WASHINGTON _ The percentage of foreign-born U.S. residents has reached its highest level in more than a century, according to estimates from the 2018 American Community Survey released Thursday.
A record 44.7 million people are foreign-born, or about 13.7% of the U.S. population. That's the highest rate since 1910 and comes amid a highly-charged political debate over whether the decennial census survey should include a citizenship question.
A subset of the foreign-born figure _ the number of people in the U.S. but "not a U.S. citizen"census held at around 22 million in 2018.
While the idea of adding a citizenship question to the decennial census survey has been a contentious issue, the annual ACS, compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau, does ask about a person's place of birth, citizenship and year of entry into the U.S. The data is compiled to estimate the foreign-born U.S. population.
In 1960 and 1970, about one in 20 U.S. residents were foreign born. Today, the ratio is about one in seven and in America's largest states _ California, Texas, Florida and New York _ more than 15% of residents are foreign born.
