On Tuesday, a Pew Research Center white paper found that while the number of illegal Mexican immigrants has decreased compared with other countries, the number of illegal immigrants as a whole who stay long-term has risen considerably.
Based off of government data, Pew found that while there were 6.4 million illegal Mexican immigrants in 2009, there were only 5.8 million in 2014—a decrease of more than half a million. But the number of illegal immigrants from other countries increased and stabilized during that same period, from 5 million to 5.3 million.
Between 2005 and 2014, there was another shift in long-term versus short-term illegal immigration. Whereas 41 percent of illegal immigrants had stayed for 10 years or more in 2005, a decade later, Pew calculated the number had risen to 66 percent. Meanwhile, those who stayed in the United States for less than 5 years dropped from 37 to 14 percent over the same time period.
Such data reflects earlier reports about how the Great Recession has affected illegal immigration patterns. But this also comes in the midst of the presidential election, where immigration policy has become a key point of conflict between Trump and Clinton over their respective domestic job and anti-terrorism policy proposals.
Other results from the Pew white paper include:
Of the foreign born population residing in the U.S., almost 26 percent are here illegally. However, while Pew estimates that 48 percent of Mexican immigrants and 50 percent of Central American immigrants are unauthorized, 22 percent of South Americans fall within this category. The numbers then drop for other regions like the Caribbean (10 percent), Asia (13 percent), and Europe and Canada (10 percent). Those from the Middle East, on the other hand, made up only 1 percent of the total illegal immigrant population over the past decade.
The top 10 countries of origin for illegal immigrants are Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, India, Honduras, China, the Philippines, the Dominican Republic, Korea, and Ecuador.
But at least four of the top ten countries also contributed the most legal immigrants in 2014. These include Mexico, India, China, and the Philippines.
While illegal immigrants made up 3.5 percent of the total U.S. population in 2014, most live in six states. California tops the list with 2.35 million, followed by Texas (1.65 million), Florida (850,000), New York (775,000), New Jersey (500,000), and Illinois (450,000).
Long-term illegal immigrants are also more likely to reside in the American West. Pew notes that “there is a strong statistical relationship between the proportion of unauthorized immigrants who are Mexican in any given state and the median length of residence of the unauthorized immigrant population in that state…. Fully 78% [of illegal Mexican immigrants] have been in the U.S. for a decade or more, compared with 52% of those from other areas.”
More data can be viewed on Pew’s website.
