Illegal Immigration Statistics

Basic Illegal Immigration Statistics Reveal More Undocumented Aliens Arriving in US

Illegal immigration statistics from the Department of Homeland Security and the non-partisan Pew Hispanic Research Center reveal that the trend of declining unauthorized immigration to the US of the past two years may be declining as the economy recovers. Both sets of illegal immigration statistics show that after reaching a peak in 2007, unauthorized immigration fell due to the US economic crisis as well as stricter border control, making it more difficult for illegal workers from Mexico to cross through. The data shows that six out of ten illegal immigrants were Mexicans, followed by those from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and the Philippines. However, the numbers of illegal aliens are expected to rise as the economy continues to improve.

According to the DHS illegal immigration statistics, the unauthorized immigration population reached 10.8 million in 2010, while Pew Research pegged it at 11.2 million. The differences in the numbers may be accounted for by differing methodologies for estimating the undocumented immigrant population.

The illegal immigration statistics also revealed that, overall, the majority of unauthorized immigrants were male, accounting for more than half, and one-third were between 25 to 34 years old. On the other hand, female illegal aliens tended to dominate the older age groups starting from age 45.

In terms of states of residence, the illegal immigration statistics showed that California continued to be the state that had the largest population of illegal aliens, followed by Texas and Florida. California was also the state where illegal aliens accounted for the largest share of the total state population. However, the illegal immigration statistics showed that there was a decline in the unauthorized immigrant population in these states from 2007 to 2010. It should be noted that, although illegal immigrants can be found in every US states, they tend to congregate in a relatively small number of states, with 12 states accounting for more than two-thirds of the total number of unauthorized immigrants in the country.

Another issue that the illegal immigration statistics highlighted was that of the children of undocumented immigrants living in the US. According to the Pew Research study, there were at least 4.5 million children living in the US who born in households with at least one unauthorized immigrant, making them technically US citizens, while another one million were illegal immigrants themselves, since they were born outside the US and came in along with their parents. Not surprisingly, these children are more likely to live in poverty than their counterparts with US-born parents. They also face the risk of their parents being deported; the Homeland Security department had reported that in the decade ending in 2007, some 100,000 parents of US citizens were repatriated, leaving the children to fend for themselves or go into the foster care system. This situation has led to calls from legislators to end birthright citizenship since they believed it promoted illegal immigration.

Pew’s illegal immigration statistics revealed that the majority of unauthorized immigrant parents came from Mexico and most of those who had children in 2009-10 had arrived in the country before 2004.