Asians Surpass Hispanics as Largest Immigrant Wave

Asians now account for 5.8 percent of U.S. population.

A new study released by the Pew Research Center details how Asians have surpassed Hispanics as the largest wave of new immigrants to the U.S.

Asians are now the fastest growing racial population in the country (with their current population number sitting at 18.2 million).

While Asian immigration has increased slightly, the shift is mostly attributed to the sharp decline in Hispanic immigration.

About 430,000 Asians — or 36 percent of all new immigrants, legal and illegal — moved to the United States in 2010, compared with 370,000 Hispanics, or 31 percent of all new arrivals, the study said. Just three years earlier, the ratio was reversed: about 390,000 Asians immigrated in 2007, compared with 540,000 Hispanics.

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“Asians have become the largest stream of new immigrants to the U.S. — and, thus, the latest leading actors in this great American drama” of immigration, Paul Taylor, executive vice president of the Pew Research Center, wrote in the report.

Tougher immigration enforcement and the economic downturn in the U.S. have contributed to the decline in Hispanic immigration.

Asians are now 5.8 percent of the total U.S. population.

“A century ago, most Asian-Americans were low-skilled, low-wage laborers crowded into ethnic enclaves and targets of official discrimination,” the study said. “Today they are the most likely of any major racial or ethnic group in America to live in mixed neighborhoods and to marry across racial lines.”

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