As of March 2010, 11.2 million unauthorized immigrants were living in the United States, virtually unchanged from a year earlier, according to “Unauthorized immigrant population: National and State Trends, 2010” from the Pew Hispanic Center. This stability in 2010 follows a two-year decline from the peak of 12 million in 2007 to 11.1 million in 2009. Unauthorized immigrants were 3.7 percent of the nation's population in 2010.
Other key points from the new report include:
- The number of children born to at least one unauthorized-immigrant parent in 2009 represented 8 percent of all U.S. births.
- The decline in the population of unauthorized immigrants from its peak in 2007 appears due mainly to a decrease in the number from Mexico. Mexicans remain the largest group of unauthorized immigrants, accounting for 58 percent of the total.
- Although the number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. is below 2007 levels, it has tripled since 1990, when it was 3.5 million and grown by a third since 2000, when it was 8.4 million.
Although the estimates indicate trends in the size and composition of the unauthorized-immigrant population, they are not designed to answer the question of why these changes occurred. There are many possible factors. The deep recession that began in the U.S. economy officially ended in 2009, but recovery has been slow to take hold and unemployment remains high. Immigration flows have tended to decrease in previous periods of economic distress.
Source: Pew Hispanic Center, “Unauthorized immigrant population: National and State Trends, 2010,” February 1, 2011.