New York tied by Texas in immigrant population

The number of immigrants in Texas has risen to more than four million over the course of the last few decades, with the state now equaling New York for the place with the second highest immigrant population in the whole of the United States.

According to a recent analysis by the Pew Research Center, the Lone Star state’s immigrant population was at 4.5 million two years ago, with the only state in the country to have a larger population of immigrants being California, which in the same year was believed to be around 10.5 million. The immigrant population of New York was the highest in the country between 1850 and 1970, but the 1980s saw a surge of immigrants heading west to go to California.

The top three states in terms of immigrant population make up almost 50 percent of the entire immigrant population of the country, with 11 percent living in Texas and New York and 25 percent residing in California. The great majority of those in Texas and California tend to be from Mexico or Asia, while New York offers a more diverse mixture of those from Asia, Canada, Europe, Mexico, South America and the Caribbean.

Researchers have also discovered that most of the immigrants living in California and New York will have lived there for much longer than those in Texas. 25 percent of New York’s immigrant population claim to speak only English even at home, compared to just one in ten of those in California and Texas.