State Standards for Math and English Language Arts (2012) and state standards in New York and California.
Sources:
How do I create effective language objectives?

Dr. Cindy Lundgren discusses the process of writing language objectives in this excerpt from her Meet the Expert interview.

Language objectives are directly correlated to content objectives. Once a teacher determines the lesson topic from the appropriate content standards, the teacher will want to begin thinking about the academic language necessary for English learners to complete the tasks that support the content objectives. This identification of the academic language embedded in the lesson's content will become the basis for the lesson's language objectives.

You can use the following guidelines to start thinking about appropriate language objectives for the lesson:

1. Decide what key vocabulary, concept words, and other academic words students will need to know in order to talk, read, and write about the topic of the lesson. Those words might be taught as a language objective. They should include technical terms, such as ecosystem, and terms like distribution that have different meanings across content areas. Other terms to highlight are those that language learners may know in one context, such as family (as in parents, siblings, etc.), but that have a different use in science (e.g., family of elements in the periodic table).

2. Consider the language functions related to the topic of the lesson (e.g, will the students describe, explain, compare, or chart information). See your state English Language Proficiency (ELP) standards for examples of these functions for English language arts, math, science, and social studies for all English proficiency levels and grade-level clusters.

3. Think about the language skills necessary for students to accomplish the lesson's activities. Will the students be reading a textbook passage to identify the stages of mitosis? Are they able to read a text passage to find specific information? Will they be reporting what they observe during a scientific demonstration to a peer? Do they know how to report observations orally? Acquiring the skills needed to carry out these tasks might be the focus of a language objective.

4. Identify grammar or language structures common to the content area. For example, many science textbooks use the passive voice to describe processes. Additionally, students may have to use comparative language to analyze two related concepts. Writing with the passive voice or using comparative phrases might be a language objective.

5. Consider the tasks that the students will complete and the language that will be embedded in those assignments. If students are working on a scientific investigation together, will they need to explain the steps of the procedure to one another? The language objective might focus on how to explain procedures aloud.

6. Explore language learning strategies that lend themselves to the topic of the lesson. For example, if students are starting a new chapter in the textbook, the strategy of previewing the text might be an appropriate language objective.

(Adapted from Short, Himmel, Gutierrez, & Hudec, 2012. Used with permission.)

Aligning Language Objectives and Standards

English Language Proficiency (ELP) standards

Developing appropriate language objectives for lessons involves becoming familiar with a state's content area and ELP standards. Whereas the content standards will provide the topic of the lesson and what exactly the students should be doing with that topic (e.g., solving problems, creating models, ranking ideas), the English language proficiency or development standards help to identify language skills and functions that students should be working on to achieve academic language fluency. These ELP standards can help to identify:

English Language Arts (ELA) standards

Other resources in addition to the ELP standards are a state's English Language Arts standards or the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History, Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (CCSS). The English Language Arts and Literacy CCSS might be especially useful to teachers of English learners due to its attention to literacy across the content areas.

Additional resources to consult, especially if a state is a member of the WIDA consortium, are the Model Proficiency Indicators (MPIs) outlined in their ELP standards. The MPIs outline what an English learner at a specific level of English language proficiency can do in a language domain (e.g., listening) by addressing the language functions embedded in an example topic for that content area with appropriate scaffolds or support (Gottlieb, Cranley, & Cammileri, 2007). Classroom texts and other materials (e.g., science investigations, primary source documents) are other good sources to consult when preparing a lesson.

Getting Started

How can I get started?

Careful lesson planning

In creating measureable and student-friendly language objectives that support the content objectives, it is important that learner tasks in the lesson are aligned with the objectives. It is not enough to have well-written objectives that promote language acquisition if the lesson is lacking in tasks that support the objectives. If the language objective for a middle school social studies lesson is for the students to orally retell the key characteristics in a historical event using sequential language, it is important that the teacher previews sequential language with the students, such as providing sentence stems or frames, and builds into the lesson some structured pair work so the students have an opportunity to retell the event to a peer. Therefore, careful lesson planning is another essential step in preparing effective language objectives.

