FAIR - Washington DC Metropolitan Area Immigration Factsheet

Washington DC Metropolitan Area

Summary Metropolitan Data (and Source)
Metro Population (2000 Census): 4,922,640

Metro Population (1990 Census): 4,223,485

Foreign-born Population (1990 Census): 491,763

Percent Foreign Born (1990): 11.9%

Immigrant Settlement (1991-98) (INS): 233,663

Population Projection 2025 (FAIR): 7,218,000

[Note: A factsheet is available also on the Baltimore-Washington Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area (CMSA).]

CENSUS DATA
According to the 2000 Census, the population of the Washington, DC Principal Metropolitan Statistical Area (PMSA) was 4,922,640. That was a 16.6 percent increase from the 4,223,485 residents in 1990. The Washington, DC PMSA is comprised of 5 Maryland counties (15.4% population increase 1990-00), 11 Virginia counties and 6 Virginia independent cities (25.1% population increase), 2 West Virginia counties (24.1% increase) plus the District(5.7% decrease)
During the previous decade, the metro area population increased by 21.4 percent from 3,477,972 in 1980.

In 1990, there were 491,763 foreign-born residents in the Washington DC metro area. That constituted a population share of 11.9 percent.

The net international migration data understate the impact of immigration on a locality because they record only the arrival of immigrants from abroad -- not those moving within the country, and the children born to immigrants after their arrival are not part of the immigrant settlement data -- they become part of domestic population change.

CURRENT POPULATION SURVEY (CPS) DATA
According to the 1999 CPS, Washington DC's metropolitan area population increased by over 517,000 (12.2%) since 1990. Of that increase, over 240,000 was due to net immigrant settlement (46% of the increase). This share of population increase does not take into concideration the share of population increase from children of immigrants born in this country -- who are counted with native-born births. Applying national-level data that show about 21 percent of the country's net increase from natural change results from immigrant births, the total amount of population change in the Washington metro area due to immigration is likely to be about 62 percent.

The Washington DC metro area, like the District, has a net out-migration of residents (127,600) that offsets some of the natural increase (390,400 more births than deaths). The outflow of native residents to other areas is not just a flight from the District, as the metro area has a greater outflow than District alone.

When the focus on net immigration is expanded to the Washington DC metropolitan statistical area, the population grew by 9 percent - from 4.2 million in 1990 to 4.6 million in 1997. NIM accounted for 172,000 newcomers, or about 45 percent of the population growth. That share attributable to immigration would surely be well above half of the population increase if the children born here to immigrants were included.

IMMIGRANT SETTLEMENT
The Washington DC metropolitan area accounts for eight times the immigrant settlement rate in the District of Columbia. The annual average number of immigrants settling in the area since 1990 has been about 29,000.

The legal immigrant settlement data during this period was augmented by adjustment of status of about 10,000 persons in FY-91 who had been in illegal status until the amnesty that was adopted in the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). Just among the long-term resident amnesty applicants (excluding the amnestied agricultural workers), the number of applicants from the Washington, D.C. metro area numbered 19,804.

The Washington, D.C. metropolitan area (MSA) has an even higher concentration of immigrants than does the District alone. The MSA's foreign-born population in 1990 was nearly 492,000, giving it a foreign-born share of 11.9%. According to a December 5, 1998 article in the Washington Post, ("Buying Into the American Dream") the INS says that more than 350,000 immigrants have moved into the region since the early 1980s and the foreign-born share of the population now is up to one-sixth compared to 1 in 22 in 1970.

INS DATA BY NATIONALITY
The data for FY'95, FY'97 and FY'98 were artificially low because the INS did not issue green cards to all the eligible applicants for adjustment of status who were already in the United States. In those years, new immigration could have registered as much as 30 percent higher, if the INS had kept up with its workload.

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 1990. 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 Washington, DC metro area during this period.

INS data indicate that slightly less than one eighth (14.7%) of the immigrants who intend to reside in the Washington, DC metro area intend to live in the District. Most are headed for the Washington suburbs. The nationality group that has the largest share identifying the District as their residence is from the Dominican Republic (35%). Others that have about one-fifth headed for the District include immigrants from Vietnam, Nigeria, Jamaica, Haiti, El Salvador and Cuba. The nationality groups that have the highest shares (over 95%) headed for the suburbs are from Pakistan, Korea, Iran, and India.

Detailed INS data tables for legal immigrant settlement in the DC metro area for fiscal years 1991-96 and by nationality of the new immigrants are available here: Recent Immigrant Settlement in the Washington, DC Metro Area.

POPULATION PROJECTION 2025
The current rate of population change between 1990-00, if continued, would result in a population in 2025 of 7,218,000. That is 46.6 percent larger than the 2000 population.

FOREIGN STUDENTS
For the 1998/99 school year, the Institute of International Education (IEE) reported the foreign student enrolment in the District of Columbia's post-secondary schools decreased from 8,689 a year earlier to 8,163. George Washington U. had 2,306 students (11.8% of its student body), American U. (1,622 - 14.6%), Southeastern U. (429 - 53.4%), Johns Hopkins U. - SAIS (267 - 45.9%), Strayer College (211 - 2.2%), Gerogetown U. - 1,368), Howard U. - 1,194, Washington Theol. Union - 24, and Catholic U. - 483. In southern Maryland and northern Virginia were Capitol C. - 48, Columbia Union C. - 43, Frederick C.C. - 11, U. Md.-College Park - 3,030, U. Md. Univ. C. - 333, Montgomery C.-Rockville - 1,432, Montgomery C.-Takoma Park - 459, Geo. Mason U. - 1,384, Marymount U. - 265, and N. Va. C.C. - 2,984.

OTHER
The illegal immigrant flow from Chirilagua, a small town in southeastern El Salvador, to Arlandria, VA (now also called Chirilagua by its 80 percent majority Hispanic population) was profiled in the Washington Post. This flow from Central America to the nation's capital region is a large part of the biggest wave of immigration in the area's history. From 1-in-22 residents being foreign born in 1970, the ratio jumped to 1-in-12 in 1980 and 1-in-6 today. The mass Chirilagua migration apparently began in the 1960's, but was fueled in the 1970's by the country's revolutionary insurgency and repression.

The Post article chronicals the migration of one family, starting with the father in the early 1970's to a job in construction. The mother followed a few years later. The oldest of four children followed in 1980 at age 16, and she joined her mother working as a housekeeper at a Sheraton Hotel. Within another year a grandmother and the other three children arrived. The family connection continued to swell to include aunts and uncles and cousins -- and eventually entire neighborhoods. It is estimated that more than one million Salvadorans migrated during this period.

In the decade between the 1980 and 1990 Censuses (which significantly undercount illegal aliens) the population in just Maryland, Virginia and California -- the three major settlement locations -- jumped nearly four-fold from 84.6 thousand to 316.5 thousand. [FAIR Note: But the illegal migrant flow did not stop when the fighting in El Salvador ended. And the Central Americans, who had been spared from deportation during the fighting by temporary protected status (TPS), did not, for the most part, return home when that status expired. By 1996 the Census Bureau estimated that the Salvadoran population in the Washington, DC metro area has grown by another 53 percent, to 485,000.] (Source: Washington Post, December 6, 1999)