The Pew Research Center design staff picks the data visualizations we created in 2014 that they considered the most challenging and explains the approach to presenting our data.
A sharp rise in the number of immigrants living in the U.S. in recent decades serves as a backdrop for the debate in Congress over the nation’s immigration policies. In 1990, the U.S. had 19.8 million immigrants. That number rose to a record 40.7 million immigrants in 2012, among them 11.7 million unauthorized immigrants.