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Roughly 17.5 of the 37.3 million immigrants in the United States are Hispanic or Latino. Most of the rest are Asian (8.8 million) or non-Latino white (7.7 million). Approximately 3.0 million are black, while less than 400,000 are from other racial groups.
A majority of every racial or ethnic group in the United States is native-born, with Asians being the lone exception. Some 38.6% of Latinos living in the United States were not born American citizens, along with about 8.0% of blacks and 3.9% of whites. A full 66.6% of Asians in the United States are immigrants.
The Census Bureau does not release information on citizenship status by race but does release information on citizenship status by country of origin. To create a crude estimation of citizenship status by race/ethnicity, we might compare immigrants from Latin America to the Latino ethnic group classification, immigrants from Europe to the non-Latino white classification, and immigrants from Asia to the Asian classification. Unsurprisingly, the plurality of immigrants to the United States are from Latin America (about 19.9 million, a greater number than those who identify as Hispanic or Latino) followed by Asians (10.1 million also larger than the number of immigrants who identify as ethnically Asian) and then Europeans (5.0 million, substantially fewer than the number of immigrants who identify as non-Latino white). Another 2.4 million are from other regions.
As shown in the graphs above and below, immigrants from Asia and Europe are more likely to naturalize than immigrants from Latin America or other regions. About 60% of European-born immigrants and 57% of Asian-born immigrants naturalized in the United States, compared to just 31% of those from Latin America.
On the other hand, European-born immigrants are the most likely to have been living in the United States for the longest time, while those from Latin America are most likely to have come recently. Duration of time having lived in the United States is, obviously, highly correlated with the likelyhood that an individual has naturalized as a citizen.
When we adjust for date of entry, we can see that within a given decade of entry, immigrants from Asia are generally more likely than immigrants from Europe to naturalize as American citizens, and although immigrants from Latin America remain the least likely to naturalize, the difference is not always as steep as is suggested by the aggregated data. This shows that the statistical differences we saw above are more a function of the patterns of immigration through time than of any real differences between ethnic groups and their ability or desire to become naturalized citizens.
Source: American Community Survey (ACS) 2005-2009 5-year estimates.
