Census offers a look at the foreign face of the U.S.

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Census offers a look at the foreign face of the U.S.

By SAM ROBERTS

NEW YORK TIMES

Feb. 20, 2009, 11:28PM

Indians are the best-educated newcomers from overseas. Somalis are the youngest and poorest. Immigrants from Jordan and Bangladesh are most likely to be working in sales and office jobs.

Those are among the findings of a profile of the nation’s foreign-born residents, legal or illegal, released this week by the Census Bureau.

The profile indicates that Latin Americans and Africans account for a greater share of the nation’s immigrant population than they did five years ago. In 1990, 22 percent of the foreign-born residents were from Mexico. By 2007, 31 percent were.

In 2007, the Census Bureau found, 54 percent of the nation’s 38.1 million foreign-born came from Latin America, 27 percent from Asia, 13 percent from Europe and 4 percent from Africa.

More came from Mexico — 11.7 million — than from any other country, followed by China, the Philippines, India, El Salvador, Vietnam and South Korea.

Dominican immigrants accounted for 2 percent of the foreign-born — the same as the share of Canadians and the same percentage as Germans as recently as 2000. Indians made up 4 percent of the foreign-born.

The profile found that immigrants are about as likely to have graduated from college as native-born Americans, 27 percent compared to 28 percent.

Those from India, Australia, South Africa and the Philippines had the highest median household incomes, with the figure for Indians at $91,195. Those from Somalia and the Dominican Republic had the lowest. The median for the foreign born was $46,881, compared WITH $51,249 among the native born.

The oldest immigrants were from Europe (Hungarians, Italians, Greeks, Germans and Irish all had median ages of about 60 or more), while Somalis had the youngest median age (26.8).

Fully 97 percent of immigrants from Mexico and the Dominican Republic do not speak English at home. About 52 percent of foreign-born residents say they speak English less than very well.

Americans born in the Netherlands and Ireland had the lowest poverty rates (5 percent). Somalis, who like Kenyans are among the most recent immigrants, had the highest (51 percent).

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