Children of immigrants: 88% born here, 1/3 with a native born parent

The Migration Policy Institute in April, 2016 issued an overview of the children of foreign-born parents. Also see here.

First-generation immigrant children are any foreign-born child with foreign-born parents. Second-generation immigrant children are any native-born child with at least one foreign-born parent. Children with immigrant parents are both first- and second-generation immigrant children. The estimates include only children under 18 years old.

In 2014, 17.5 million children lived with at least one immigrant parent.About a third of these children have one native born American as a parent. Of these, 2.1 million (12%) were born outside the country, and 15.4 million (88%) were born in the U.S. The percentage born outside the U.S. has declined.

Between 1990 and 2014, the number of children of immigrants grew 213% from 8.2 million to 17.5 million, almost exactly the rate of growth of the entire foreign-born population. During this period, the total number of children in the US grew by only 15%, thus foreign-born children accounted for the great majority of new children. They went from 13% to 25% of all children. Foreign-born children account in 2014 for only about 3% of all children.

These states have at least one third of all children as being off-spring of immigrants: California (49%), Nevada, New Jersey, New York, and Texas (all between 35% and 38%).

31% of the 30.3 million children living in poor families (i.e., with family incomes below 200% of the federal poverty threshold) are children of immigrants.

Immigrant children are more likely than children of non-immigrants to live in a two parent household.

 

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