Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Blackmanstreet.Today
(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Africa's immigrant population has grown rapidly in the United States during the past 40 years, doubling every decade since 1970, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
In 1970, there were about 80,000 Africans living in the United States, representing 1 percent of the nation's 39.8 million immigrants.
From 2008 to 2012, the number rose to 1.6 million, representing 4 percent of the foreign-born population. The largest increase occurred from to 2000-2012.
Most of the African immigrants are from Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt and Ghana, comprising 41 percent of the African-born total.
African immigrants are an educated group, according to the census bureau. Some 41 percent earned a bachelor's degree or higher degree compared to 28 percent of the overall foreign-born population.
However, 40 percent of Somali-born Africans had less than a high school education while 64 percent of Egyptian-born individuals had a bachelor's degree or higher.
Four states reported African-born populations over 100,000. They are: New York (164,000), California (155,000), Texas (134,000) and Maryland (120,000). Information about African immigrants is detailed in "The Foreign-Born Population From Africa: 2008-2012"
