Total Immigrant Population

The total immigrant population includes both the citizen and the non-citizen immigrant population. This variable serves as the denominator for measuring and identifying trends in the immigrant citizen and non-citizen population. Thus, this variable is important for assessing the social and economic impacts of the total immigrant population.

Immigrant Citizen Population

Immigrants who are United States citizens are people who were born in another country and have become naturalized citizens in the United States, a process that often takes several years to complete. U.S. Citizenship offers many privileges including the ability to vote in elections, run for office, receive federal benefits and scholarships, travel overseas for extended periods of time, and sponsor other family members for green card status. 

Measuring the number of immigrants who are citizens is important for understanding processes like immigration reform and voter registration. Additionally, understanding how many immigrants are or are not citizens is important for evaluating the differences in rights and privileges for immigrants, especially given the long and complex process necessary to achieve citizenship.

Immigrant Non-Citizen Population

Immigrants who are not United States citizens includes permanent residents with authorization documents, temporary migrants such as foreign students, humanitarian migrants such as refugees, and migrants without authorization documents. Should an individual complete the naturalization process to become a citizen, they would no longer be counted under this classification. 

As opposed to the previous category, this group does not have access to the rights of citizens. As such, this metric is important for understanding how many immigrants are living in the US without the full rights of citizens.