(Mirror Daily, United States) – Immigrants. One of the most debated issues during election times, but also the main drive of the U.S. population growth, according to Pew Research Center report.
Released on Monday, the analysis of the American think tank presents some interesting predictions, such as the fact that over the next half century, the U.S. will become such a varied mix of ethnicities and races that not one of them will claim majority.
If the current trends keep up, the Pew estimates that by 2065, immigrants and their descendants will account for roughly 88 percent of the nation’s population growth. There are presently 318 million living in the U.S. Jeff Passel, one of Pew’s demographers who worked on the report, said that the country’s population would decrease dramatically without the immigrants.
The main idea of the report is to emphasize the fact that immigration has been the number one demographic drive in the U.S. over the past 50 years. The report – covering the U.S. immigration for the last century, is based on population projections, census data, and opinion surveys conducted on the American view on immigrants.
According to Pew, the bilingual online survey gathered the results of 3,147 respondents who answered the questionnaire from March 10 to April 6. The figures are rather accurate, with a slight margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percent.
Thus, 45 percent of the American population thinks that immigrants are making the U.S. society a better place in the long run, while 37 percent said they have a negative impact. There were another 16 percent who thought that immigrants aren’t an important factor with little effect on society.
Roughly half of respondents believe immigrants are bad for the economy and crime rates, but about the same percentage thinks immigrants have a positive effect on food, music and the arts, according to the report. Americans seem to be more welcoming toward Asian and European immigrants, while the tendency is to have a negative view on the Latin American and Middle Eastern immigrants.
Pew predictions see a surge in immigrants, up to 78 million by 2065. Since the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, the foreign-born population in the U.S. has surged to 45 million. Ruling out the post-1965 immigration, the U.S. would now have a very different demographic mix: “75 percent white, 14 percent black, 8 percent Hispanic and less than 1 percent Asian.”
Pew also predicts non-Hispanic whites will account for roughly half of the U.S. population by 2055; even though Hispanics used to hold the title is the largest group of immigrants coming to the U.S., Asians have clearly surpassed them.
Image Source: Huffington Post
Joe Hennessey
