Center For Immigration Studies

WASHINGTON - White people will no longer make up a majority of Americans by 2042, according to new government projections. That's eight years sooner than previous estimates, made in 2004. The nation has been growing more diverse for decades, but the process has sped up through immigration and higher birth rates among minority residents, especially Hispanics. It is also growing older. "The white population is older and very much centered around the aging baby boomers who are well past their high fertility years," said William Frey, a demographer at...

NOGALES, Ariz. — The fence rises from the rock and hardscrabble of the desert floor, a formidable 15-foot-high curtain of corrugated metal that stretches into the mirage of heat and distance. Newer sections feature 20-foot-high steel columns, deeply planted, narrowly spaced, so no human slips between. The start-and-stop span — 646 miles long — has become a fierce polemic, a bumper sticker, a popular backdrop for campaign commercials during an election year with another sulfurous immigration debate.

WASHINGTON -- Immigration -- both legal and illegal -- has accelerated, pushing the percentage of the US population born in other countries to the highest point in nearly a century. There are 35.2 million foreign-born people living in the United States -- about 12.1 percent of the population, according to a report yesterday by the Center for Immigration Studies. The report comes as the House prepares to take up a bill to curb illegal immigration by boosting border security and requiring workplace enforcement of immigration laws.

WASHINGTON - White people will no longer make up a majority of Americans by 2042, according to new government projections. That's eight years sooner than previous estimates, made in 2004. The nation has been growing more diverse for decades, but the process has sped up through immigration and higher birth rates among minority residents, especially Hispanics. It is also growing older. "The white population is older and very much centered around the aging baby boomers who are well past their high fertility years," said William Frey, a demographer at...

NOGALES, Ariz. — The fence rises from the rock and hardscrabble of the desert floor, a formidable 15-foot-high curtain of corrugated metal that stretches into the mirage of heat and distance. Newer sections feature 20-foot-high steel columns, deeply planted, narrowly spaced, so no human slips between. The start-and-stop span — 646 miles long — has become a fierce polemic, a bumper sticker, a popular backdrop for campaign commercials during an election year with another sulfurous immigration debate.

FRAMINGHAM - The uncle of President Obama arrested here last week on drunken driving and other charges has been a fugitive from deportation since 1992, according to two federal law enforcement officials with knowledge of the case. Onyango Obama, who is from Kenya and is known as the president's Uncle Omar on his father's side, had lived a quiet life in Massachusetts until last Wednesday, when police said the car he was driving darted in front of a police cruiser, nearly causing the officer to hit his car. The federal officials, who spoke about Obama's...

LOS ANGELES — Emboldened by months of phone calls to lawmakers, hunger strikes, and sit-ins, a group of college students and graduates in Los Angeles say they plan to take their fight for immigrant rights to the states and the 2012 election after Senate Republicans blocked a key piece of legislation. But it will not be easy. The Senate vote Saturday to defeat the proposal that would have granted young illegal immigrants a route to legal status dealt a harsh blow to student activists who will face an even more difficult...

Federal immigration officials have notified President Obama's uncle that they want to discuss his deportation to his native Kenya, confirming for the first time since last summer that he could still be forced to leave the country. The notice arrived days after Onyango Obama resolved a drunken driving case in Framingham that exposed the quiet 67-year-old as living in the United States illegally 20 years after he was ordered deported. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Brian P. Hale said Tuesday that now that Obama's criminal case is over, "ICE has...

GLENVILLE, N.Y. -- Thiyagarajan Subramanian came to America and ended up in a contemporary colonial with a two-car garage. He skipped the sort of city living linked to immigration for over a century. Subramanian is typical of many immigrants across the country. They are more likely to bypass the cozy cocoon of urban enclaves to settle amid the plush lawns and strip malls of suburbia. Demographers tracking immigration trends say it's a signpost in a country simultaneously more diverse and more suburban.

HEBBRONVILLE, Texas -- The Border Patrol is bigger than ever, but ranch manager Bill Hellen says he is seeing more illegal immigrants than ever. When the Border Patrol put up a new checkpoint on a highway near Hebbronville, about 50 miles from the border, illegal immigrants simply went around it, slashing his fences and sneaking through his ranch, he said. He doesn't see that changing any time soon, even with President Bush's promise of 6,000 new agents along the border. "All the ranchers surrounding the checkpoint say the same thing," he said.

WASHINGTON -- Immigration -- both legal and illegal -- has accelerated, pushing the percentage of the US population born in other countries to the highest point in nearly a century. There are 35.2 million foreign-born people living in the United States -- about 12.1 percent of the population, according to a report yesterday by the Center for Immigration Studies. The report comes as the House prepares to take up a bill to curb illegal immigration by boosting border security and requiring workplace enforcement of immigration laws.

MIAMI -- British music producer Adam Kidron says that when he came up with the idea of a Spanish-language version of the US national anthem, he saw it as an ode to the millions of immigrants seeking a better life. But in the week since Kidron announced the song -- which features artists such as Wyclef Jean, hip-hop star Pitbull, and Puerto Rican singers Carlos Ponce and Olga Tanon -- it has been the target of a fierce backlash. Some Internet bloggers and others are infuriated by the thought of "The Star-Spangled Banner" sung in a language other than English.

What seems like a simple question - How many Hispanics are living in the United States? - has become surprisingly complex as the 2010 Census approaches. Hispanics and other minorities have historically been undercounted in the once-a-decade survey. Advocacy groups are now launching their traditional efforts to ensure an accurate count, but a variety of factors have created new problems for the painting of America's official portrait. Activists and government officials say fears about immigration enforcement and government snooping are making people more...