More people from Africa have entered the United States in the last decade than were forced to come to America during more than three centuries of the slave trade

Between 2000 and 2010, the number of legal black African immigrants in the United States about doubled to around one million and more black Africans arrived in this country on their own than were imported directly to North America during the more than three centuries of the slave trade. These large migrations have increased concerns about the entry of African immigrants into the United States, since the deadly Ebola epidemic has ravaged the western part of the continent. New York is home to the largest proportion of African immigrants and about a third of black New Yorkers were born abroad, mostly in the Caribbean. Africans constitute about 4% of the city’s foreign-born population, but as much as 10% in the Bronx and from 2000 to 2011 the African-born population increased 39% to 128,000. But other estimates suggest that many more are living in New York and America by having overstayed their visas or entered illegally. Kim Nichols, an executive director of the African Services Committee, says that African immigrants have been doubling every 10 years since 1980. African immigrants have also gone to California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Texas and Virginia.