Immigration projected to drive U.S. population growth

Immigrants and their descendants will drive U.S. population growth over the next half century, transforming the country into one where no racial or ethnic group is a majority, a Pew Research Center report released Monday said.

If current demographic trends continue, immigrants and their descendants are projected to account for the vast majority — 88 percent — of the population increase as the United States grows to 441 million people by 2065, the study found.

'Without the immigrants, the U.S. population would start decreasing,' said Pew demographer Jeff Passel, among those who worked on the report.

For its report, which takes a 100-year look at U.S. immigration, Pew analyzed census data and population projections. Researchers said they also took into account estimates of unauthorized immigrants from all countries, which they said numbered about 11.3 million in 2014.

Pew also surveyed the public on views toward immigrants. The bilingual online survey of 3,147 adults was conducted from March 10 to April 6, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percent.

The attitude survey was conducted about two months before GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump drew international attention with his comments in June that Mexico is 'sending people that have lots of problems and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.'

In the Pew Survey, 45 percent of Americans said immigrants in the United States are making society better in the long run, and 37 percent say they are making it worse. Sixteen percent say they do not have much effect.

About half of respondents said immigrants are making the economy and crime worse, but about the same percentage believe immigrants are improving food, music and the arts.

Just under half of respondents said Asian and European immigrants have had a mostly positive effect on society, but Pew found Americans are more likely to have negative views about Latin American and Middle Eastern immigrants.

The attitudes toward immigrants from Latin America and the Middle East were similar, the survey found, within a few percentage points — nearly 40 percent said the effect of those immigrants was negative.

Since the mid-1800s. the predominant country of origin for immigrants living in Iowa was Germany, according to Pew.

By 2010, that had changed to Mexico, the researchers reported. Nearly 2 percent of Linn County's population and nearly 3 percent of Johnson's were Mexican immigrants, the report said.

By 2065, Pew projected, there will be 78 million immigrants in the United States — a record 18 percent of the nation's population who are foreign-born.

The foreign-born population in the United States has grown since the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, and currently is about 14 percent or 45 million people.

Without any post-1965 immigration, the United States would be 75 percent white, 14 percent black, 8 percent Hispanic and less than 1 percent Asian, researchers said.

Non-Hispanic whites are projected to become less than half of the U.S. population by 2055, and no racial or ethnic group will be a majority, according to Pew.

Since the immigration act, there has been a major shift in the origins of immigrants living in the United States.

In 1960, 84 percent of immigrants living in the country were born in Europe or Canada. Only 6 percent were from Mexico, nearly 4 percent from south and east Asia, and 3.5 percent from the rest of Latin America.

By 2013, European and Canadian immigrants made up only about 14 percent of immigrants, while Mexican immigrants accounted for the largest share of 28 percent. Asian immigrants made up 25.8 percent of all immigrants and other Latin American immigrants stood at 24 percent.

Reuters contributed to this report. Read more of the Pew report on immigration.