The foreign-born population in the Washington area soared by 20 percent over five years — the third-highest spike among metropolitan areas at a time when immigration has slowed nationwide.
The ranks of Washington-area residents born outside the United States swelled by 200,000 between 2005 and 2010, for a surge in the immigrant population that proportionally exceeded that of every major metropolitan area except Seattle and Houston, respectively, according to a new study from the George Mason University Center for Regional Analysis. The 20 percent surge was twice as high as the region’s overall 9.6 percent population growth during the same period.
“When you look around at what was going on, there were a lot of places that weren’t doing well economically — but we were,” said Lisa Sturtevant, assistant research professor at George Mason’s economic research center.
“It’s a result of people making choices where to live based on economic opportunity.”
| Moving in | |
| Foreign-born populations by jurisdiction in 2010: | |
| Montgomery County | 32.2 percent |
| Fairfax County | 30.3 percent |
| Alexandria | 26.5 percent |
| Arlington | 23.2 percent |
| Loudoun County | 22.1 percent |
| Prince William County | 21.2 percent |
| Prince George’s County | 19.9 percent |
| District | 13.5 percent |
| Source: U.S. Census Bureau | |
Fueled by that economic motivation, more than one of every five of the region’s 5.6 million residents were not born on U.S. soil. Of that group, 40 percent came from Latin American countries, 35 percent from Asian nations, 14 percent from Africa and 9 percent from Europe.
By percentage, African-born residents increased at the swiftest pace — 30 percent — and demographers say that trend will likely continue in lieu of residents from Latin America.
“I don’t anticipate the Latino growth returning to the rate we saw before the recession,” said Randy Capps, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “If you look at the statistics nationally, particularly unauthorized populations and Mexican, you’ve seen those flat-line if not decline. I would project African immigrants to be the fastest-growing group for some time — particularly with the area’s demand for highly educated people.”
Hispanic enclaves such as Miami, Los Angeles and New York maintained a much higher proportion of foreign-born residents — in Miami’s case, nearly double that of Washington. Washington now claims the sixth-highest proportion of foreign-born residents among the 15 largest metropolitan areas nationwide, just ahead of Chicago’s.
Mirroring the rest of the region, the local foreign-born population enjoyed high levels of education and compensation, census data show.
For example, the Asian-born community had a median household income of more than $93,000 in 2010, exceeding the region’s overall median household income by nearly $10,000. In 2010, about 82 percent of the European-born and 76 percent of Asians older than 25 had at least a bachelor’s degree.
“Our immigrant population is different in that we have a lot of really highly skilled, really highly educated immigrants in technical fields,” Sturtevant said. “For some people, when you talk about immigrants, the common thought is that they’re less educated. The share that has a college degree is pretty comparable to the native-born population here.”
