INS Statistics on New Immigrants for FY2001
Posted Sep 13, 2002

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) issued a report in August 2002 providing statistics on persons who obtained lawful permanent resident (LPR or "green card") status during Fiscal Year (FY) 2001. (FY2001 was the period from October 1, 2000 through September 30, 2001.) During that year, a total of 1,064,318 gained LPR status, including 653,259 who had already been living in the U.S. in some other status and 411,059 new immigrants from abroad.

The report contains various tables of data and also a graph showing great fluctuations in immigration numbers. INS cautions that, rather than the result of any particular demographic or economic trend, some of the increases may have more to do with backlog reduction efforts. INS credits these efforts with the increase from FY2000 (849,807 new LPRs) to 2001.

Of the 2001 total, 64% immigrated in the family-based categories, 17% in the employment-based categories, 10% as asylees or refugees, and 3% under the special provisions for Central Americans known as the NACARA law of 1997. With regard to countries of origin, Mexico accounted for the largest number (206,426) in FY2001, just as in FY2000.

One major development likely to be of interest to MurthyBulletin and MurthyDotCom readers is that India in FY2001 became the second most common country of origin for immigrants. China replaced India as third, moving from its previous position as second.

There has been no change in the U.S. states where immigrants are most likely for to settle. California, New York, Florida, New Jersey, Illinois and Texas, listed here in order of popularity, received 65% of all new LPRs in FY2001. For those interested in reviewing the report in detail, it is available in PDF format from the INS WebSite.