Interesting new data are out regarding immigration trends in the U.S. According to the Migration Policy Institute think tank, Indians are now the third-largest immigrant group by country of origin, after Mexicans and Chinese.

About 2 million Indian immigrants were living in the U.S. as of 2011, and as a percentage of all foreign-born people here went from less than 0.5% in 1960 to nearly 5% of the country’s 40.4 million immigrants last year.

The study noted that Indians generally arrive “on employment-based visas, and are less likely to live below the federal poverty line than the overall foreign-born population.”

The institute used data from the Census Bureau and the Department of Homeland Security, and its report offers some insights into America’s Indian immigrant community and their place in the U.S. workforce.

• Nearly one-third of all Indian immigrants live in just two states.

  California had the largest number of immigrants from India in 2011 at 380,000, followed by New Jersey with 210,400. And three metro areas in the U.S. are home to more than 25% of all those immigrants: greater New York, Chicago and San Jose.

• Most Indian immigrants to the U.S. already speak English and have strong educational backgrounds.

  More than 70% of these immigrants have proficient English language skills. And of the adult Indian immigrants to the U.S. in 2011, 75% had a bachelor’s degree or higher.

• They’re more likely to work in the science and technology sectors.

  Hardly a big surprise, but more than 29% of employed, Indian-born men in the U.S. work in info-tech, while 19% of Indian-born women are employed in management, finance and business positions.

• They become U.S. citizens at a high rate.

  Nearly 43,000 Indians became naturalized U.S. citizens last year (pictured), making them the third-largest country of origin group to naturalize in 2012 after Mexicans and Filipinos.

There were also about 2 million Indian nonimmigrants in the U.S. in 2011, mostly temporary workers, students and visitors. And according to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration Statistics, less than 2% of all unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. in 2011 were from India.

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