Immigration Issues

Four-in-ten immigrants arriving in the U.S. in the past five years had completed at least a bachelor’s degree. In 1970, only 20% of newly arrived immigrants were similarly educated.

For the hundreds of thousands of migrants entering the European Union, their chances of gaining asylum vary greatly depending on where they're from and in which country they apply.

Explore how immigration in the U.S. was shaped by laws and acts in this interactive timeline of U.S. immigration legislation since the 1790s.

The nation's foreign-born population has swelled from 10 million in 1965 to a record 45 million in 2015. By 2065, the U.S. will have a projected 78 million immigrants.

Nearly nine-in-ten Hispanic Catholics (88%) say that undocumented immigrants who meet certain requirements should be able to stay in the U.S.

Although Europe is struggling to manage the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing conflicts in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere, the countries facing the biggest refugee impacts are the ones closest to the fighting.

A majority of all Hispanic adults identify as Catholic and a large majority of Hispanic Catholics speak Spanish fluently. Eight-in-ten Hispanic Catholics use mostly Spanish or are bilingual. In fact, they are more likely to be Spanish speakers than non-Catholic Hispanics (68%).

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.

There is little support overall for an effort to deport all those in the U.S. illegally, but past surveys have found support for building a barrier along the Mexican border and for banning birthright citizenship.

Asians, especially Chinese, are responsible for most of the sharp increase in foreign students at U.S. colleges and universities. Foreign students are more likely to study science, engineering and math than U.S. students as a whole, especially at the post-baccalaureate level.