Resources and Fact Sheets

Resources:

Quick Facts

About South Asians in the US

  • There are over 5.4 mil­lion South Asians in the US.
  • The South Asian Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ty grew rough­ly 40% between 2010 and 2017.
  • The four largest South Asian groups in Amer­i­ca are the Indi­an, Pak­istani, Bangladeshi, and Nepali communities.

Where do South Asians in the US live?

  • South Asians live pri­mar­i­ly in met­ro­pol­i­tan areas on the East and West coasts. The met­ro­pol­i­tan areas with the largest South Asian pop­u­la­tion are: New York/New Jer­sey, San Fran­cis­co Bay Area, Chica­go, Los Ange­les and the Wash­ing­ton DC Metro Area.
  • In New York City, the Indi­an, Pak­istani, and Bangladeshi com­mu­ni­ties are among the six largest Asian Amer­i­can groups.
  • South Asians were also the fastest grow­ing Asian group in Cal­i­for­nia in 2000.
  • There are siz­able emerg­ing pop­u­la­tions in var­i­ous parts of the Unit­ed States, includ­ing Hous­ton, Atlanta, and Seattle.

Immi­gra­tion Sta­tus, Pover­ty, Nat­u­ral­iza­tion, Eng­lish Proficiency

  • Over 9.5% of green card recip­i­ents in FY 2017 were from South Asian countries.
  • As of 2017, there are 630,000 undoc­u­ment­ed Indi­ans alone in the Unit­ed States, mark­ing a 72% increase in undoc­u­ment­ed Indi­ans since 2010.
  • As of 2017, Immi­gra­tion and Cus­toms Enforce­ment (ICE) has detained 3,013 South Asians com­pris­ing 2,376 Indi­ans, 257 Bangladeshis, 211 Nepalis, 160 Pak­ista­nis, 92 Sri Lankans, 9 Bhutanese.
  • Among South Asian Amer­i­cans, Pak­ista­nis (15.8%), Nepalis (23.9%), Bangladeshis (24.2%), and Bhutanese (33.3%) had the high­est pover­ty rates.
  • Read more in the Demo­graph­ic Snap­shot of South Asians in the Unit­ed States (2019)