It is fairly well known that individuals aged 65 and older constitute the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population.  What is not so well known is that the number of foreign-born individuals aged 65 and older has almost doubled since 1990. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that there are now almost 5 million foreign-born persons 65 years and older in the United States.  Treas and Batalova (2007) predict the number to quadruple to more than 16 million by 2050.

There are two key factors driving this growth.  The first is aging of the long-term foreign-born population and the other is immigration of older adults as a result of the family reunification or refugee admissions.  By far the largest number of foreign-born individuals 65 years of age or older came to the United States either in their youth or middle age.   The Population Reference Bureau (2013) reports that 60% of the foreign- born elderly arrived in the U.S. before 1970.  However this same report states that 10% of foreign-born elderly have lived in the U.S. less than 10 years. 

The needs of new arrivals are obviously quite different than those who have lived in the U.S. a long time.  Those who arrived a long time ago face challenges of aging more similar to the native-born elderly population.  Whereas new arrivals face increased barriers of language and culture that constrain their capacity to meet the challenges of aging.

It is especially noteworthy that recent older immigrants tend to settle outside the usual big cities receiving immigrants such as New York and Los Angeles where there is more of an infrastructure designed to facilitate immigrant integration.  Because recent older immigrants often connect with their children who immigrated much earlier, they may settle in smaller communities or rural areas where responsive support services for immigrants are especially limited. 

The availability of bilingual staff in health settings, senior centers or legal aid organizations are very limited outside of large cities (Gurak and Kritz, 2013).   Recent older immigrants tend to have very limited English language skills putting an extra burden upon other family members to function as translators of language and culture.  Latin America has replaced Europe as the leading birthplace for the older foreign-born population in the United States.  Thus Spanish and Portuguese language skills among elder care service providers are especially needed.  

Foreign-born individuals 65 years of age and older have a couple of important advantages over their native-born counterparts.  They tend to have stronger social ties and live longer.  A report by the Population Reference Bureau (2013) indicates that foreign-born elderly tend to live three years longer than their native-born counterparts.  This difference is even greater among foreign-born Blacks who tend to live five years longer than native-born Blacks. 

However these extra years of life may also be accompanied with disability.  There is also evidence that foreign-born older persons have higher disability rates.  This may be partially explained by having encountered more injuries or untreated illnesses in their earlier years as well as difficulty associated with securing treatment and instruction in self-care for chronic health conditions such as diabetes and hypertension. 

In sum, elderly immigrants in the United States deserve more attention.  They are a very diverse group with challenging needs.  It has been suggested that limited English is particularly a barrier for recent foreign-born elderly and their caregivers gaining access to timely and proper services.  For those who entered the United States years ago, language appears less of a factor.  For them, barriers to appropriate services may be associated with lower lifetime earnings and benefits than their native-born counterparts.