I was looking for something else, and I’ll post it when I find it, but the Migration Policy Institute, last fall, published this useful information on MENA immigrants in America. Who knew that there was even a separate category for them.
Before you read on, just a reminder that the Migration Policy Institute is a pro-open-borders Leftie-funded (Soros et al) ‘think tank,’ (we wrote a lengthy post on them here in 2011), however, since the Left needs this data too (LOL! for voter outreach), I doubt they would mess with stats like these.
MPI says the top 5 states for MENAs are: California, New York, Michigan, Texas and New Jersey. It looks like Virginia and Florida are not far behind!
Political unrest and violent conflict have displaced millions in Syria and other parts of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) since late 2010, generating significant international interest in immigrants and refugees from the region.
In the United States, the September 11, 2001 attacks and subsequent military intervention in Iraq in 2003 also drew heightened — and sometimes unwanted — attention to the highly diverse MENA immigrant populations in the country, many of whom are Muslim. Yet immigrants from the MENA region have a long history in the United States. As early as 1920, the country was home to at least 50,000 immigrants from the region, primarily from what was then Palestine and Syria, including present-day Lebanon. Their numbers have steadily grown over the past few decades, and in 2012, about 961,000 immigrants from the region resided in the United States, representing just above 2 percent of the nation’s 40.8 million immigrants.
Iraqis are the largest single-country immigrant population from this region, followed closely by Egyptians. The number of immigrants from Saudi Arabia and Yemen has also grown rapidly over the past decade.
[…..]
Compared to other immigrant groups, the foreign born from the MENA region are better educated and tend to have higher levels of English proficiency, but have comparatively lower rates of labor force participation. [So, are they living off the US taxpayer?—ed]
There are lots of links to follow for more information, here are just two bullet points I followed. If you have a feeling the speed of their arrival has increased, the answer is Yes!
Forty-five percent of foreign born from the MENA region in the United States arrived in 2000 or later.
In 2011, 45 percent of MENA foreign born had entered the country in 2000 or later, with 25 percent having arrived between 1990 and 1999, 15 percent between 1980 and 1989, and the remaining 16 percent prior to 1980.
MENA men and women don’t like to work!
Immigrant men and women from the MENA region were less likely to participate in the civilian labor force than were foreign-born men and women overall.
In 2011, foreign-born men ages 16 and older from the MENA region were less likely to participate in the civilian labor force (72 percent) than were all foreign-born men (78 percent). Foreign-born women from MENA countries were also less likely to participate in the labor force (42 percent) than were all immigrant women (57 percent).
Among men, Algerians (91 percent) and Sudanese (87 percent) had the highest labor force participation rates, while Iraqis (65 percent) and Saudis (23 percent) had the lowest labor force participation.
Consider that we resettled 19,491 Iraqis in the US in 2013, here, and are on target to admit a similar number this year, it sure looks like the US taxpayer is going to be supporting a large percentage of them. And, by the way, who the heck are all those (rich?) Saudis getting into the US, and through what legal program?
We have a category here at RRW entitled, ‘where to find information’, and this post will be archived there.