Foreign-born hit 17.5 percent in state

By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Staff Writer

Foreign-born people make up 17.5 percent of Hawai'i's population — one of the largest proportions in the nation, according to an analysis of census results released yesterday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

But while the proportion is high, Hawai'i's percentage increase of foreign-born residents over the past decade was relatively small in comparison to most states, which gained by a rate of nearly twice as much.

The report, "The Foreign-Born Population: 2000," describes the increase of the nation's foreign-born population over the past decade: from 19.8 million in 1990 to 31.1 million in 2000.

All regions of the country experienced increases in the foreign-born population — by almost 90 percent in the South, 65 percent in the Midwest, 50 percent in the West, and almost 40 percent in the Northeast.

But Hawai'i experienced only a 30.4 percent gain, with more than 212,000 foreign-born residents counted by the 2000 census, an increase of almost 50,000 over the 1990 census.

Honolulu immigration lawyer David McCauley noted that Hispanic migration fueled the big increases on the Mainland, while Hawai'i continued to rely on Asian and Pacific island immigration, primarily from the Philippines, the former trust territories in the Pacific and, to a lesser extent, China and Korea.

McCauley, vice chairman of Hawai'i Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said Hawai'i's sizable immigrant population was established five or six decades ago, leaving fewer foreign-born residents now trying to bring in family members.

But the real story, he said, is that immigrants are settling in areas of the Mainland where they traditionally have not in the past — bolstering proportions and not necessarily numbers. For example, Mississippi gained only about 20,000 foreign-born residents over the decade, but that accounted for a 95 percent increase.

In real numbers, Hawai'i's 212,000 foreign-born residents put the state in the middle of the pack in the United States.

Still, the proportion to the total population was high. Only two other states posted a higher proportion of foreign-born residents: California (26.2 percent) and New York (20.4 percent).

In other highlights:

• Hawai'i had the country's largest percentage of Asians among its foreign-born population. This mirrors the state's high proportion of Asians in its general population.
• Hawai'i had the country's largest percentage of naturalized U.S. citizens among its foreign-born population. While the national average was 40 percent, Hawai'i's percentage was 60 percent.

McCauley said the degree of illegal immigration is much smaller here than on the Mainland.

"The ultimate goal for most of them is to be a U.S. citizen," he said.

The foreign-born who were naturalized citizens in 2000 outnumbered the foreign-born who were not U.S. citizens in only seven states: Hawai'i, Alaska, Maine, Montana, Pennsylvania, Vermont and West Virginia.

The data in the report are based on responses from the sample of households who received the census long form, about 1-in-6 nationally, and are subject to sampling and non-sampling error.

Reach Timothy Hurley at thurley@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 244-4880.