It appears the recession has driven down the numbers of foreign-born immigrants in California. A USC study released today showed a decrease in the arrival of new immigrants, defying earlier forecasts, which had projected steady growth in the foreign-born population until 2020.

Since 2000 when 26.2 percent of the population was foreign-born, numbers increased slightly by just 1.2 percent, but then fell throughout 2008 and will likely continue to decline.

“The peak and decline of the foreign-born population has occurred earlier than expected, largely due to the sharp declines in new immigrant arrivals that are accompanying the economic downturn,” said Dowell Myers, the USC demographics professor in the School of Policy, Planning and Development who authored the study.

The report found that the arrivals of new immigrants declined more sharply in California than the rest of the nation, and the drop was even more pronounced in Los Angeles County than statewide. The percentage of foreign-born residents in Los Angeles dropped from 36.2 percent in 2000 to 35.2 in 2008.

The drop in foreign-born residents has coincided with the rise of a “homegrown” majority of residents born in California. These numbers have been slowly increasing since the 80s, when not a single Southern California county was populated by a majority of homegrown residents. This year, all counties in Southern California have a majority of homegrown residents, demonstrating the shift in the proportion of foreign-born immigrants and people from other states.