Where Do American Immigrants Come From? Mostly From Latin America, Pew Research Center Reports

America's reputation of being a melting pot is an accurate one: The United States has over 40 million immigrants. In fact, the U.S. Census Bureau projected that there will be no single racial or ethnic group will constitute a majority of children under 18 and in three decades, no single ethnic group will be a majority in the country.

That said, currently, there is a clear majority within the minority, as there are almost 52 million Hispanics/Latinos in America and the Hispanic/Latino community is the fastest growing minority group in the United States. In a recent analysis, the Pew Research Center looked at the birthplace of each state's largest immigration population and found some interesting, but not so surprising, findings: Majority of the states had Latin American born immigrants.

Considering that 11.7 million of all U.S. immigrants -- that is 29 percent -- were born in Mexico, the findings are not so shocking. In four states -- New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and Idaho -- Mexico accounted for more than half of all the immigrants born abroad.

But it was not just Mexico, as El Salvador accounted for majority of foreign-born immigrants in Virginia and Maryland, while the Dominican Republic accounted for New York and Connecticut, and Cuban-born immigrants were the majority in Florida.

There were 10 states -- New Jersey, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, North Dakota, Montana, Hawaii and Alaska -- with immigrant majorities from other nations, with the remainder being Latin American and Caribbean countries. The breakdown found is as follows: Mexico (45 states), El Salvador (2 states), Dominican Republic (2 states), Cuba (1 state), Other (10 states).

The Pew Research Center notes that over the course of the past century, Mexico overtook Germany in the top country of birth among U.S. immigrants. Germany accounted for 18 percent of immigrants in 1910 and was the largest immigrant group in 17 states, while Mexico was the largest for three (Arizona, Texas and New Mexico). Second to Germany in the highest number of immigrants was Russia, who accounted for 11 percent of the immigrant population.

What caused the change? "Since 1965, when Congress passed legislation to open the nation’s borders, immigrants have largely hailed from Latin America and Asia," explains the Pew Research Center. "In states that have attracted many immigrants, the current share of immigrants is below peaks reached more than a century ago. Today there are four states (California, New York, New Jersey and Florida) in which about one-in-five or more people are foreign born. California peaked in 1860 at 39.7 percent, when China was the top country of birth among immigrants there. Meanwhile, New York and New Jersey peaked in 1910 at 30.1 percent (Russia and the USSR) and 26.2 percent (Italy), respectively."

Despite the large immigrant population hailing from Mexico, the Pew Hispanic center found that the "net migration" from Mexico to the United States has halted, if not reversed. The evidence, as always, lies in the numbers: From 2005 to 2010, 1.4 million Mexicans immigrated to the United States and 1.4 million Mexican immigrants moved back to Mexico from the United States with their U.S.-born children.