Thread: India-Born Population in U.S. Up 30-Fold Since 1970

India-Born Population in U.S. Up 30-Fold Since 1970

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By RICHARD SPRINGER
India-West Staff Reporter

The Washington, D.C.-based Migration Policy Institute has issued a report showing a 30-fold jump in India-born immigrants to the U.S. from 1970 to 2006 and steady numbers of Indians in the U.S. who are becoming legal permanent residents.

Immigrants born in India in the U.S. jumped from 51,000 in 1970 to 1,519,157 in 2006, making them the fourth largest immigrant group in the U.S. after the Mexican, Filipino, and Chinese foreign born.

(It should be noted, however, that the total number of Asian Indian foreign-born in the U.S. was estimated at 1,840,139 in the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2006 American Community Survey, which included those Indians here born outside the U.S. but not in India, and the total Asian Indian population was 2,482,141.)

This new report breaks down data mainly for those born in India, but it also states that about 19% of foreign-born Indians in the U.S. were born outside India, led by 4.1% born in Guyana or British Guyana, 1.9% in Pakistan and 1.8% in Trinidad and Tobago (see pie chart).

The report relies on data from the ACS, the 2000 census and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration Statistics for 2006 and 2007.

About 886,000 from India have gained lawful permanent residence in the U.S. since 1990 (see figure 2) and nearly half of India-born lawful permanent residents in 2007 were employment-sponsored immigrants. India-born lawful permanent residents accounted for 2.4% of those eligible to naturalize as of 2006.

Of the 65,353 India-born granted legal permanent resident status in 2007, 43.9% (28,703) were employment-sponsored immigrants, 27.9% (18,205) immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, 23.8% (15,551) family-sponsored immigrants, and 4.1% (2,680) refugees and asylum seekers.

Over half of India-born immigrants live in five states: California (302,712, 19.9%), New Jersey (172,959, 11.4%), New York (144,417, 9.5%), Texas (122,644, 8.1%) and Illinois (114,760, 7.6%).

But India-born immigrant numbers are also growing in Sunbelt states such as Arizona, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida.

The India-born population more than doubled in five states and the District of Columbia between 2000 and 2006: Wyoming (190.1%, from 252 to 731); Rhode Island (130%, from 1,423 to 3,273); D.C. (125.4%, from 1,139 to 2,567); Maine (124.2%, from 590 to 1,323); Arizona (118.8%, from 9,134 to 19,982); and Washington (110.3%, from 14,714 to 30,941).

Other highlights of the survey:

Over one-third of the India-born arrived in 2000 or later and less than half were naturalized U.S. citizens.

One in four India-born immigrants five years and older speaks some Hindi at home and about one-quarter of Indian immigrants in 2006 were limited English proficient.

Gujarati (14.1%) was the next most popular language, followed by Punjabi (10%), Telugu (9.7%), Tamil (6.7%), Malayalam (6.1%), Urdu (3.4%), Marathi (3.1%), Bengali (2.2%) and Kannada (1.7%).

About three of every four India-born foreign-born adults had a bachelor’s or higher degree.

On the other end of the education spectrum, about 8.5% of Indian immigrants had no high school diploma or the equivalent general education diploma compared to 32% among all foreign-born adults.

Indian immigrant men were more likely to participate in the civilian labor force than foreign-born men overall and over one-quarter of India-born men were employed in IT occupations.

The India-born were the fourth-largest group of student and exchange visitors admitted to the U.S. in 2006.

In 2006, 2.3% of illegal immigrants in the U.S. were from India and unauthorized immigrants from India grew faster than any other immigrant group between 2000 and 2006, going from 120,000 to 270,000, a 125% rise.

New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island is the metro area with the most India-born (275,36, followed by Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, (103,709), San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif. (73,003), Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, Calif. (68,927) and San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, Calif. (67,59.

Of all Indian immigrants residing in the country in 2006, 53.6% were men and 46.4% were women.
http://www.indiawest.com/view.php?subac ... m=&ucat=11

In Charlotte and in Florida, it seems that most of the gas stations/convenience stores are owned by Indians, Bangladeshis or Pakistanis.