China No. 1 country of origin for immigrants to California in 2017

China in 2017 sent more immigrants to California than Mexico, the local media reported Friday, saying the new census estimate result showed a trend of decline in immigrants from Latin America.[Photo:IC]

China in 2017 sent more immigrants to California than Mexico, the local media reported Friday, saying the new census estimate result showed a trend of decline in immigrants from Latin America.

The Sacramento Bee newspaper cited data from U.S. Census Bureau as reporting that reflecting a trend lasted nearly a decade, fewer than 80,000 Latin American immigrants came to California in 2017, a sharp drop from the number seen in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Meanwhile, the number of immigrants from Asia to California had dwarfed the number of immigrants from Latin America to California. In 2017, 42,092 Chinese immigrated into the Golden State, topping Mexico's 36,079 as the most immigration source to California.

In 2008, there were only 17,685 immigrants from China, comparing to 76,446 immigrants from Mexico. During the same period between 2008 to 2017, number of immigrants from India, Japan and South Korea increased moderately as well.

The report also cited recent data from the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, which showed that the number of unauthorized immigrants in California fell by about 550,000 from 2007 to 2016, largely due to a decline in immigrants from Mexico.

Most California's immigrants from Latin America have lived in the United States for more than 20 years, the report said.