D’Vera Cohn

A snapshot of the U.S. in 2065 would show a nation that has 117 million more people than today, with no racial or ethnic majority group taking the place of today’s white majority.

The United States began regulating immigration soon after it won independence from Great Britain, and the laws since enacted have reflected the politics and migrant flows of the times. We looked at key immigration laws from 1790 to 2014.

About 295,000 babies were born to unauthorized-immigrant parents in 2013, making up 8% of the 3.9 million U.S. births that year. This was down from a peak of 370,000 in 2007.

A new research paper suggests that the number of married same-sex couples in the United States in 2013 may have been much lower than the Census Bureau’s initial estimate for that year.

Instead, the new census questionnaire may tell people to check the “categories” that describe them.

In 2014, 40% of births were to unmarried mothers, a slight decline from the 41% share that had held steady since 2008. Although the single percentage point drop in 2014 was small, it was only the third one-year dip in this measure since the end of World War II.

Biracial adults who are white and American Indian are among the least likely of mixed-race adults to consider themselves multiracial (only 25% do). They are among the most likely to say their multiracial background has been neither an advantage nor a disadvantage.

Under pressure from academics and advocates, the U.S. Census Bureau has abandoned plans to delete a series of questions about marriage and divorce from its largest household survey.

Most U.S. unauthorized immigrants hold low-skilled service, construction and production jobs, but those shares have fallen since 2007. In the states, the leading industry employers are hospitality, manufacturing and construction.

The bureau should be paying more attention to the needs and opinions of the people and organizations that use its data, according to a recent report.