One of four children in the US has one or more immigrant parents or is an immigrant themselves. These children are poised to be key members of the workforce and taxpayer base, and understanding their characteristics can inform state and local efforts to support communities at a time of significant policy change and difficulty for many working families, and as many immigrant families with children face new challenges.
These fact sheets present characteristics about children of immigrants and their parents, families, and households for all 50 states, using data from the 2023–24 US Census Bureau American Community Survey.
Across states, children of immigrants and their families are firmly rooted in the US: the majority are US citizens with at least one US-citizen parent and have parents who have been in the US a decade or longer. Children of immigrants make up substantial shares of all child age groups. Most live in two-parent families with two or more children, with parents who work substantial work hours and own their homes.
Learn More About Children of Immigrants
- Visualize trends for children of immigrants over time and across state and local geographies
- Explore the full Children of Immigrants dataset and use it to create your own visuals and analyses
- Read our technical appendix to learn about our data and methods
- Get more information about the project
Acknowledgments
This project was funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. We thank them for their support but acknowledge that the findings and conclusions presented are those of the authors alone, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Foundation.
The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Funders do not determine research findings or the insights and recommendations of Urban experts. Further information on the Urban Institute’s funding principles is available at urban.org/fundingprinciples.
Special thanks to David Kallick and Suma Setty for their input on the fact sheets. We also thank Gina Adams for her leadership of the Low-Income Working Families project, and are grateful for the advice, input, and assistance of our Urban Institute colleagues Tisamarie Sherry, Zachary VeShancey, Anand Janardhanan, Jessica Kelly, Sam Cressman, and Lydia Nguyen.
Please send any inquiries regarding this project to Urban’s external affairs team at [email protected].
