E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSNew census data released Thursday affirm a clear and sustained drop in illegal immigration, ending more than a decade of increases.
The number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. dropped to an estimated 11.1 million last year from a peak of 12 million in 2007, part of an overall waning of Hispanic immigration. For the first time since 1910, Hispanic immigration last year was topped by immigrants from Asia.
Demographers say illegal Hispanic immigration — 80 percent of all illegal immigration comes from Mexico and Latin America — isn't likely to approach its mid-2000 peak again, due in part to a weakened U.S. economy and stronger enforcement but also a graying of the Mexican population.
The finding suggests an uphill battle for the Republicans, who passed legislation in the House last week that would extend citizenship to a limited pool of foreign students with advanced degrees but who are sharply divided on whether to pursue broader immigration measures.
In all, the biggest surge of immigration in modern U.S. history ultimately may be recorded as occurring in the mid-1990s to early 2000s, yielding illegal residents who now have been settled in the U.S. for 10 years or more. They include migrants who arrived here as teens and are increasingly at risk of "aging out" of congressional proposals such as the DREAM Act that offer a pathway to citizenship for younger adults.
Photoblog: Latino enclave scatters as border agents move in
"The priority now is to push a vigorous debate about the undocumented people already here," said Jose Antonio Vargas, 31, a journalist from the Philippines. "We want to become citizens and not face the threat of deportation or be treated as second class," said Vargas, whose campaign, Define American, along with the young immigrant group United We Dream, have been pushing for citizenship for the entire illegal population in the U.S. The groups point to a strong Latino and Asian-American turnout for President Barack Obama in last month's election as evidence of public support for a broad overhaul of U.S. immigration laws.
Earlier this year, Obama extended to many younger immigrants temporary reprieves from deportation. But Vargas, who has lived in the U.S. since 1993 and appeared this year on the cover of Time magazine with other immigrants who lacked legal status, has become too old to qualify.
"This conversation is a question about how we as a nation define who is an American," Vargas said, noting that if politicians don't embrace immigration overhaul now, a rapidly growing bloc of minority voters may soon do it for them. "If you want us to pay a fine to become a citizen, OK. If you want us to pay back taxes, absolutely. If you want us to speak English, I speak English. But we can't tread water on this issue anymore."
Report: Border crossings changing, Central Americans on the rise
Jeffrey Passel, a senior demographer at the Pew Research Center and a former Census Bureau official, said U.S. immigration policies will have a significant impact in shaping a future U.S. labor force, which is projected to shrink by 2030. Aging white baby boomers, many in specialized or management roles, are beginning to retire. Mexican immigration, which has helped fill needs in farming, home health care and other low-wage U.S. jobs, has leveled off.
"Immigration is one way to boost the number of workers in the population," he said, but the next wave of needed immigrants is likely to come from somewhere other than Mexico. "We are not going to see a return to the levels of Mexican unauthorized immigration of a decade ago."
The numbers are largely based on the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey through March 2011. Because the Census Bureau does not ask people about their immigration status, Passel derived estimates on illegal immigrants largely by subtracting the estimated legal immigrant population from the total foreign-born population. The numbers are also supplemented with material from William H. Frey of the Brookings Institution and Mark Mather of the Population Reference Bureau, who reviewed data released Thursday from the Census' American Community Survey.
Stay informed with the latest headlines; sign up for our newsletter
The data showed that 11.1 million, or 28 percent, of the foreign-born population in the U.S. consists of illegal immigrants, virtually unchanged since 2009 and roughly equal to the level of 2005. An additional 12.2 million foreign-born people, 31 percent, are legal permanent residents with green cards. And 15.1 million, or 37 percent, are naturalized U.S. citizens.
Fewer Mexican workers are entering the U.S., while many of those immigrants already here are opting to return to their homeland, resulting in zero net migration from Mexico.
In 2007, legal and illegal immigrants made up equally large shares of the foreign-born population, at 31 percent, due to ballooning numbers of new unauthorized migrants seeking U.S. construction and related jobs during the mid-2000s housing boom. Naturalized U.S. citizens then represented 35 percent.
