Washington, D.C.
| Summary Demographic Data (and Source) | |
|---|---|
| Population (2009 CB est.): | 588,433 |
| Population (2000 Census): | 572,059 |
| Foreign-Born Population (2009 CB est.): | 73,670 |
| Foreign-Born Population (2000 Census): | 73,561 |
| Share Foreign-Born (2009 CB est.) | 12.6% |
| Share Foreign-Born (2000 CB est.) | 12.9% |
| Naturalized U.S. Citizens (2009 CB est.): | 25,364 |
| Share Naturalized (2009): | 34.4% |
| Legal Immigrant Admission (DHS 2000-2009): | 27,274 |
| Refugee Admission (HHS 2000-2009): | 1,757 |
| Illegal Alien Population (2008 FAIR est.): | 35,000 |
| Costs of Illegal Aliens (2010 FAIR) | $312,000,000 |
| Projected 2050 Population (2006 FAIR) | 835,000 |
Washington D.C. : Extended Immigration Data
POPULATION
Using the American Community Survey (ACS), the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that in July 2009 the District of Columbia’s population had increased to 588,433 residents. That was an annual average increase of about 1,700 residents since 2000. That is a rate of increase of about 0.3 percent per year. The comparable national rate of change was 1.0 percent.
The District of Columbia, unlike all but one state lost rather than increased population between 1960-2000.
Between the 1990 and 2000 Censuses, the population of the District fell slightly from 606,900 to 572,059 residents (-.059% per annum). That was an annual change of -0.06 percent compared to a national rate of change of 1.2 percent.
Between 1980 and 1990 the District's overall population declined from 638,432 by an annual rate of change of -0.6 percent. The national rate of change was 1.0 percent.
FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION
Based on the 2009 ACS, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that the foreign-born population of the District was 73,670 persons in 2009. This meant a foreign-born population share of one in every eight (12.5%) residents.
NET INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION (NIM)
Based on the Current Population Survey(CPS), the Census Bureau estimated that between the 2000 Census and July 2009 the state’s population increased by about 2,600 residents from net international migration (more foreign-born arriving than leaving). This increase accounted for all of the average population increase.(not considering the children born to the immigrants after their arrival in the United States). During the same period there was a net exodus of about 4,475 established residents annually. [Note the CPS finding suggests a much greater increase from immigration than the ACS estimate.]
FOREIGN-BORN CHANGE
The amount of change since the 2000 Census recorded in the 2009 ACS was an increase of 110 foreign-born residents. This resulted in a foreign-born population share of 12.5 percent. [Note the different estimates of increase in the foreign-born population from the two different Census Bureau surveys.]
Immigration also contributes to population growth through the children born to immigrants in this country. Nationally the share of births to the foreign-born is about double their share of the population. A 25 percent share of the District’s current births is large enough to account for about 1,990 births a year. Combining the increase in the foreign-born population and estimated immigrant births suggests that immigration may account for all of the District’s overall population increase.
The 2000 Census found that 51 percent of the District's foreign-born population had arrived in the state since 1990. This demonstrates the effects of the current mass immigration, and it was a much higher share than the national average (43.7%). The 2009 ACS data estimate indicates that more than one-third (35.7%) of the state’s foreign-born population has arrived since 2000. That was higher than the 31.6 percent share of new arrivals nationally.
In 1990, over half (55.7%) of the District's foreign-born population had arrived since 1980. During the 90s the annual average rate of increase in the foreign-born population was 2.2 percent compared to a national rate of 4.6 percent.
FOREIGN-BORN CHARACTERISTICS
An indicator of the change in the immigrant population may be seen in data on the share of the population that speaks a language other than English at home. Between 1990 and 2000 the share of non-English speakers at home in the District of Columbia increased by more than one-fifth, from 12.5 percent to 15.3 percent. Less than half (42.3%) of those who said they spoke a language other than English at home in 2000 also said they spoke English less than very well.
The 2009 ACS estimate put the share of the over 5 population speaking other than English at home at 14.2 percent. More than half (51.9%) were Spanish speakers, and nearly two-thirds (64.6%) of those who spoke English less than very well were also Spanish speakers.
| Speakers of Foreign Languages (at home in Washington, DC in the 2000 Census) |
|
| Spanish | 49,460 |
| French | 9,005 |
| German | 2,695 |
| Amharic | 2,365 |
| Chinese | 2,225 |
| Arabic | 2,095 |
| Kru, Ibo, Yoruba | 1,910 |
| Italian | 1,725 |
| Vietnamese | 1,610 |
| Tagalog | 1,355 |
|
(Source: Census Bureau report: Language Spoken at Home for the Population 5 Years and Over, April 2004) |
|
The chart above shows the foreign-born population virtually unchanged since 2000 and the share of that population from Africa increasing by 11.2 percent. Latin America’s share of the state’s immigrant population fell from 50.4 percent in 2000 to 48.2 percent in 2009.
