How much does immigration contribute to US population growth? We've already seen that we are growing more rapidly than most industrialized nations, considering births and deaths alone, but how big an influence does immigration actually have on the numbers in our population?
It is estimated that immigration and refugees accounted for about 1/3 of the US annual population growth (as would be measured by census takers) between 1990 and 2000 (PRB 2006). This estimate comes from the following:
How big is the actual contribution of illegal immigration? As you can imagine, it is hard to get reliable numbers here!
In 1995 , the number of illegal immigrants into the US was estimated at 225,000, which was about equal to the number of people that emigrate from the US each year (222,000; source = PRB), hence illegal immigration and emigration were approximately balanced. As of 2006, the number of illegal immigrants each year was estimated at closer to 525,000..........This is a hard number to get good figures on, for obvious reasons.
So, while immigration is a certainly factor in our growth, it isn't the reason that we aren't at ZPG. We are considerably above ZPG ignoring immigration -- more births than deaths occur each year in the US, and the difference between the two is greater than for most other developed nations in the world.
Steps to stabilize population in the US, while focusing largely on decreasing birth rates, could also include attention to immigration, since that represents about 50% of our yearly growth. Immigration-related approaches might include:
(1)--Stopping illegal immigration and making it less attractive by cracking down on businesses that employ illegal immigrants.
(2)--Penalizing Visa abusers. The US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) estimates that there are hundreds of thousands of people in the US who entered legally but became illegal by overstaying their Visas. (Estimates of this number vary widely.)
(3)—Take steps to address the root causes of immigration to the US, which often include dissatisfaction with the quality of life in the home country. These could include increasing development assistance to these nations and provision of humanitarian aid such as education, environmental protection, health services, etc.
(4)-- Crack down on employers of illegal immigrants, who often underpay and otherwise deny priviledges to these workers, knowing that they will not complain since they are here illegally.
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Page maintained by Patricia Muir at Oregon State University. Last updated Nov. 3, 2008.