ImmigrationDecline in U.S. unauthorized immigrant population halted
The sharp decline in the U.S. population of unauthorized immigrants which accompanied the 2007-9 recession has bottomed out, and the number may be rising again. As of March 2012, 11.7 million unauthorized immigrants were living in the United States, according to a new report.
The sharp decline in the U.S. population of unauthorized immigrants which accompanied the 2007-9 recession has bottomed out, and the number may be rising again. As of March 2012, 11.7 million unauthorized immigrants were living in the United States, according to a new preliminary Pew Research Center estimate based on U.S. government data.
A Pew Research release reports that the estimated number of unauthorized immigrants peaked at 12.2 million in 2007 and fell to 11.3 million in 2009, breaking a rising trend that had held for decades. Although there are indications the number of unauthorized immigrants may be rising, the 2012 population estimate is the midpoint of a wide range of possible values and in a statistical sense is no different from the 2009 estimate.
Different trends appear among the six states in which 60 percent of unauthorized immigrants live — California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Texas.
Pew notes that these six states had the largest unauthorized immigrant populations when the Pew Research Center’s methodology for estimating such immigration was developed, and were the only states with large enough survey samples from which to develop reliable estimates at that time. With the geographic dispersal of the unauthorized immigrant population, other states may now have larger populations than some of these six. Estimates for the remaining forty-four states, and the District of Columbia, will be released in a subsequent report.
Of these, only Texas had increases but no decrease in its unauthorized immigrant population over the 2007-11 period.
The other five states (and the balance of the country) all experienced peak numbers of unauthorized immigrants in 2007 followed by declines over the next year or two.
In terms of country of origin, the post-2007 population dip was even sharper among Mexicans (who made up 52 percent of 2012 unauthorized immigrants) than the overall population decrease, although the Mexican decline appears to have stopped after 2010. In 2012, 6.05 million Mexican unauthorized immigrants were in the United States, a decline of about 900,000 from 2007.
— Read more in Jeffrey S. Passel et al., Population Decline of Unauthorized Immigrants Stalls, May Have Reversed (Pew Research Hispanic Trends Project, September 2013)
