A record 3.8 million black immigrants live in the U.S. today, more than four times the number in 1980, according to a new report released Thursday.
The Pew Research Center report — which is based on census data — says these immigrants now account for 8.7 percent of the nation’s overall black population, nearly triple their share more than three decades ago. The largest percentages came to the U.S. from Jamaica, 18 percent; Haiti, 15 percent; and Nigeria 6 percent.
“Rapid growth in the black immigrant population is expected to continue,” the Pew report says. “The Census Bureau projects that by 2060, 16.5 percent of U.S. blacks will be immigrants.”
In 2013, Georgia ranked eighth among states for its total number of black foreign-born residents at 163,000, the report shows. New York ranked first at 910,000.
In the Atlanta metro area, 8 percent of the region’s 1.9 million black residents — or about 152,160 — were foreign born in 2013. That region ranked second behind New York-Northeastern New Jersey among metro areas across the country in the size of its overall black population.
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