Collaboration

It is also useful for content area and ESL/bilingual teachers to plan lessons together, as we saw with the 7th grade science lesson scenario involving Mr. Zhang and Mr. Lewis. In this co-planning scenario, each teacher used his expertise to better integrate content and language instruction for the language learners. This type of collaboration can help a teacher like Mr. Zhang learn more about the second language acquisition process of his students and can help a teacher like Mr. Lewis become more familiar with the grade-level content expectations that his English learners encounter in content area classes.

How do I know which language objectives are best for my students?

The language objective that the teacher selects will depend on what the English learners in the class need most at that point in the year and what language is most important to understanding the content concepts. If the students have already spent a good deal of time working with new vocabulary, then the teacher might consider having students use that vocabulary to develop their writing skill by writing a summary of the process they followed.

Conversely, the teacher might want to help students become more proficient with a particular type of graphic organizer in order to develop more strategic language learning. As all teachers know, teaching is a dynamic and complex process that requires a multitude of decisions to be made. However, the advance planning required in creating language objectives allows teachers to better anticipate the academic English needs of all students thus increasing the comprehensibility of the lessons.

It is important for teachers to realize that even though their lesson may include all four language skills (it is good if they do, since the language skills reinforce one another), they do not need to post a language objective for every language-related item addressed in the lesson. Teachers address many instructional needs in a 50- or 60-minute class period. Rather than highlighting all language uses in a particular lesson, it is important for the teacher to think about what is non-negotiable in that lesson.

In other words, the teacher should keep the perspective of the English learner in mind and ask, "Of all of the skills and functions addressed in my lesson, which is most important for helping students meet the grade-level standard and develop their language proficiency?" These objectives then must be measureable (i.e., can you see or assess the student's mastery of that objective?) and written in language that accounts for the linguistic and cognitive development of the students.

How can I make language objectives "student-friendly"?

Both of the above objectives are measurable, but both also take into account appropriate developmental stages of the students. Teachers of young students (e.g., PK or K) may even want to consider further adapting the objectives. For example, we have seen kindergarten teachers use symbols such as a pencil to symbolize "write" and a mouth to symbolize "talk" when they post their objectives for the children to see. We have also seen teachers of young learners rely on pictures to show the key terms they want the students to use or to convey the topic of the lesson (e.g., a picture of a ruler and of hands to discuss standard and non-standard measurement).

One way that teachers can ensure that their language objectives are measureable and student-friendly is by using appropriate verbs. Because language objectives should provide students with practice in the four language skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking, verbs related to those skills might include, but are not limited to, the following:

List

Retell

Summarize in writing

Record

Read

It is also important to not equate low language proficiency with limited cognitive ability. Therefore, teachers will want to make sure that the language objectives they create also reflect tasks that fall on the higher end of Bloom's Taxonomy and use verbs (e.g., orally justify) accordingly.

As noted above in the guidelines to creating language objectives, language functions are also a potential source for language objectives. Verbs related to language functions might include:

When should I share language objectives with students?

To help students take ownership of their learning and provide explicit direction to students, especially the English learners who are processing content in a new language, it is important that objectives be stated at the beginning of the lesson and reviewed with the students at the end of the lesson to allow them to assess if they have met the objectives (Echevarria, Vogt & Short, 2008).

How this happens may differ according to the grade level and content area of the class. Some teachers like to have the students choral read the objectives, while teachers of older students sometimes have them record the language objectives in their journal in addition to asking an individual student to read them aloud. Some teachers, such as those who teach science, like to reveal the objectives later in the lesson, perhaps after the warm up or exploratory activity, so that they can maintain an inquiry-based approach (Echevarria & Colburn, 2006).

Should I differentiate language objectives based on my students' language proficiency?

