A record 44.7 million people are foreign-born, or about 13.7% of the US population. That’s the highest rate since 1910 and comes amid a highly-charged political debate over whether the decennial Census survey should include a citizenship question.

A subset of the foreign-born figure – the number of people in the US but ‘not a US citizen’ held at around 22 million in 2018.

While the idea of adding a citizenship question to the decennial Census survey has been a contentious issue, the annual ACS, compiled by the US Census Bureau, does ask about a person’s place of birth, citizenship and year of entry into the US. The data is compiled to estimate the foreign-born US population.

In 1960 and 1970, about one in 20 US residents were foreign born. Today, the ratio is about one in seven and in America’s largest states – California, Texas, Florida and New York – more than 15% of residents are foreign born.