Indian immigrants have surpassed the Chinese to become the third largest (after Mexican and Filipino) immigrant group in the United States, a Washington based think-tank said in a report.

The US is now home to 1.6 million (16 lakhs) people mainly concentrated in California and New Jersey, said the report. According to the study by the Migration Policy Institute “Indian immigration to the United States, a fairly recent phenomenon, grew rapidly during the 1990s and 2000s.”

The report also mentioned that over 40 percent of the Indian foreign born arrived in the United States in 2000 or later. “The estimated number of unauthorized immigrants from India has increased from about 120,000 in 2000 to about 200,000 in 2009, an increase of 64 percent,” the report further added.

The number of Indian immigrants in the US (1.6 million) is roughly the same size as the population of Agra, said the report. According to the MPI ‘The Indian diaspora (23 lakh) is about the same size as the population of Jaipur.’

The report authored by Aaron Terrazas and Cristina Batog mentioned that among the Indian foreign born, 43.8 per cent were naturalised US citizens, compared to 43.0 per cent among the overall foreign-born population.

It also said that about 16.4 per cent of Indian immigrants lived in poverty in 2008 compared to 37.9 per cent of all immigrants and 28.7 per cent of the native born.

Read the report