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U.S. States with the Most Immigrants

Name the states that have the highest percentage of residents who were born outside of the United States.
2021 estimates. U.S. Census Bureau; American Community Survey.
Quiz by Gyrenaica
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Last updated: September 19, 2022
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First submittedFebruary 13, 2015
Times taken55,115
Average score70.0%
Rating4.84
1:30
By percentage of their total population
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%
State
26.6
California
23.0
New Jersey
22.3
New York
21.2
Florida
18.8
Hawaii
%
State
18.4
Nevada
17.6
Massachusetts
17.2
Texas
15.9
Maryland
15.2
Connecticut
+22
Level ∞
Sep 12, 2018
West Virginia has the fewest: 1.7%.
+19
Level 61
Oct 6, 2018
Probably explains why it's the state which has grown in population the least.
+6
Level 82
Nov 12, 2018
It's shrinking in population
+6
Level 72
Sep 19, 2020
Possible genetic complications?
+7
Level 73
Oct 1, 2022
I think the better explanations are economic. Lots of people are moving out of West Virginia (or at least they were around 2018).
+26
Level 35
Nov 12, 2018
Explains why they succumb to the fear rhetoric. Polls say the numbers of people who fall for it is inversely related to the amount of immigrants where people live. West Virginia loves the rallies.
+15
Level 82
Nov 12, 2018
but then what about places like Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire? Not exactly Trump country and they're not full of immigrants. Must not be the whole picture.
+8
Level 48
Apr 4, 2019
Percent - Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine have low populations
+2
Level 93
May 20, 2019
It's an us vs. them rhetoric. When the crowd can be made to fear the outsider they will be irrational and follow whatever solution is put to them no matter how bad.In this thinking the outsider is a thing to be controlled otherwise they would takeover, which is going to be the case where you have a dwindling main population or just a small state/area amongst a larger group surrounding them.
+3
Level 74
Sep 20, 2022
Maybe this is just survivor bias. Immigrants go to places where the people already like immigration (kind of like how immigrants go disproportionately to economically strong areas) and don't go to the places where people already don't want immigration. It seems that the type of people who live on the east coast tend to like immigration, including the less economically attractive places like Maine and Vermont.
+4
Level 82
Oct 1, 2022
but on the subject of succumbing to cynical/racist/not-terribly-bright rhetoric... how about the new meme they've got going around lately that if only these so-called liberal states could see how awful immigrants were, like Texas and Florida have, then surely they would change their policy positions. To that end, they will spend millions of tax payer dollars to kidnap and traffick refugees in Texas to Martha's Vinyard... in Massachusetts... which already makes the above list. Above Texas, in fact.

Meanwhile California, New Jersey, and New York have more than anyone and they're not exactly red states... in fact every state on here is either a swing state or deep blue. So wth are they talking about "sharing the burden?" Not that reality matters anymore.

+4
Level 56
Oct 1, 2022
Because all immigrants are the same?

An immigrant can be everything from a foreign millionaire retiring in a country home to a uneducated and poor 25-year-old looking to make it in the drug trade.

I would argue migrants to areas such as Martha's Vineyard generally are more a kin to the first description.

+6
Level 82
Oct 1, 2022
Riiight... 18.4% of the population of Massachusetts are retired foreign millionaires... not Chinese, Dominican, and Haitian immigrants in Boston looking for jobs...

Just going to ignore the fact that you tacitly approve of my description of how those on the right see immigrants generally, or at least the ones you've implied are undesirable. Sad, but nothing new.

+3
Level 56
Oct 3, 2022
They literally mobilized the national guard to get rid of the scary immigrants from Martha's Vineyard
+1
Level 82
Oct 4, 2022
^another shockingly accurate description of what happened. You guys must turn to some pretty sober and trustworthy sources for your news.
+1
Level 66
Sep 12, 2018
Massachusetts and Connecticut surprised me
+11
Level 88
Sep 13, 2018
Massachusetts has traditionally been full of immigrants. Nobody in Connecticut speaks English.
+4
Level 59
Oct 1, 2022
nobody?
+24
Level 81
Nov 12, 2018
I grew up in Connecticut from the 1970s to mid-1990s. My schoolmates and teachers spoke Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Italian, Arabic (mostly from Lebanon), Albanian, Serbo-Croatian, Jamaican Patois, French, Vietnamese, Korean, Cantonese, Tagalog, Mohawk (obv. not an immigrant language), Armenian, Lithuanian, and one of the languages from Kenya. There may have been more, but those are what I remember. This was one of the gritty former industrial cities, not the NYC commuter 'burbs or Yale areas. The factories attracted lots of immigrants. More recently the Ecuadorians I knew in NYC were attracted to the low real estate prices and the Hasids have opened an orthodox shul so Yiddish is now also spoken there. Not indicative of immigration, but still interesting in such a Catholic city.
+5
Level 74
Sep 12, 2018
Got 'em all, except Nevada. That one comes as a surprise. I figured Arizona or Georgia before Nevada.
+8
Level 35
Nov 12, 2018
The casinos probably hire huge numbers of immigrants on those visas Trump uses for people willing to work for less than minimum wage doing cleaning, landscaping, kitchen work, and then there is the huge amount of construction.
+13
Level 84
Sep 21, 2020
The casino response is right, but Trump has nothing to do with it. Immigrants doing, as you say, "cleaning, landscaping, kitchen work" has been going on for decades.
+4
Level 74
Sep 13, 2018
Nevada was my last guess just before the clock ran out. I thought of it because of the influx of high tech workers, but maybe Latin Americans too.
+3
Level 69
Sep 14, 2018
I figure it's tourists who come to Vegas and decide they NEVER WANT TO LEAVE :-)
+18
Level 92
Sep 14, 2018
Never want to, or lose all their money and can't?
+2
Level 66
Oct 11, 2020
Potato, potahto.
+1
Level 48
Nov 12, 2018
Guessed the first five in order without meaning to and then missed Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Connecticut
+1
Level 26
Dec 16, 2020
missed the same as you!
+2
Level 62
Feb 24, 2021
I only missed Hawaii. I always forget about it since it's just sitting there alone in the middle of the Pacific.
+5
Level 58
Nov 14, 2018
lol what is with the photo it dosen't make any sense
+4
Level 61
Nov 15, 2018
yeah, it should be waffles. Belgian immigrants are running amok!
+2
Level 67
Jul 3, 2020
I was expecting Illinois to be among the top 10.
+2
Level 82
Oct 11, 2020
I bet it would have been from about 1930-1960; both because there were fewer immigrants in some other states and also because there were huge numbers of immigrants flooding into Chicago. Population has been in steady decline since then, though the Chicago suburbs continue to grow.
+1
Level 56
Nov 9, 2021
Now that I think about it, a pineapple burrito actually sounds kind of good.
+1
Level 82
Oct 1, 2022
I've never had one before but the one in the picture sure looks tasty.
+1
Level 88
Oct 23, 2022
A place around here has a pineapple black bean & jerk-tofu burrito and it's really good.
+2
Level 41
Oct 3, 2022
I cannot spell "Massachusetts" for the life of me
+1
Level 43
Dec 24, 2022
when Arizona and New Mexico didnt work, I tried Colorado, Utah and Oregon but man, Nevada just randomly up there. Makes sense, like LA, prob a crap ton of people come there for work.