According to answers provided to an open-ended question included in the 2000 US census, 993 people said that their ancestry or ethnic origin was Mauritanian.
There are Mauritanian immigrant communities in several parts of United States, such as Brooklyn, New York, and Memphis, Tennessee, but at least one-third of the people of Mauritanian origin resides in Ohio (mostly in Cincinnati and Columbus) and Erlanger, Kentucky.
[1] Some of the White Moors who settled in the Cincinnati area had clashed with the Mauritanian government, either because they supported a failed candidate for president or because their families spoke out against government policies, including slavery.
[1] The purpose of the latter organization is to help Mauritanian Americans "in many aspects: human, social and cultural".
Its future plans include assisting Mauritanian refugees in Senegal and Mali and persons living in Mauritania.