Foreign-Born Emigration: Estimates and Rates

Renuka Bhaskar, U.S. Census Bureau
Sonya Rastogi, U.S. Census Bureau
Alexa Kennedy-Puthoff, U.S. Census Bureau

In 1957, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) stopped collection of data on emigration, disposing of the only direct way in which to estimate the number of foreign-born emigrants. Since that time, indirect methods have been used to estimate emigration. Employing a residual method, this paper produces contemporary emigration estimates and rates. Using Census 2000, the 2005 and 2006 American Community Survey (ACS), and National Center for Health Statistics life tables, this paper produces emigration rates for the foreign-born population and then utilizes these rates to estimate annual emigration from 2000 to 2006. Moreover, this paper evaluates the assumptions of the residual technique and assesses the estimates and rates produced by comparing them to past research.