The U.S. immigrant population is booming. But mostly in just a handful of states.
In 1990, there were 19.8 million foreign born people in the United States. In 2012, there were 40.7 million.
Those numbers are absolutely eye-popping and, as we have written many times of late in this space, they represent a central piece of the future political puzzle for both parties. Republicans’ inability to attract any significant number of Hispanic votes in either of the last two presidential elections — John McCain won 31 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2008, Mitt Romney won a meager 27 percent in 2012 — presents them with a major challenge in future national elections as the white vote continues to shrink as a percentage of the overall electorate.
▻http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/05/14/the-u-s-immigration-population-is-booming-but-mostly-in-just-a-handf