Although all teachers have students of varying language proficiency and skill levels in their classes, it is not necessary to differentiate language objectives by creating and posting multiple language objectives that reflect these proficiency levels. Rather, teachers should have one language objective that is appropriate for all students to meet. To provide the appropriate differentiation, the teacher would provide different scaffolds (e.g., adapted text, visuals, sentence frames) for students to use in order to reach the objectives.

For example, an appropriate language objective for an upper elementary language arts class might be for the students to be able to orally list text features found in a non-fiction book. For lower proficiency language learners, the teacher may give them a word bank from which to choose the text features; therefore, the students are meeting the same objective but with the appropriate amount of linguistic support from the teacher.

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Using language objectives in a distance learning environment

While teachers like Ms. Shell understand that the characteristics of good teaching for English learners does not change in a virtual environment, they do understand that instruction will necessarily need to look different in order to account for the challenges that distance learning presents for many learners.

Accordingly, teachers will need to think through how to:

Presenting language objectives

Many different ways exist for teachers to present language objectives in remote learning. For example, teachers might:

begin every virtual class by orally reading and presenting the content and language objectives in their Google slides and then asking students to briefly summarize in the chat box the activities they will be doing in that lesson to meet those objectives.

post the objectives at the top of a shared digital document that serves as a capture sheet for the lesson. A teacher might then ask learners to self-assess their progress towards meeting those objectives at the end of the document.

use live or recorded videos, especially when working with English learners with lower English proficiency. These videos can include props, for example ears to signify a listening objective.

use realia, such as rocks, if one of the lesson's language aims is for students to orally describe different types of sedimentary rocks.

Monitoring student understanding and engagement

Teachers in distance learning environments must also carefully consider how they will assess learner understanding and engagement throughout the lesson. Given the challenges virtual learning platforms present towards capturing data on learner comprehension (e.g., paralinguistic cues such as facial expressions, gestures, posture) teachers working in virtual environments know that it is more important than ever to ensure that students clearly understand the content and linguistic aims for each lesson.

Using comprehension checks and assessing progress

It is also essential that students understand how teachers will measure their progress towards meeting each objective. Towards this aim, teachers must build in multiple comprehension checks throughout the lesson that align to the lesson's objectives. Teachers can:

At the conclusion of a lesson, teachers can assess student progress towards meeting objectives via:

tickets out that are submitted digitally

the recording of a Flipgrid or use of another video platform where learners respond to a prompt that requires learners to use the academic language highlighted in the lesson's objectives.

Teachers can respond to the submitted tickets out or video with feedback that explicitly targets the students use of the language. When appropriate, teacher can provide learners with additional resources and/or support towards mastering that particular language skill or function. Teachers might also use that linguistic data to inform mini-lessons conducted to small groups of English learners during office hours or intervention time.

Next Steps

How can I learn more?

For more information on the SIOP Model, see Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners: The SIOP Model (Echevarria, Short, & Vogt, 2008).

Although language objectives can be implemented in any lesson design approach, they are especially congruent with sheltered instruction and the SIOP Model. Since language objectives ensure that teachers meet the unique linguistic needs of English learners, they are sometimes easier to implement in the context of instructional practices espoused by the SIOP Model.

Practices that focus on explicit academic language teaching include:

Below are other resources that can help you learn more about creating language objectives and about integrating academic language into content area classes.

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Final Thoughts

We realize that it takes teachers some time to become very comfortable with creating language objectives, but our experience has shown that the implementation of language objectives can bring immediate benefits to instruction. Some immediate benefits include teachers understanding more concretely that they are both a content area and language teacher - as one teacher said in a CAL SIOP Model workshop, "I now see myself as a math teacher AND a language teacher".

We have also observed that when teachers consciously plan to meet the academic English needs of their learners, they end up with better planned learner tasks, and students begin to have more ownership of their content area and language learning. When it comes to building proficiency in academic English, as many teachers in our workshops remind us, "If you want to see it, you have to teach it." Therefore, if teachers want to see language development, language objectives are a great first step in helping teachers explicitly teach it.

