The share of unauthorized immigrants in the workforce peaked in 2007, at 5.4%.Among states, the share of unauthorized immigrants in the labor force is highest in Nevada (10.2% in 2012).Estimates for all states of unauthorized immigrant populations can be found in the appendices.There has been renewed debate about unauthorized immigration in recent weeks, as President Barack Obama has restated his intention to take executive action that could give relief from deportation and work permits to some of this population (New York Times, 2014). The Pew Research Center estimates that 4 million unauthorized immigrant parents, or 38% of adults in this population, lived with their U. for 10 years or more (Passel, Cohn, Krogstad and Gonzalez-Barrera, 2014).All trends have been updated to reflect the most current data. This report provides estimates of the 2012 unauthorized immigrant population and estimates of recent population trends in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia (see appendix for full data). The “legal immigrant” population is defined as people who have been granted legal permanent residence; those granted asylum; people admitted as refugees; and people admitted to the U. under a set of specific authorized temporary statuses for longer-term residence and work.It also estimates national and state-level shares of unauthorized immigrants in the overall population, foreign-born population and labor force, and the share of students in kindergarten through 12th grade with at least one unauthorized immigrant parent. When referring to children of unauthorized immigrants, the terms “U. This group includes “naturalized citizens,” legal immigrants who have become U. citizens through naturalization; “legal permanent resident aliens” who have been granted permission to stay indefinitely in the U. as permanent residents, asylees or refugees; and “legal temporary migrants” (including students, diplomats and “high-tech guest workers”) who are allowed to live and, in some cases, work in the U. for specific periods of time (usually longer than one year).
As the Mexican numbers continued to drop between 20, unauthorized immigrant populations from South America and from a grouping of Europe and Canada held steady.
States with the largest shares of students with unauthorized immigrant parents include Nevada (17.7%), California (13.2%), Texas (13.1%) and Arizona (11.0%). population of unauthorized immigrants was stable from 2009 to 2012, the number of Mexicans in this population fell by about half a million people during those years.
Mexicans are a majority of unauthorized immigrants (52% in 2012), but both their numbers and share have declined in recent years, according to the Pew Research estimates. According to the new Pew Research Center estimates, there were 5.9 million Mexican unauthorized immigrants in 2012, compared with 6.4 million in 2009.
Republican leaders, who will control both houses of Congress next year as a result of the mid-term elections, have cautioned that any executive action would torpedo the chances for a bipartisan immigration reform bill. S.-born children, either minors or adults, in 2012. Unauthorized immigrants accounted for 3.5% of the 2012 U. population of nearly 316 million and 26% of the nation’s 42.5 million foreign-born residents, according to the center’s new estimates.
Among the groups widely thought to be under consideration for relief from deportation are long-time U. Both shares were larger in 2007, the peak year for the nation’s unauthorized immigrant population, at 4.0% and 30%, respectively.