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American Community Survey

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Why We Ask Questions About...
Place of Birth, Citizenship, Year of Entry

We ask questions about a person’s place of birth, citizenship, and year of entry into the United States to create data about citizens, noncitizens, and the foreign-born population.

Agencies and policymakers use our published statistics to set and evaluate immigration policies and laws, understand the experience of different immigrant groups, and enforce laws, policies, and regulations against discrimination based on national origin. These statistics also help tailor services to accommodate cultural differences.

Your privacy concerns

We use your confidential survey answers to create statistics like those in the results below and in the full tables that contain all the data—no one is able to figure out your survey answers from the statistics we produce. The Census Bureau is legally bound to strict confidentiality requirements. Individual records are not shared with anyone, including federal agencies and law enforcement entities. By law, the Census Bureau cannot share respondents' answers with anyone—not the IRS, not the FBI, not the CIA, and not with any other government agency.

Questions as they appear on the form

We ask three questions that cover information on place of birth, citizenship, and year of entry to better understand the composition of our nation’s changing population.

Results from these questions

We compile the results from these questions to provide communities with important statistics to help ensure equal opportunity, educate children, and understand change. You can see some of these published statistics here for the nation, states, and your community.

United States

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View Results for a County or City / Town in (↑ change state using menu above ↑)

Place of birth, citizenship, and date of entry data help communities:

Ensure Equal Opportunity

We ask about people in the community born in other countries in combination with information about housing, language spoken at home, employment, and education, to help government and communities enforce laws, regulations, and policies against discrimination based on national origin. For example, these data are used to support the enforcement responsibilities under the Voting Rights Act to investigate differences in voter participation rates and to enforce other laws and policies regarding bilingual requirements.

Educate Children

We ask about individuals’ place of birth, citizenship, and year of entry in combination with other information, such as language spoken at home, to help schools understand the needs of their students and qualify for grants that help fund programs for those students (Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965). Statistics on how many foreign-born children depend on services through schools help school districts make staffing and funding decisions.

Understand Change

Researchers, advocacy groups, and policymakers are interested in knowing whether people of different races or countries of birth have the same opportunities in areas such as education, employment, and home ownership. These data may also help to identify communities with large refugee populations that qualify for financial assistance (Immigration Nationality Act).

Infographic: America's Foreign Born in the Last 50 Years.

America's Foreign Born in the Last 50 Years

[Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 1850-2000 Decennial Census, 2010 American Community Survey 1-Year]

History of place of birth, citizenship, year of entry questions

Citizenship originated with the 1820 Census, place of birth originated with the 1850 Census, and year of entry originated with the 1890 Census. They transferred to the ACS in 2005 when it replaced the decennial census long form.

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