in NYC: Immigrants Reach 3 Million – 37% of Population

Immigrants from Mexico (186,300 residents) moved into 3rd place, with a 52 percent increase over the last decade, and were followed by Jamaicans (169,200) and Guyanese (139,900) – Ecuador, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, India, and Russia round out the top ten groups. Thus, the foreign-born in 2011 had diverse origins.

The surge in the foreign-born population has been accompanied by a decline in the European share of this population, from 64 percent in 1970 to just 16 percent in 2011. Latin America is now the largest area of origin, comprising nearly one-third of the City’s foreign-born population, followed by Asia (28 percent), and the non-Hispanic Caribbean (19 percent). Africa accounts for 4 percent. This large flow of immigrants from Latin America, Asia, and the Caribbean has reshaped the racial and ethnic composition of New York from a largely European white city to a diverse mix where no one group is in the majority.