The Contributions of New Americans in Delaware
Date: August 3, 2016
Delaware is one of several states across the country that has become an increasingly popular destination for immigrants over the past several decades. In 1990, Delaware was home to just roughly 22,000 immigrants, a group that made up just 3.3 percent of the state’s population overall. By 2010, the share of the state’s population that was foreign-born had risen to 7.8 percent. It climbed to 8.5 percent by 2014. In the 2010 to 2014 time period, in fact, the immigrant population of Delaware saw particularly rapid growth. The number of immigrants in the state grew by 14.1 percent during that period—or more than twice as much as the foreign-born population increased in the United States more broadly. When looking in terms of percent growth, instead of the raw number of new immigrants, Delaware ranks among the top 10 states in the country for how rapidly it grew its foreign-born population between 2010 and 2014.