Are immigrants still coming to Santa Clara County?
During the 1990’s, Santa Clara County welcomed 214,872 immigrants and refugees; this was the largest number of new foreign-born residents arriving within a single decade since the early 1900’s.

With the economic downturn of 2000, some have believed that immigrants stopped coming to Silicon Valley, but this is not the case. In fact, 113,793 new foreign-born residents came to Santa Clara County from 2000-2005, arriving at a rate comparable to the record breaking ‘90’s.

Who are they?
More than half of these newcomers (55.4%) were younger working age adults (ages 18-44), and 26.6% were ages 45-64.

What has changed is the number of people arriving from Latin America.

If 2000-2004 population trends continue at the same rates for 2005-2009, numbers of new immigrants from Europe and Asia will decrease, and numbers arriving from Latin America will increase dramatically. Where 52,316 entered the county from Latin America during the 1990’s, an extrapolated estimate of 78,092 will have entered between 2000-2009. This number does not include many who will arrive without legal authorization.