Majority of Charlotte region foreign-born residents aren’t citizens, new report shows
More and more immigrants from the Latin Americas and Asia are calling the Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia region home.
But a majority of that population aren’t U.S. citizens, according to recently released U.S. Census Bureau data.
Out of the estimated 190,648 foreign-born residents in Mecklenburg County, over 115,000, or 60%, aren’t citizens. Those numbers are similar in the Charlotte metropolitan region, where 58% of the almost 308,900 immigrant residents aren’t citizens.
The Census Bureau defines a “foreign-born” person as someone who was born outside of the U.S. and its territories to non-American parents. The census also doesn’t ask people their legal immigration status. Being a non-citizen does not mean a person lives in the U.S. without documentation.
However, the data comes as President-elect Donald Trump continues to push several new immigration policies that would affect both undocumented immigrants and those with visas, including removing birthright citizenship, curbing legal immigration and, his planned first day agenda, mass deportation.
In Charlotte, several Latino nonprofits are hosting “Know your rights” information sessions, explaining constitutional rights and what to do in case of detainment.
A deeper dive into the numbers:
Census data tracked the year of entry by foreign-born residents going back to before 1990 to “2010 and later.” Prior to the 2000s, naturalized citizens made up the majority of the foreign-born population. That drastically changed in the 2000s, with changes to the U.S. immigration policy.
Then the numbers exponentially increased.
More than 49,300 people emigrated to Mecklenburg County between 2000 and 2009. About 55% or 27,100 people, were not citizens. From 2010 onward, 80,125 foreign-born residents called Mecklenburg home. About 69,907 were not citizens compared to 10,218 who were naturalized.
Latin American residents
- Latin Americans make up the largest portion of foreign-born residents in both Mecklenburg County and the Charlotte MSA, with a population of about 94,479 and 156,278, respectively. More than 70% of both populations are not citizens, according to the census.
- The census counts Latin Americans as those from the Caribbean, Central America and South America.
Central Americans comprise the majority of the Latin population with 63,330 people in Mecklenburg County. It also leads the group with the most non-citizens. The census breaks down Central America into Mexico and “Other.” This population typically has more non-citizens than naturalized citizens, going back to 1990.
Of the 19,855 people listed as coming from Other Central American countries after 2010 to Mecklenburg County, 97% are not citizens. This is similar for the Mexican population, where 94% of the 7,690 people aren’t citizens.
Other findings include:
- Separately, Mexicans make up the majority of the Central American population in Mecklenberg County, with 27,163 people. Hondurans are second with 18,586.
Growth in the Asian population
Asians are the second largest foreign-born residents in both Mecklenburg County and the Charlotte metro area with 53,745 and 86,187 people, respectively.
This population has experienced large growth in both regions and they’ve also experienced the biggest shift from majority naturalized citizens to not citizens.
About 11,798 people born in Asia emigrated to Mecklenberg County between 2000 and 2010. In the Charlotte MSA, about 20,402 people came here between that same time frame.
At the time, most were naturalized citizens, 60% and 63%, respectively. But starting in 2010, the population doubled and the number of non-citizens became the overwhelming majority.
About 25,743 people moved to Mecklenburg County from an Asian country after 2010 and 86%, or 22,187 people were not citizens. In the Charlotte-region, 38,802 Asian people called the area home and 32,566 were not citizens, or 84%.
Separately, south central Asians comprise the majority of the population in Mecklenburg especially the Indian community which boasts 19,933 people. Second would be those from Southeast Asia, particularly Vietnamese people with a population of 7,507.
