Number of foreign-born in US on the upswing

Despite a flagging economy, foreigners continue to flock to the Land of the Free and the Brave, according to a Pew study.

The foreign-born population in the U.S. increased by 616,000, or 1.6%, from 2009 to 2010, according to a new analysis of census data by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center. Both the absolute increase and the percentage increase are substantially smaller than implied by American Community Survey (ACS) data released by the Census Bureau because of the Pew Hispanic Center's revisions to ACS data for 2009.
 
According to the ACS, the U.S. population in 2010 included 39.9 million foreign-born residents. This estimate, the latest available for the foreign-born population, is 1.5 million, or 4%, higher than the survey's original estimate of 38.5 million in 2009. The Pew Hispanic Center revised the 2009 estimate to account for changes in the Census Bureau's assumptions about population composition that underlie the original 2009 ACS estimates. The Pew Hispanic analysis concludes that the foreign-born population in the U.S. was 39.3 million in 2009 and the actual change from 2009 to 2010 is less than half the magnitude of the reported change.
 
The analysis, "U.S. Foreign-Born Population: How Much Change from 2009 to 2010?" written by Jeffrey S. Passel, senior demographer, Pew Hispanic Center, and D'Vera Cohn, senior writer, Pew Research Center, is available at the Pew Hispanic Center's website.