The Newest New Yorkers: Immigrant New York in the New Millenium

The passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Amendments led to a surge in immigration to New York City and a decline in the share of European immigrants. Between 1970 and 2000, the total foreign-born population nearly doubled, from 1.44 million to 2.87 million, while the share of Europeans dropped, from 64 percent to 19 percent. Latin America was the largest area of origin in 2000, accounting for nearly 32 percent of the city’s foreign-born, followed by Asia (24 percent), the non-hispanic Caribbean (21 percent), Europe (19 percent), and Africa (3 percent). Thus, New York City’s foreign-born in 2000 have extremely diverse origins, in contrast to the overwhelming European origin of the foreign-born in earlier decades.