Jeffrey Passel, a senior demographer for the Pew Research Center, describes how the number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. was calculated and what impact new immigration proposals may have on this group.
As of March 2010, 11.2 million unauthorized immigrants were living in the U.S., virtually unchanged from a year earlier and remaining well below the population’s peak of 12 million in 2007. The number of unauthorized immigrants in the nation’s workforce (8 million) also has not changed in the past year.
Five demographic profiles of Hispanic populations in the U.S. by country of origin — Guatemalan, Colombian, Honduran, Ecuadorian and Peruvian — have been added to the profiles of the five largest Hispanic populations — Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Salvadoran, and Dominican — posted earlier in the year by the Pew Hispanic Center.
More than eight-in-ten Hispanics self-identify themselves as being either of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Salvadoran or Dominican origin. The characteristics of each group — including the share that is foreign born, citizen (by birth or naturalization) and proficient in English — is examined in five fact sheets.
Hispanic voters could be crucial to the outcome of several of this week’s primaries and caucuses. Here are fact sheets describing the socioeconomic characteristics of eligible Latino voters in each of the eight states with sizeable Hispanic populations.
America departs from a reported worldwide trend toward an increasing number of female migrants. The continued predominance of male migrants into the United States is explained by the relatively large proportion of illegal entrants among their numbers.