Saturday, December 30, 2017

Where Do Texas Immigrants Come from?



Between July, 2016 and July, 2017, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that Texas gained more new residents than any other state—399,734. Accounting for the increase, the bureau estimates that 209,690 (52.5 percent) was a result of natural increase—births minus deaths—and 189,580 (47.5 percent) was the result of net migration, the domestic and international population additions minus the departures. Of the net migration, 110, 417 (58.2 percent) were international, and 79,163 (41.8 percent) were domestic.

These revelations caused me to ask where the domestic migrants to Texas were coming from. Although the data for 2016 to 2017 aren’t available, the data for 2015 to 2016 are available and provide an understanding of which states are contributing the most and least to Texas’ net immigrants. The table provides the 49 states (Texas is not applicable) and the District of Columbia’s contribution during that period, arranged from the largest to smallest contributions.


The ten states that provided the largest contributions to Texas’ domestic migration increase were California, Florida, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Illinois, Colorado, Arizona, Virginia, New York, and Georgia. Collectively, they provided 52.15 percent of the growth. The ten states that provided the fewest domestic migrants were Vermont, Wyoming, South Dakota, West Virginia, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, the District of Columbia, Connecticut, and Montana. Collectively, they provided only 2.38 percent of the domestic migrants. The chart depicts the contribution of each quintile of states and the District of Columbia. 

 
Obviously, the top and second quintile provide a substantial majority (slightly more than three-fourths) of the growth in Texas’ population through domestic net migration.

The map depicts the contribution of each of the five states that provided more than one-third of the domestic migrants between 2015 and 2016.