Children of immigrants are one in five school-age children.[source]
From 1970 to 2000, children of immigrants increased from 6 percent to 19 percent of all school-age children, constituting 11 million of 58 million total U.S. children. About 75 percent of the children of immigrants are U.S. citizens.
In 2000, 16 percent of all students in pre-kindergarten were children of immigrants, but only 2 percent were foreign-born. In the upper grades (6 to 12), children of immigrants were 19 percent of the total student population, while the foreign-born were 7 percent of the total.
Like immigrants overall, children of immigrants are concentrated in traditional gateway states, but their growth rates are highest in the new gateway states.[source]
In 2000, almost 70 percent of school-age children of immigrants lived in the six states with the largest immigrant populations: California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, and New Jersey.
In 2000, nearly half (47 percent) of California's students in PK to fifth grade were children of immigrants. Nine other states had percentages above the national average of 19 percent: Nevada, New York, Hawaii, Texas, Florida, Arizona, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and New Mexico.
The highest growth in school enrollment of immigrant children was in new gateway states in the Southeast, Midwest, and interior West. Between 1990 and 2000, children of immigrants in PK to fifth grade grew most rapidly in Nevada (206 percent), followed by North Carolina (153 percent), Georgia (148 percent), and Nebraska (125 percent).
Many Latino and Asian-American children of immigrants are English Language Learners (ELL) and low-income.[source]
In 2000, 53 percent of the children of immigrants were Latino, and 18 percent were Asian-American.
Seventy-one percent of ELL children in elementary school were Latino, and 14 percent were Asian-American.
Half of children of immigrants and two-thirds of ELL children are low-income.
Most ELL children are U.S.-born, but live in linguistically isolated families and attend linguistically segregated schools.[source]
In 2000, only about 3.5 million children of immigrants were ELL, out of a total 11 million.
More than half of ELL students in 2000 were born in the United States.
In 2000, six out of seven ELL children in grades one to five lived in linguistically isolated households; in secondary school, two out of three did so.
ELL students are highly concentrated in linguistically segregated schools, with half attending schools where 30 percent or more of their fellow students are also ELL.
Seventy percent of ELL students are enrolled in only 10 percent of the nation's schools.[source]