ABSTRACT
As we near the year 2000, the foreign-born population of the United States is approaching a level not seen since the turn of this century. Twenty-six million persons living in the United States in 1997 were born in another country. That’s almost 1 out of every 10 persons. Although the percentages of foreign-born people in the United States were actually higher during the decades between 1860 and the 1930s—as high as 14.8% of the total population (Edmonston & Passel, 1994) in terms of sheer numbers of people immigrating to the United States, the late 1990s are at a record high. Approximately one third of the growth of the United States population today is due to immigration.
