Foreign-born population surges in US

The US foreign-born population surged by one million in the year ending in March, according to a report released on Thursday, evidence that the sluggish economy and stepped-up government enforcement of immigration laws after the 2001 terror attacks did not lead to a long-term slowdown in the influx of immigrants.

The 3 percent rise in the foreign-born population came after an increase of 2 percent, or 700,000, the previous year, according to the Washington-based Centre for Immigration Studies. During the explosive growth of the 1990s, the foreign-born population grew at a pace of about 1.3 million a year.

"For prospective immigrants, being unemployed or having to rely on the government or relatives in this country for support is still often better than life in the home country," said the report's author, Steve Camarota, whose group favours tighter immigration restrictions.

Camarota estimated that roughly half of the new arrivals the past year likely entered the country illegally, a rate similar to previous years.

Nestor Rodriguez, co-director of the Centre for Immigration Research at the University of Houston, said even a struggling US economy is better than the economies of the countries many leave behind.

"Unless it's like a huge depression, the business cycles of ups and downs we see doesn't seem to have a big impact," he said.

The Centre for Immigration Studies used Census Bureau data to calculate that the total foreign-born population in March was a record 33.5 million, roughly 12 percent of the US population. Mexico was the country of origin for the most people, nearly 10 million.

Camarota found that unemployment rates increased for foreign-born and native-born residents between 2000 and 2003. However, while the number of employed native-born residents decreased, the number of working foreign-born residents increased, a trend especially evident among less-educated workers.