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Recommended Resources

Further reading

Short, D., Himmel, J., Gutierrez, S., & Hudec, J. (2012). Using the SIOP Model: Professional development for sheltered instruction. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Echevarria, J., Vogt, M.E., & Short, D. (2010). The SIOP Model for teaching mathematics to English learners. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Echevarria, J., & Short, D. (2011). The SIOP Model: A professional development framework for a comprehensive school-wide intervention. Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners (CREATE) Brief. http://www.cal.org/create/resources/pubs/professional-development-framework.html

Himmel, J., Short, D., Richards, C., & Echevarria, J. (2009). Using the SIOP Model to improve middle school science instruction. Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners (CREATE) Brief. http://www.cal.org/create/resources/pubs/siopscience.html

Short, D., Vogt, M., & Echevarria, J. (2010a). The SIOP Model for teaching history-social studies to English learners. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Short, D., Vogt, M., & Echevarria, J. (2010b). The SIOP Model for teaching science to English learners. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Vogt, M.E., Echevarria, J., & Short, D. (2010). The SIOP Model for teaching English language arts to English learners. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Jennifer Himmel is the Project Director for the National Center for English Language Acquisition at the Manhattan Strategy Group. She previously served as the SIOP Manager at the Center for Applied Linguistics, a non-profit organization for language education research, policy, and practice in Washington, DC. She has served as a curriculum developer and research associate for the U.S. Department of Education funded project, Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners (CREATE) that is investigating academic achievement of ELLs in grades 4th-8th, and as a language testing specialist for the WIDA ACCESS for ELLs® language proficiency test. She currently manages the SIOP Model professional development service line and provides technical assistance and professional development in sheltered instruction to districts and schools.

Video Clips: Language Objectives

How to Write Language Objectives: Tips for ELL Educators

In this video from Syracuse, NY, Jesus Ortiz, a bilingual teacher, learns how to write a language objective from Areli Schermerhorn, a peer evaluator with expertise in ELL and bilingual education.

Dr. Cynthia Lundgren explains language objectives

In this excerpt from her Meet the Expert interview, Dr. Cynthia Lundgren explains the value of writing language objectives when teaching English learners.

Anstrom, K., DiCerbo, P., Butler, F., Katz, A., Millet, J., & Rivera, C. (2010). A review of the literature on academic English: Implications for K-12 English language learners. Arlington, VA: The George Washington University Center for Equity and Excellence. Education.www.ceee.gwu.edu.

Echevarria, J., & Colburn, A. (2006). Designing lessons: Inquiry approach to science using the SIOP Model. In A. Lathman & D. Crowther (Eds.), Science for English language learners (pp.95-108). Arlington, VA: National Science Teachers Association Press.

Echevarria, J., Vogt, M., & Short, D. (2008). Making content comprehensible for English learners: The SIOP Model. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Echevarria, J., & Short, D. ( 2010). Programs and practices for effective sheltered content instruction. In California Department of Education (Ed), Improving education for English learners: Research-based approaches. Sacramento, CA: CDE Press.

Francis, D., Rivera, M., Lesaux, N., Kieffer, M., & Rivera, H. (2006). Practical guidelines for the education of English language learners: Research-based recommendations for instruction and academic interventions. Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research Corporation, Center on Instruction. www.centeroninstruction.org/files/ELL1-Interventions.pdf

Goldenberg, C. (2008). Teaching English language learners: What the research does-and does not-say. American Educator, Summer 2008, pp. 13-44.

Gottlieb, M., Cranley, E., & Cammilleri, A. (2007). Understanding the WIDA English Language Proficiency Standards: A resource guide. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, on behalf of the WIDA Consortium.

