Siddharth Jaganath wanted to return to India after earning his master’s degree at Texas’ Southern Methodist University. Instead, he built a new life in the US over a decade, becoming a manager at a communications technology company and starting a family in the Dallas suburb of Plano.
“You start growing your roots and eventually end up staying here,” the 37-year-old said.
His path is an increasingly common one. Immigrants from China and India, many with student or work visas, have overtaken Mexicans as the largest groups coming into the US, according to US Census Bureau research released in May.
Photo: AP
The shift has been building for more than a decade and experts said it is bringing more highly skilled immigrants to the US. Some Republican presidential candidates have proposed a heavier focus on employment-based migration, which could accelerate traditionally slow changes to the US’ ever-evolving face of immigration.
Mexicans still dominate the overall composition of immigrants to the US, accounting for more than a quarter of the foreign-born people. However, of the 1.2 million newly arrived immigrants in the US legally and illegally counted in 2013 numbers, China led with 147,000, followed by India with 129,000 and Mexico with 125,000.
It is a sharp contrast to the 2000 Census, when there were 402,000 from Mexico and no more than 84,000 each from India and China. Experts said part of the reason for the decrease in Mexican immigrants is a dramatic plunge in illegal immigration.
“We’re not likely to see Asians overtake Latin Americans anytime soon [in overall immigrant population]. But we are sort of at the leading edge of this transition where Asians will represent a larger and larger share of the US foreign-born population,” said Marc Rosenblum, deputy director of the US Immigration Policy Program for the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute.
The national trend is evident even in Texas, where the number of Mexican immigrants coming to the border state each year has dropped by more than half since 2005, according to the Office of the State Demographer. In that time, the number of people from India coming to Texas has more than doubled and the number from China has increased more than fivefold, although both still comfortably trail Mexican immigrants.
Asian immigrants have flocked to Texas’ large urban and suburban areas, including the Dallas suburb of Collin County, the home to many major businesses.
Laxmi Tummala, a real-estate agent in the area and a US-born child of Indian immigrants, has witnessed a buildup in Indian restaurants, grocery stores, clothing outlets and worship centers.
“All of that is extremely accessible now,” Tummala said.
While much of the discussion among Republican candidates this summer has centered on illegal immigration, they have also touched on immigrant skill levels.
US presidential hopeful Donald Trump has proposed kicking out the estimated 11 million people who are in the US illegally before allowing the “good ones” and “talented” ones back in.
US presidential hopefuls Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio have both said that the legal immigration process should focus more on letting in workers the US needs rather than reuniting families.
Increasing the flow of highly skilled immigrants would likely have a big impact on those coming from India and China. The majority of immigrants from these two countries aged 25 and older who arrived within three years of the 2013 numbers had a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Only 15 percent of Mexican immigrants had the same level of education, up from 6 percent in 2000.
China and India’s growing economies have given immigrants access to travel and the ability to pay for an education abroad.
Hua Bai came to Dallas’ University of Texas from China last year to work on a master’s degree in marketing and information technology management. The 25-year-old said that given the right opportunity, she would like to stay in the US.
“If I get sponsorship I’d consider living here and working here. It all depends on the job opportunities,” she said.
Without revisions in immigration policy, experts say the change to the overall immigrant population is likely to be slow.
One reason is that the number of Mexicans who become legal permanent residents is about twice the number of Indian and Chinese people who do, Migration Policy Institute president Michael Fix said.
However, a rising number of Chinese and Indians are likely to become permanent residents, given the current rate of about half of people in the US on temporary work visas obtaining that status, Fix said.
Jaganath was among that group, inspired to come to the US because the country is a leader in his career field.
“That was a following-the-dream type of thing for me,” he said.
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