Legal Immigration Rising

Not only is the level of legal immigrant admissions now at more than one million persons per year, the number of admissions continues to rise. According to statistics for 2011 just released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) (Table 1), the number of new ‘green cards’ handed out was 1,062,040. The average number of admissions over the past 10 years has been 1,050,014 and the average for the past 5 years has been 1,079,005. The fact that the annual average for the past five years is higher than for the past 10 years demonstrates the continued upward trend in admission of new immigrants. For comparison, below are the Immigration statistics that show the trend in legal immigrant admissions since the 1965 change in the immigration law that set in motion the current trend: 1991-2000 (909,542); 1981-1990 (733,806); 1971-1980 (449,331); 1961-1970 (332,168).