Short, D., Himmel, J., Gutierrez, S., & Hudec, J. (2012). Using the SIOP Model: Professional development for sheltered instruction. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment (2007). WIDA English Language Proficiency Standards. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, on behalf of the WIDA Consortium http://www.wida.us/standards/elp.asp

You are welcome to print copies or republish materials for non-commercial use as long as credit is given to Colorín Colorado and the author(s). For commercial use, please contact [email protected] .

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Language Objectives: The Key to Effective Content Area Instruction for English Learners

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This article provides an overview of how to use language objectives in content-area instruction for English learners and offers classroom-based examples from different grade and subject levels.

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Article outlining ways to create a welcoming and inclusive classroom for all cultures.

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Curated book list featuring diverse authors and characters to promote cultural inclusivity.

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Diverse BookFinder | Identify & Explore Multicultural Picture Books

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Are you looking for multicultural children’s books? We’ve got you covered! You can search our circulating collection of picture books (2002-present), explore our quick lists, then borrow our books from your own library through interlibrary loan. We believe that too many children are left out of main…

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What is "scaffolding" and how does it help ELLs?

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What is "scaffolding" and how does it help ELLs?

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Scaffolds help students build on prior knowledge and internalize new information.

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Scaffolding is a method in which the teacher supports a student to work just beyond the level he could achieve on his own. Psychologist Lev Vygotsky called this area the "zone of proximal development." As the student becomes more competent, the support is gradually removed until the student is able to perform the task without assistance.

The benefits of using scaffolding are numerous. Scaffolds help students build on prior knowledge and internalize new information. The goal of the educator when using the scaffolding teaching strategy is for the student to become an independent and self-regulating learner and problem solver.

In addition to facilitating learning, the scaffolds:

Motivate the child's interest related to the task.

Simplify the task to make it more manageable and achievable for a child.

Help the child focus on achieving the goal.

Clearly indicate differences between the child's work and the standard or desired solution.

Reduce frustration and risk.

Model and clearly define the expectations of the activity to be performed.

For a discussion of scaffolding research and strategies, see the Scaffolding as a Teaching Strategy document from Condor's Scaffolding Website.

For a variety of instructional activities using scaffolding strategies, visit EDTech Projects.

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What is "scaffolding" and how does it help ELLs?

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Scaffolding is a method in which the teacher supports a student to work just beyond the level he could achieve on his own. Psychologist Lev Vygotsky called this area the "zone of proximal development." As the student becomes more competent, the support is gradually removed until the student is able to perform the task without assistance.

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Brief guide to the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP), a research-based framework for EL instruction.

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SIOP’s Meaning & Wonderful Strategies for Your ELLs

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What is the SIOP model? How does it help with teaching your ELLs? That and some wonderful strategies you can use today, you’ll find in this engaging article.

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Explores the importance of cultural diversity and inclusion in educational spaces.

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Why cultural diversity matters | Michael Gavin | TEDxCSU

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Introduction to vowel pronunciation and phonetic concepts, useful for supporting ELs with pronunciation.

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Phonetics - Vowels: Crash Course Linguistics #9

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Covers consonant sounds and articulation, supporting clear communication for ELs.

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Phonetics - Consonants: Crash Course Linguistics #8

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Krashen's Theory of Second Language Acquisition – Explainer Video

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Krashen's Theory of Second Language Acquisition – Explainer Video

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Overview of Krashen's Five Hypotheses, foundational for understanding EL language development.

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Stephen Krashen's 5 Hypotheses of Second Language Acquisition

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Practical video demonstrating how to scaffold instruction for English learners.

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5 Scaffolding Strategies To Bolster Student Learning

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The Next Step Forward in Guided Reading – Jan Richardson

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The Next Step Forward in Guided Reading – Jan Richardson

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Comprehensive resource for differentiating reading instruction, including support for MLs.

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Jan Richardson leads targeted lessons that accelerate reading growth for K–8 students. In this resource-rich spiral-bound book, Richardson shares prompts, discussion starters, teaching points, words lists and more to support all students, including dual language learners and struggling readers. An all-new chapter focus