News Americas, FORT LAUDERDALR, FL, Fri. Aug. 16, 2019: While many around the world are still reeling from the fact that a young white man, fueled by hate propagated by White Supremacists and the xenophobic rhetoric of the President of the United States drove hundreds of miles to the border town of El Paso to massacre 22 Latinos and injure at least two dozen others, the question that has to be asked is what is causing this resurgence in hate and making so many White nationalists and Supremacists so mad at immigrants and people of color that they are ready to kill again?
The reasons are of course are based in facts and that is that the black and brown population of the United States, which many of these hate filled beings believe strongly is “their country,” is growing much faster than their own White population. Donald Trump’s mainstreaming of such xenophobia has only emboldened the supremacists and nationalists who now feel empowered to take matters in their own hands to stop the “caravans,” the “invasion,” the “animals” and “rapists” and as Trump claims that are coming to take over “their country.”
Here are 10 facts from the U.S. Census that I strongly believe is fueling this fear and hate:
1: The United States has more immigrants than any other country in the world. Since 1970, the foreign-born population in the U.S. has continued to increase in size, and as a percentage of the total population. Today, about 1 in 4 children born in the U.S. under 18 have at least one foreign-born parent, primarily from Asia and Latin America.
2: The foreign-born population currently stands at over 13.7 percent as of the latest data from 2017. That’s 44.5 million people, according to the data. This represents a more than four-fold increase since 1960 when only 9.7 million immigrants lived in the U.S. Between 1991 and 2000, over 9 million immigrants entered the country legally, representing one of the highest rates of immigration the US has ever seen.
3: Since 2010, the increase in the number of people from Asia — 2.6 million — was more than double the 1.2 million who came from Latin America. Note that the last historic peak in immigration to the United States came at the end of the 19th century, when large numbers of White Europeans fled poverty and violence in their home countries to the U.S.
4: The U.S.-born children of immigrants or the second-generation Americans make up another estimated 12 percent of the nation’s population. By 2050, these two groups could account for 19 percent and 18 percent of the population, respectively, according to Pew Research Center projections.
5: There are some 20.7 million naturalized immigrants in the U.S. who have the right to vote and decide elections. This does not include the second or third generation immigrants. By 2020, that figure is projected to rise to 21.2 million. About 29 million of them are Latinos – foreign and second and third generation – who were eligible to vote in 2018, up from approximately 25 million in 2014. In 2018 alone, Hispanics and Asians voter turnout rates increased to about 40 percent, a 13-percentage point increase over 2014.
Meanwhile, voter turnout rates for whites (57.5 percent) and blacks (51.4 percent) have increased by just 11.7 and 10.8 percentage points, respectively, since 2014. And while Whites continue to make up the vast majority of voters (72.8 percent) and their overall numbers continue to grow as a share of U.S. voters, there has been a 3.5 percentage point drop among white voters since 2014. In some states, foreign-born voters are already capable of deciding elections. In Nevada, for instance, almost 256,000 immigrants were eligible to vote in 2016, a number more than nine times higher than Hillary Clinton’s margin of victory in the state that year.
6: Although the white working class played a significant role in the 2016 election, demographic trends mean they will see their influence decline in future electoral contests. While only 11.2 percent of the current U.S. senior population identify as Hispanic or Asian-American, 27.8 percent of those graduating from high school in the next decade do. This means that through 2024, the share of the electorate that is white is projected to decline by 4.4 percent. The share that will be both white and working class will see even steeper declines, falling by 5.5 percent.
7: Immigrants are projected to drive future growth in the U.S. working-age population through at least 2035. As the Baby Boom generation heads into retirement, immigrants and their children are the ones expected to offset a decline in the working-age population by adding about 18 million people of working age between 2015 and 2035.
8: Lawful immigrants made up the majority of the immigrant workforce, at 21.2 million.
9: Of the 15 states with the highest concentration of immigrants, all but three — Florida, Texas and Arizona — voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race while many of the states with low and moderate concentrations of foreign-born people voted for Donald Trump.
10: The number of immigrants living in the United States is projected to almost double by 2065, causing Donald Trump, and many Republicans to sound the alarms about immigration and suggested the government needs to restrict both the number and types of people coming into the country, rousing racists rom their slumber and driving them to domestic terrorism against brown and black people.
The writer is publisher at NewsAmericasNow
