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As the United States Congress considers some tough immigration proposals to tighten the entry process into the country, a new study shows that of the 35.2 million foreign-born population in America in 2005, around 1.4 million are Indians.
There are 35.2 million foreign-born people with the number of illegal immigrants anywhere between 9 to 13 million, according to the study by the Centre for Immigration Studies.
"The 35.2 million immigrants living in the country in March 2005 is the highest number ever recorded. It is also two-and-a-half times tally of the 13.5 million immigrants during the peak of the last great immigration wave in 1910," Steven Camarota, the Centre's research director, said.
Of the 35.2 million foreign born immigrants in the United States in 2005 South Asia would account for 1.8 million with India taking the bulk of this figure with 1.411 million and accounting for a citizenship rate of nearly 34 per cent.
About 12.1 per cent of the current US population was born in another country, the highest percentage since 1920, according to Census figures.
Overall Mexico will come away with the highest number of foreign immigrants at nearly 11 million, followed by East Asia, South Asia (India) and Vietnam in South East Asia.
Statistics show that as far as India is concerned, the period 2000 to 2005 showed a sharp upswing in the number of immigrants at nearly 4,60,000 for the five year period.
The pre-1980 statistics show an immigrant population number for India at 1,70,000, rising to 2,09,000 between 1980 and 1989 and to 5,73,000 between 1990 and 1999.