NATURALIZATION
Data from the 2009 American Community Survey indicate that 25,364 residents, or 34.4 percent, of the foreign-born population in District of Columbia were U.S. citizens, compared to 22,050 residents, or 30.0 percent, in 2000.
Nationally, 40.3 percent of the foreign-born population was U.S. citizens in 2000, and 43.7 percent in 2009.
REFUGEES
The District has received 1,757 refugees over the most recent ten fiscal years (FY'00-'09).
LIMITED ENGLISH PROFICIENCY STUDENTS
Data are not available nationally on immigrant students (either legally or illegally resident in the United States) who are enrolled in primary and secondary schools (K-12). However, many of these students are enrolled in Limited English Proficiency/English Language Learning (LEP/ELL) instruction programs. Many may be U.S.-born, but the majority of these students may be assumed to be either immigrants or the children of immigrants, with the exception being areas with Native Americans who speak a native language other than English.
In the District, overall K-12 enrollment in 2008 (78,442) was 1.6 percent higher than in 2000. By contrast, the LEP enrollment (5,165) was virtually unchanged from 2000. The share of LEP enrollment fell from 6.7 percent to 6.6 percent.
FOREIGN STUDENTS
The 2009/2010 annual report of the Institute of International Education (IIE) lists the number of foreign students attending post-secondary school in the District of Columbia as 8,563. Five schools in the District of Columbia are listed as having a major concentration of these students:
- George Washington U. – 2,666.
- Georgetown U. – 1,882
- American U. – 977
- UDC – 635
- Howard U. – 566
Those schools represented nearly four-fifths (78.5%) of the total foreign students.
For information on foreign student issues see: Foreign Students in the United States.
ILLEGAL ALIENS
FAIR Estimate - FAIR estimates the District’s illegal alien population as of 2008 is as many as 35,000 persons. This is part of an overall estimate of the U.S. illegal alien population of about 13 million persons.
INS/DHS Estimate - The INS (now dissolved into the Dept. of Homeland Security) estimated in February 2003 that the resident illegal population in the District of Columbia was 7,000 as of January 2000. This number was 23,000 higher than the INS' 1996 estimate.
Other Estimates - The Pew Hispanic Center estimates the illegal alien population of the state at 15,000 to 30,000 as of 2005.
COST OF ILLEGAL ALIENS
FAIR’s 2010 fiscal cost study, “The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers” estimated the following cost outlays and tax receipts:
| District Fiscal Costs In 2009 | ||
| Due to Illegal Aliens ($M) | (Pct.) | |
| K-12 educ. | $153.2 | 49.1% |
| LEP educ. | $32.9 | 10.5% |
| Medicaid | $12.6 | 4.0% |
| SCHIP | $6.0 | 1.9% |
| Justice | $31.1 | 10.0% |
| Welfare+ | $27.3 | 8.8% |
| General | $48.9 | 15.7% |
| Total | $312.0 | |
| Tax Receipts | $7.9 | |
| Net Cost | $304.1 | |
Source: “The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers,” FAIR 2010.
District of Columbia : Immigrant Admissions
| District of Columbia Immigrant Admissions by Fiscal Year |
|
| 2000 | 2,548 |
| 2001 | 3,043 |
| 2002 | 2,723 |
| 2003 | 2,491 |
| 2004 | 2,110 |
| 2005 | 2,457 |
| 2006 | 3,775 |
| 2007 | 2,541 |
| 2008 | 2,652 |
| 2009 | 2,934 |
| Total | 27,274 |
Recent immigrant admissions are slightly lower (94%) than the level of admissions just after adoption of the current immigration system in 1965. During the 1965-'69 period, annual admissions averaged about 3,055 immigrants. During the most recent five years, admissions averaged about 2,870 persons.
The charts below show recent immigrant admissions and the cumulative immigrant admissions data since 1965. The number of annual admissions has ranged from 2,110 in FY'04 to 5,510 in FY'91. The cumulative total of admissions to the District between fiscal years 1965 and 2009 was 134,127 immigrants.
