More in U.S. Have Foreign-Born Mothers

[ckramer]

Nearly 23 percent of all people born in the U.S. in 2002 had a foreign-born mother — the largest percentage since a wave of immigration more than 90 years ago, a study of birth records by a private nonprofit group shows.

The Center for Immigration Studies said the country has not seen as large a share of its children born to immigrants since 1910, when the number reached 22 percent as shiploads of Italians and eastern Europeans crowded America's port cities.

This time, Hispanics are the driving force, according to the study being released Thursday. Nearly 1 in 10 births in the United States in 2002 were to women born in Mexico. Hispanics, as a whole, accounted for 59 percent of all births by immigrants.

The boom in second-generation Americans is bound to have an effect on the country that is equal, if not greater, than the sea-changes of the early 20th century, said Steven Camarota, the Center for Immigration Studies researcher who wrote the report.

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