It May Surprise You…
A new study from the Pew Research Center looks at the flow of migrants into the US in the last hundred years. This cool interactive tool shows where they came from and where in the US they settled.
The map is part of a new study on past and future immigration trends that shows the effects of events and politics around the world on the flow of immigrants that have made their way to the US. The Irish potato famine and crop failures in Germany, the restrictions put on Chinese and Mexican immigrants at the turn of the last century; these events are readily apparent in the changes that appear on the maps.
The years since the Immigration Act of 1965 have seen nearly 59 million immigrants in the US, which puts the foreign born US population at a near record 14%. These immigrants are reshaping the composition of the US population and will have a cascading effect in the years to come. The US has the world’s largest immigrant population, hosting one in five of the world’s immigrants.
Immigration populations bring challenges and benefits to any destination country, changing the character and identity of their surroundings. The forecast of Hispanic and Asian migration will have a profound effect on US cities in the next fifty years.