The Center for Immigration Studies found that one in five residents of the United States--nearly 61.8 million people--speak a language other than English in their homes as reported in a study released Monday.
The study says the number has jumped 2.2 million since 2010, primarily due to an increase in Arabic, Chinese, and Spanish speakers: 220,000 Chinese speakers, 188,000 Arabic speakers, and 1.4 million Spanish speakers. More than one in five school-age children speak a language other than English at home.
The Blaze reports:
While the Obama administration is considering steps to create a legal status for millions of illegal immigrants, CIS said its study, based on Census data, raise questions about whether the U.S. is already allowing too much legal immigration.
"Allowing in over one million new legal immigrants a year and to a lesser extent tolerating illegal immigration has important implication[s] for preserving a common language," said Steven Camarota, who co-authored the report.
But the report noted that it’s not just immigrants who are speaking other languages at home. "Of the nearly 62 million foreign-language speakers, 44 percent (27.2 million) were born in the United States," it said.