The data for fiscal years 1989-91 were artificially raised slightly by the inclusion of former illegal aliens who were amnestied in 1986. According to INS data (1991) the number of amnesty applicants from the District of Columbia was 6,032 (4,570 pre-1982 residents and 1,462 agricultural workers[!!!]).
INS DATA BY NATIONALITY: FY'96 - FY'05
The INS data below are furnished for nationals of the countries with the largest number of immigrants admitted or adjusted to legal residence each year since 1996. The absence of data means that the total number of admissions to the United States by nationals of that country was not enough to merit detailed reporting in that year.
The nationalities may change each year, so the totals in some cases will not reflect all the immigrants of that nationality who have become legal immigrants in the District of Columbia during this period.
The table below furnishes INS data on the immigrants who have been admitted for residence in the Disctrict of Columbia since 1996 by nationality.
The INS data are for nationals of the countries with the largest number of immigrants admitted or adjusted to legal residence each year since 1996. The absence of data means that the total number of admissions to the United States by nationals of that country was not enough to merit detailed reporting in that year.
The nationalities may change each year, so the totals in some cases will not reflect all the immigrants of that nationality who have become legal immigrants in Louisiana during this period.
The Department of Homeland Security website is has detailed data on immigrant admissions since FY’03 by year and by country. That resource has data for all source countries. (See http://www.dhs.gov/ximgtn/statistics/data/dslpr.shtm).
| Immigrant Admissions by Fiscal Year | |||||||||||
| Country | FY'96 | FY'97 | FY'98 | FY'99 | FY'00 | FY'01 | FY'02 | FY'03 | FY'04 | FY'05 | Total |
| Bangladesh | 50 | 48 | 42 | 30 | 39 | - | 17 | 12 | 12 | 19 | 269 |
| Canada | 21 | 32 | 7 | 15 | 31 | 27 | 31 | 31 | 16 | 29 | 240 |
| China * | 223 | 125 | 119 | 92 | 130 | 143 | 164 | 151 | 123 | 122 | 1,392 |
| Colombia | 24 | 16 | 16 | 15 | 15 | 43 | 21 | 28 | 8 | 32 | 218 |
| Cuba | 3 | 11 | 4 | 3 | 9 | 8 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 8 | 60 |
| Dom. Rep. | 95 | 65 | 46 | 57 | 59 | 54 | 38 | 63 | 53 | 29 | 558 |
| Ecuador | 15 | 9 | 11 | 10 | 16 | 3 | 16 | 13 | 4 | 10 | 107 |
| El Salvador | 557 | 562 | 427 | 423 | 544 | 752 | 521 | 416 | 333 | 311 | 4,846 |
| Germany | - | 17 | 18 | 22 | 32 | 32 | 22 | 27 | 15 | 30 | 215 |
| Guatemala | 47 | 40 | 37 | 38 | 46 | 70 | 38 | 28 | 30 | 41 | 415 |
| Guyana | 58 | 30 | 17 | 16 | 12 | - | 29 | 14 | 32 | 19 | 227 |
| Haiti | 32 | 26 | 13 | 21 | 35 | 26 | 17 | 12 | 4 | 3 | 189 |
| Honduras | - | 18 | 25 | 37 | 28 | - | 20 | 15 | 14 | 17 | 172 |
| India | 60 | 51 | 36 | 36 | 53 | 53 | 115 | 85 | 49 | 60 | 598 |
| Iran | 37 | 32 | 14 | 17 | 23 | 22 | 30 | 25 | 12 | 16 | 228 |
| Ireland | - | 7 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 11 | - | 5 | 4 | 4 | 30 |
| Jamaica | 104 | 87 | 83 | 80 | 71 | 54 | 39 | 63 | 47 | 68 | 696 |
| Japan | - | 19 | 19 | 21 | 41 | 38 | 47 | 55 | 35 | 25 | 300 |
| Korea | 25 | 18 | 15 | 27 | 17 | 26 | 22 | 75 | 22 | 15 | 262 |
| Mexico | 40 | 40 | 42 | 34 | 39 | 46 | 29 | 29 | 27 | 39 | 365 |
| Nicaragua | - | 51 | 29 | 18 | 79 | 69 | 36 | 11 | 16 | 17 | 326 |
| Nigeria | 194 | 154 | 125 | 117 | 96 | - | 68 | 101 | 94 | 112 | 1,061 |
| Pakistan | 33 | 35 | 15 | 25 | 24 | 33 | 28 | 12 | 22 | 19 | 246 |
| Peru | 76 | 65 | 46 | 30 | 18 | 51 | 44 | 30 | 33 | 42 | 435 |
| Philippines | 108 | 82 | 80 | 61 | 75 | 88 | 180 | 215 | 95 | 98 | 1,082 |
| Poland | 5 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 14 | 4 | 10 | 6 | 8 | 16 | 73 |
| Sov. Un. * | 61 | 60 | 66 | 66 | 66 | 66 | 76 | 53 | 76 | 115 | 705 |
| Trin.& Tob. | - | 73 | 40 | 33 | 48 | - | 33 | 36 | 30 | 36 | 329 |
