Report: NC among states with highest foreign born populations
NC was among 14 states that hit a record high for share of foreign born citizens
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has had some interesting reports in the past few weeks on immigration statistics.
One of the reports issued near the end of July covers an analysis of the "Foreign-Born Population at the State and Regional Level" from 1850 to 2025.
"The foreign-born or immigrant population (legal and illegal together) at the start of 2025 hit a record high, both numerically and as a share of the total U.S. population."
"In the first quarter of 2025, the foreign-born share of the population hit historic highs in 14 states: Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. Numerically, the foreign-born population hit record highs in 31 states plus the District of Columbia."
"In 1980, only three states had more than one million immigrants. By 2025 there were 14 states with over one million foreign-born residents: California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Georgia, Massachusetts, Washington, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Virginia."
California, of course, leads the pack in most of the data sets but North Carolina is in the top 20 when it comes to the increase in the number of foreign-born individuals since 1980.
In 1980, foreign-born represented 1.3% of the state's population. In 2025, that number has skyrocketed to almost 12%.
"The increase in the size of the foreign-born population in the last 45 years has been truly phenomenal in many states, such as the more than 1,000 percent increases in Georgia, North Carolina, and Nevada or the more than 800 percent increases in Tennessee and South Carolina."
In one heat map, CIS shows the foreign born change by state from 1850 to 2025, with North Carolina being one of five states with an over 900% increase. Hovering over our state, the percentage reads 1,606%.
More To The Story
Now, with that CIS' July data in mind, here's their Aug. 12 report, which references Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing an "unprecedented 2.2 million decline in the total foreign-born or immigrant population (legal and illegal) between January and July of this year.
Two of the key findings stood out to me:
Non-citizens accounted for all of the falloff in the total foreign-born; the naturalized U.S. citizen population has actually increased some since January.
We preliminarily estimate that the illegal immigrant population declined an astonishing 1.6 million (10 percent) to 14.2 million from January to July of this year.
The workforce data is also interesting, showing a decline in foreign-born workers being countered by increases in native citizens. This data suggests that Americans will indeed do jobs foreigners have been taking.
The data also shows the rapid drop in illegal aliens of around 1.6 million or 10% of the total estimated number of illegal aliens in the country based on Current Population Survey data.
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