Immigration from Africa to the United States

As can be seen in Figure 1, “voluntary immigration”² from Africa to the United States, at least in large numbers, is a very recent phenomenon (Corra, 2022). For example, data presented in that figure shows that African immigration to the United States was relatively small until the decade of the 1900s. It continued to remain so for the next few decades but began to take off in the 1960s and 1970s, and noticeably starts to accelerate thereafter. And, by the decades of the 2000s and 2010s, this pattern of rapid growth is shown to be distinctly evident.

 

Consider the values presented in Figure 1, for example, in terms of percent growth. Notably, of the total number of Africans that were granted legal permanent residency in the United States between the 1820s and 2010s, the proportion of African immigrants did not reach the 1% mark until the decade of the 1960s. In other words, about 99% of Africa-born persons who have ever received LPR status in the United States acquired this status after the decade of the 1960s. This pattern of noticeable, but negligible growth remained until the 1990s, when the percent of Africa-born persons who have ever received LPR status is in the double digits, about 15%. And by the 2000s, the percent of Africa-born persons who have ever received LPR status more than doubles to about 33% of the total. By the decade of the 2010s (2010–2019), this percentage increases appreciably to about 40%. Taken together, close to 90% (about 88%) of Africa-born persons who have ever received LPR status in the United States between the 1820s and 2010s acquired that status in the last three decades (1990s, 2000s, and 2010s).

 

In summary, the data presented in Figure 1 shows an appreciable increase in the total number of African immigrants to the United States in recent years, noticeably in the 1990s and accelerating in the 2000s and 2010s.³ Several factors are cited in the literature for this dramatic increase, including changes in U.S. immigration policy, economic and political instability in some African countries (Kollehlon and Eule, 2003; Jasso, 2011; Thomas, 2011; Logan and Thomas, 2012). The Immigration Act of 1990, for example, introduced a Diversity Visa Lottery Program designed to increase the number of immigrants from countries underrepresented in the United States. Yet, that program also required attainment of certain basic educational and work-related skills of immigrants premigration. And research shows that many recent immigrants from Africa acquired legal permanent residence status under this program (Corra, 2022). Accordingly, this program has led to the increase of the number of African immigrants admitted on the basis of job skills, thus providing new avenues for highly skilled/educated African immigrants to immigrate to the United States (Lobo, 2001; McCabe, 2011; Thomas, 2011; Hamilton, 2020).

 

It is in this light that some scholars have observed that, collectively, immigration from Africa in the past two decades has been the largest flow of Africans to the U.S. since the trans-Atlantic slave trade (Roberts, 2005; Konadu-Agyemang and Takyi, 2006; Anderson and López, 2018). As an example, data presented by Kent (2007) showed the annual number of African arrivals in the United States to have been close to 60,000 between 2000 and 2005. By contrast, an estimated 460 African immigrants arrived from Africa to the United States annually between the years 1861 and 1961 (Konadu-Agyemang and Takyi, 2006).

 

When it comes to source countries, however, recent analysis of U.S. Census data (Corra, 2022) suggests that two patterns of African immigration to the United States are evident. First, a limited number of long-standing sending countries continue to be the source of a sizeable proportion of African immigration to the United States. Analyzing 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2019 U.S. Census data, for example, Corra (2022) reports that 10 “top sending” countries⁴ represented about 71%, 76%, 71%, 69%, and 70%, respectively, of the total number of African immigrants in the United States. As an example, consider Egypt as a source country. That country alone is shown to have accounted for about 20%, 19%, 13%, 9%, and 9%, respectively, of the total number of African immigrants in the United States in 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2019. Similarly, Nigeria alone is shown to have accounted for more than one out of every 10 African immigrants in the United States in those five time periods: about 14%, 14%, 16%, 14%, and 16%, respectively (Corra, 2022). Taken together, Corra (2022) reports that, with only a few exceptions, Nigeria, along with Ethiopia, Egypt, South Africa, Ghana, and Morocco, have consistently been among the top 10 countries of African immigrants in the United States in the past few decades. Corra calls this a “concentrated” flow/representation of immigration from a small number of African countries.

