Recent Trends in Immigration
Figure 1 reports the number of immigrants living in the United States based on the CPS collected in March of each year from 1995 through 2007. Again, the CPS does not include persons in group quarters. The figure shows that between March 1995 and March 2000, the foreign-born population grew by 5.7 million, or about 1.1 million a year.5 The figure also shows that between 2000 and 2007 the immigrant population grew 7.3 million, or 1.04 million a year. These two numbers are the same statistically.
It would appear that the growth in the foreign-born during the economic expansion in the second half of the 1990s was about the same as in the period from 2000 to 2007.6 The seeming large growth from 2006 to 2007 (1.6 million) should be interpreted with caution. While the growth in the last year is statistically significant, one or even two years of data are not necessarily a trend. What Figure 1 does show is that the growth from 1995 to 2007 in the foreign-born has been very high despite changes in the economy over this time period.