Background Information
Introduction

Initially, the majority of people immigrating to the U.S. were of European origin. Now the majority of newcomers are from Latin America. Successive waves of immigration from around the world have ensured that a wide range of origins are represented to some extent in today's U.S. Immigration has generally resulted from family reunification and labor migration, with relatively low refugee flows. Immigration is now both a symbol of the very essence of the U.S. and a controversial political issue. Security has played an increasingly important role in the debate since the terrorist attacks of 11th September 2001, as has the controversy surrounding the unauthorized immigrant population. This profile will give an overview of longer-term developments in immigration to the U.S. and then focus on some of the current issues.
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United States of America
Official language: de facto English; de jure: none
Area: 9,826,675 km2 (for comparison, Germany: 357,121 km2)
Population (July 2012): 313,930,180
Population density (2010): 87.4 inhabitants per km2
Population growth (2011 est.): 0.899%
Labor force participation rate (2010): 64.7%
Foreign-born population as a percentage of total (2010): 12.9% (ca. 40m persons)
Foreign-born labor force as percentage of civilian labor force (2011): 15.9%
Unemployment rate: 9.0% (2011 est.), 9.6% (2010 est.)
Religions (2007 est.): Protestant 51.3%, Roman Catholic 23.9%, Mormon 1.7%, other Christian 1.6%, Jewish 1.7%, Buddhist 0.7%, Muslim 0.6%, other or unspecified 2.5%, unaffiliated 12.1%, none 4%