Washington, D.C. (March 29, 2021) - A new report from the Center for Immigration Studies shows that immigrants are arriving in the United States at older ages than two decades ago and even one decade ago, undermining the argument that immigration makes the country significantly younger. The trend has stabilized, but the nation’s overall immigrant population (new arrivals and established immigrants) is aging rapidly – 7.5 million are 65 years of age and older.

Dr. Steven Camarota, the Center’s director of research, said, “The Center’s new report on immigrants coming to America at older ages, along with another recent report on the decline in immigrant fertility, make clear that immigration does not dramatically slow the aging of the U.S. population, as some imagine. The rise seen in the last 20 years in the age of immigrants coming to the U.S. certainly has important implications for public coffers.”

Among the findings:

• The average age of newly arrived legal and illegal immigrants was 31 years in 2019, compared to 26 years in 2000. The newly arrived are defined as those who have lived in the country for 1.5 years or less at the time of the survey.
• Older age groups have seen the largest increases. The share of newly arrived immigrants who are 50 and older in 2019 was nearly double what it was in 2000 — 15 percent vs. 8 percent.
• The share of newcomers 55 and older in 2019 was 11 percent, double the 5 percent in 2000. The share 65 and older was 6 percent in 2019, compared to just 2 percent in 2000.
• While the average age and share of new arrivals in the older age groups remain higher in 2019 than in 2000 or even 2010, they are slightly lower than they were in 2017 and 2018, indicating that the age at which immigrants come to America is no longer increasing.
• On an annual basis, 224,000 immigrants 50 and older settle in the country, including 172,000 55 and older, and 89,000 who are 65 and older.
• The rise in the age at arrival for immigrants is a broad phenomenon affecting immigrants from most, though not all, of the primary sending regions and top sending countries.
• Several factors likely explain the rising age of new arrivals, including significant population aging in all of the top immigrant-sending regions of the world, an increase in the number of green cards going to the parents of U.S. citizens, and a decline in new illegal immigration relative to earlier years.

Aging of the overall immigrant population:

• The average age of all immigrants — newcomers and established immigrants — increased from 39 years to 46 years between 2000 and 2019. This is more than twice as fast as the average age increase for the nation's overall population.
• The number and share of all immigrants 65 and older has exploded; more than doubling from 3.3 million in 2000 to 7.5 million in 2019.
• The number of immigrants 65 and older grew by 126 percent between 2000 and 2019, dramatically faster than the 42 percent increase in the number of working-age immigrants 18 to 64.
• The increase in the age of new arrivals contributed to the rapid aging in the overall immigrant population, though the primary reason is simply the natural aging of immigrants already in the country. Moreover, by definition, all births in the United States to immigrants add to the native-born population, not the immigrant population. This causes the immigrant population to grow old quickly.