Sub-Saharan African Immigrants in the United States

This paper presents a statistical portrait of immigrants from the 51 countries of sub-Saharan Africa. There were 2.1 million sub-Saharan African immigrants in the U.S. in 2019, constituting five percent of the foreign-born population of the U.S. These immigrants make up a growing share of Black immigrants in the U.S., most of whom originated in the Caribbean. The five top countries of origin for sub-Saharan immigrants are Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, and Somalia. Top states of destination during the 2015-19 period were Texas, New York, Maryland, California, and Minnesota. Only 25 percent of immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa were limited English proficient (compared to 46 percent of immigrants overall). While sub-Saharan immigrants had higher levels of education than immigrants overall (42 percent had a bachelor’s degree or higher vs. 33 percent of all immigrants and U.S.-born adults), and have a higher U.S. labor market participation rate than immigrants and native-born adults, they have lower household incomes and higher rates of poverty than immigrants overall. More than half (54 percent) of Sub-Saharan immigrants immigrated to the U.S. through family ties. Most of the rest were originally admitted as refugees (26 percent) or came through the Diversity Visa lottery (10 percent). Only nine percent came through employment preferences. (Maurice Belanger, Maurice Belanger Associates)