According to the 2010 United States Census, the percentage of immigrants in the US in 2010 was about the same as it was in 1910 — around 13%. Though the number of immigrants in the US as compared to its total population decreased significantly in the mid-20th century to about 5.4%, immigration tripled between then and the early 2000s, with about 40 million foreign-born people living in the US as of the early 2000s.
More about immigration:
- The country of origin of US immigrants has changed drastically over the past century: while almost 90% of immigrants were European in the early 1900s, only around 12% were in 2010. The biggest sources of immigrants in the 21st century so far have been Mexico, India, the Philippines, and China.
- An estimated 500,000 undocumented immigrants enter the US annually. Despite this, the majority of people who immigrate to the US do so legally.
- The US is actually pretty low in terms of the percentage of its population that is foreign-born: about 25% of Australia's population is composed of immigrants, as is about 17% of Canada's.