By Gustavo López, Kristen Bialik and Jynnah Radford of Pew Research –
The United States has more immigrants than any other country in the world. Today, more than 40 million people living in the U.S. were born in another country, accounting for about one-fifth of the world’s migrants in 2016.
The population of immigrants is also very diverse, with just about every country in the world represented among U.S. immigrants. Most immigrants (76%) are in the country legally, while a quarter are unauthorized.
Mexico is the top origin country of the U.S. immigrant population. In 2016, 11.6 million immigrants living in the U.S. were from there, accounting for 26% of all U.S. immigrants. The next largest origin groups were those from China (6%), India (6%), the Philippines (4%) and El Salvador (3%).