Mexicans decline to less than half the U.S. unauthorized immigrant population for the first time
The number of Mexican unauthorized immigrants has fallen since its peak of 6.9 million in 2007 and was lower in 2017 than in any year since 2001.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
The number of Mexican unauthorized immigrants has fallen since its peak of 6.9 million in 2007 and was lower in 2017 than in any year since 2001.
There were 10.5 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. in 2017. The number of Mexican unauthorized immigrants declined since 2007.
Jeffrey S. Passel, senior demographer, on the research techniques used to derive the unauthorized immigrant population estimate in the U.S. and the challenges involved.
In 2016, a third of unauthorized immigrant adults were proficient in English – up from a quarter in 2007.
Unauthorized immigrants make up a quarter of all U.S. foreign-born residents. Our new interactive offers data on unauthorized immigrants by state.
About 629,000 foreign visitors who were expected to leave the U.S. in fiscal 2016 were still in the U.S. when the fiscal year ended Sept. 30.
As the Mexican share of the total declined, the unauthorized immigrant population in the U.S. in 2015 was smaller than when the Great Recession ended.
The unauthorized immigrant population in the U.S. – 11.1 million in 2014 – has remained essentially stable since 2009 after nearly two decades of changes.
About 3.9 million kindergarten through 12th-grade students in U.S. public and private schools in 2014 were children of unauthorized immigrants.
Out of 45 million U.S. arrivals by air and sea whose tourist or business visas expired in fiscal 2015, the agency estimates that about 416,500 people were still in the country this year.
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