| U. Kingdom | 51 | 58 | 37 | 26 | 41 | 56 | 51 | 38 | 44 | 51 | 453 |
| Vietnam | 350 | 243 | 111 | 16 | 65 | 69 | 46 | 28 | 20 | 33 | 981 |
| Yugo. * | 47 | 22 | 12 | 17 | 24 | 38 | 46 | 9 | 18 | 24 | 257 |
| Other | 1,468 | 1,274 | 820 | 727 | 749 | 1,172 | 881 | 802 | 807 | 999 | 9,699 |
| Total | 3,784 | 3,373 | 2,377 | 2,134 | 2,542 | 3,043 | 2,723 | 2,491 | 2,110 | 2,457 | 27,034 |
A dash (-) indicates that the data for that year was not published for that country in the Immigration Statistical Yearbook. * China includes Hong Kong and Taiwan. The Soviet Union includes Russia and former parts of the USSR. Yugoslavia includes Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro-Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.
The 31 nationalities above represent more than three-fifths (64 %) of all immigrant settlement and adjustment in the District of Columbia during this ten-year period. Immigrants from El Salvador, Nigeria, the Philippines and China accounted for nearly one-third (31%) of all immigrant admissions since 1996.
Revised January 2008
Washington D.C. : Immigration Impact
Environmental and Quality of Life Profile
Crowded Housing: An estimated 6.883 of D.C.'s housing units are crowded (at least one person per room), or 2.7 percent of the District's total housing units. Of those, 2,980 are severely crowded, with 1.5 or more persons per room.1 Nationwide, children in immigrant families were three times as likely to live in crowded conditions as children in native families (27 percent to 9 percent).2
Poverty: D.C. is joined by two states as the only areas of the country in which natives are more likely to be in poverty than the foreign-born. About 12.7 percent of foreign born households were poor in 2007, compared to 17.0 percent of natives. Another 8.4 percent of the foreign-born and 8.2 percent of native households were not in poverty but had incomes less than 1.5 times the poverty line.3
Air Quality: The District of Colombia received a grade of "F" from the American Lung Association's "State of the Air 2010" report.4
Traffic Congestion: The District's urban area, which includes parts of Maryland and Virginia, was the second-most congested city in the U.S. in 2007, only behind Los Angeles. Commuters wasted an estimated 62 hours and 42 gallons of fuel while stuck in traffic. These two factors amounted to a $2.8 billion cost of congestion. Nationwide, the amount of travel in urban areas that was not congested dropped from 74 percent in 1982 to 45 percent in 2007. Prevalence of severe congestion nearly tripled, and the peak period of work-related congestion dubbed "rush hour" has more than doubled in length since 1982.5 About 41 percent of D.C. commuters had a commute of 45 minutes or longer in 2008.6
Illegal Residents: An executive order prohibiting police from asking about immigration status has allowed many area gang members and other criminals to gain sanctuary from immigration laws.7 In the summer of 2003, D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey held a news conference to reiterate that the city's officers are not permitted to ask about immigration status during routine police procedures.8
Endnotes
- American Community Survey, Three-Year Estimates 2006-2008. Data retrieved using ACS Custom Table tool.
- "Wisconsin Children in Immigrant Families," WisKids Count Issue Brief, Spring 2008. Cited 2006 ACS data.
- Migration Information Source, Migration Policy Institute. Accessed July 25, 2010.
- American Lung Association, "State of the Air 2010."
- Texas Transportation Institute, "Urban Mobility Report 2009," p 8-9, 22-24
- American Community Survey, 2008 Estimates, Custom Data Table.
- "Gang Wars," Washington Times, August 3, 2003.
- "Metro: In Brief," Washington Post, July 29, 2003.
Other Resources
State Local Reform Organizations
State Representatives Voting Record
Updated January 2012