The Muslim population in the United States has soared to a new high of 3.3 million, and is surge to 8.1 milloin 2050, according to new Pew Research Center projections.
“According to our current estimate, there are fewer Muslims of all ages in the U.S. than there are Jews by religion (5.7 million) but more than there are Hindus (2.1 million) and many more than there are Sikhs,” said Pew.
Muslim immigrants have become part of the 2016 presidential election, with leading Republican Donald Trump calling for an immigration moratorium due to security concerns about some coming from terrorist nations.
The nonpartisan survey organization added that immigration is the reason the numbers have surged, though since the federal government doesn’t ask about religion in Census surveys, Pew used demographics to make its estimate.
“Just over half of the projected growth of the American Muslim population from 2010 to 2015 is due to immigration. Over the last 20 years, there has been an increase in the number of Muslim immigrants coming to the U.S. The number of Muslim immigrants currently represents about 10 percent of all legal immigrants arriving in the U.S., and a significantly smaller percentage of unauthorized immigrants,” said Pew.
“The other main cause of Islam’s recent growth is natural increase. American Muslims tend to have more children than Americans of other religious faiths. Muslims also tend to be younger than the general public, so a larger share of Muslims will soon be at the point in their lives when people begin having children,” added Pew.
An earlier version of this story said that the 2050 projection of Muslims was 6.6 million.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