 

Yet, a second emerging trend in the flow of African immigration to the United States is also shown to be evident. This is the rising immigration from a wider range of African countries, i.e., increasing diversification of source countries (Corra, 2022). According to Corra (2022), the flow of African immigrants from a limited number of long-term sending countries has been on the decline (see the example of Egypt above). In fact, Corra’s analysis shows that top 10 sending countries have changed over the years, with some countries reaching that threshold (and some dropping below) as time progressed. This is argued to be an indication of growing “diversity” in the flow of African immigrants to the United States in recent years (Corra, 2022).

 

As an example, consider variations in legal admission status. The U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) provides several broad classes of admission for foreign nationals to gain legal permanent residency (LPR) status in the United States. Those classified as immediate relatives of U.S. citizens include spouses, children, and parents of U.S. citizens age 21 and older. Those admitted based on family-based preferences include relatives/Family members not included in the immediate relatives class of admission, e.g., married, or unmarried adult sons/daughters of U.S. citizens, brothers/sisters of such citizens, etc. Specific subcategories in the family-based preferences include “Family First Preference” (Unmarried sons/daughters, over the age of 21, of US citizens), “Family Second Preference” (Spouses and unmarried children of Permanent Residents), “Family Third Preference” (Married sons/daughters of US citizens), and “Family Fourth Preference” (Brothers and sisters of US citizens). Admissions based on employment are given to those seeking to provide needed skills in the U.S. workforce or invest in new U.S. jobs, along with their dependents. Refuge is granted to two sets of immigrants who have been persecuted or have a “well-founded” fear of persecution, refugees and asylees. Refugees are those admitted outside the United States with their immediate relatives, while asylum is given to those seeking refuge, but are already inside the United States, and their immediate relatives. Finally, those gaining LPR based on the Diversity program come from countries with relatively low levels of immigration to the United States. (For a fuller description of these classifications, see descriptions at the DHS site https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/lawful-permanent-residents/ImmigrantCOA).

 

The rising immigration from a wider range of African countries is shown to be associated with notable variations in legal admission status. Analyzing data for the years 1996, 1998–2019, as reported by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, Corra (2022), for example, shows that well over 80% of immigrants from Somalia were granted legal status under the Refugee and Asylee category, more than 50% of immigrants from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan, and about 47% of immigrants from Tanzania acquired legal status under this admission category. By contrast, more than 40% of immigrants from South Africa acquired legal status under employment-based preferences. Whereas almost all other countries show percentages in the single digits as employment-based preference admittees. Importantly, analysis of recent data (Corra, 2022) also shows that immigrants from many African countries were admitted under the diversity category (over 20% for most top sending countries, and well over 30% for several of these). Here, I note that theory and research suggest that the type of U.S. visa immigrants hold impacts their incorporation into U.S. society (Jasso et al., 2000; Jasso, 2004),⁵ and recent analysis of U.S. Census data (Corra, 2022) provides strong support for this proposition.

 

Moreover, shifts in regional representation are also shown to be evident, with African immigrants from Northern and Southern Africa shown to be decreasing proportionately, while immigrants from Central, East, and West Africa increasing or holding steady (for details, see Corra, 2022, Chapter 4). Immigrants from Central Africa, for example, are shown to have represented about 3% of the total number of African immigrants in the United States in 1980. By 2019, however, the percentage of immigrants from this region is shown to have increased to about 9%, a growth representing a twofold increase. By contrast, the percent of immigrants from North Africa was as high as 39 in 1980. By 2019, however, that percentage had dropped dramatically to about eighteen, a more than one half decline (Corra, 2022).

 

A pattern of changing racial/ethnic composition of immigrants

 

Recent research suggests that one clear pattern directly flowing from the current growth of African immigration to the United States is the changing racial/ethnic composition of the U.S. African immigrant population (Thomas, 2014; Corra, 2022). To illustrate, consider data displayed in Figure 2. Representative of samples from waives of the 1980, 1990, and 2000 decennial U.S. Censuses and the 2010 and 2018 American Community Surveys (ACS), as represented in the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) (Ruggles et al., 2020),⁶ Figure 2 depicts the racial composition of the U.S. African immigrant population, for the time periods 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2018.