Broken down by geography and race, roughly half of all states last year posted declines or no change in their numbers of foreign-born Hispanics, including big immigrant states such as California and New York as well as economically hard hit areas in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, which previously had seen gains.
Foreign-born Asians were a bigger source of population gain than Hispanic immigrants in California, New York, Virginia, Illinois and New Jersey. Newly moving into suburban communities, the Asian population spread out more across the southeastern U.S. and Texas, increasing their share in 93 percent of the nation's metropolitan areas.
As a whole, foreign-born residents are slowly graying, with 44 percent now age 45 or older. They are more likely than in 2007 to be enrolled in college or graduate school (39 percent, up from 32 percent) and to be single (17 percent married, down from 22 percent).
Births to immigrant mothers also are on the decline, driving the overall U.S. birth rate last year to the lowest in records dating back to 1920.
Watch US News videos on NBCNews.com
"At least temporarily, the face of immigration to the U.S. is changing in terms of cultural background, education and skills," Frey said. "The fertility bump provided by past Hispanic immigrants may not be replicated in the future, especially if Asians take over a greater share of U.S. immigrants."
House Republicans, seeking to show they are serious about addressing the immigration issue after being largely rejected by Hispanics in the election, voted last week to make green cards accessible to foreign students graduating with advanced science and math degrees from U.S. universities.
The measure, strongly backed by the high-tech industry and touted as a boost to the U.S. economy, would have a net effect of extending more visas and eventual citizenship to students from India and China. It is opposed by most Democrats, the Obama administration and immigrant rights groups such as the Asian American Justice Center which want to see it packaged with broader legislation that extends legal status for illegal immigrants.
These groups also oppose the proposed new 55,000 visas for foreign students because they would be offset by eliminating a lottery program that provides green cards to people with lower rates of immigration, mainly those from Africa. Senate Democrats on Wednesday blocked Republicans from bringing up the bill.
A bill introduced by Sens. Jon Kyl of Arizona and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, who are retiring at the end of this session, seeks to offer some legal status to young immigrants. Critics say it falls short because it does not provide a path to citizenship, an issue that Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., describes as "non-negotiable."
About 77 percent of Hispanic voters in the November election said they thought people working in the U.S. illegally should be offered a chance to apply for legal status, according to exit polling conducted for the television networks and The Associated Press. That is compared with 71 percent of Asian-Americans and 65 percent of voters overall.
The political implications are great.
Hispanics and Asian-Americans are the nation's two fastest-growing population groups, each increasing by more than 40 percent since 2000. A higher birth rate and years of steadily high immigration have boosted Hispanics to 17 percent of the U.S. population, compared with blacks at 12 percent and 5 percent for Asians.
Even if the nation's estimated 11 million illegal residents do not attain citizenship, the nation's Hispanics, who made up roughly 10 percent of voters in November, are expected to nearly double their share of eligible voters by 2030. Asian-Americans, who now are 3 percent of voters, will also continue to increase.
About 73 percent of Asian-Americans voted for Obama, second only to African-Americans at 93 percent and slightly higher than Latinos at 71 percent, according to exit polling.
Asian-Americans don't strongly identify with either party, but they tend to cite jobs, education and health care as issues most important to them and generally prefer a big government that provides more services. Relatively new to the U.S. and religiously diverse, Asian-Americans also may have been repelled by Republican Mitt Romney's forceful stance during the primaries seeking "self-deportation" of immigrants as well as the GOP's sometimes narrow appeal to evangelical Christians, said Karthick Ramakrishnan, a political science professor at the University of California-Riverside who helps conduct a broad National Asian American Survey.
While Mexicans make up about 55 percent of illegal immigrants and other Latin Americans represent another 25 percent, Asians make up a 10 percent share, many of whom overstay temporary visas.
More content from NBCNews.com:
- Chilling details released in Alaska barista's killing
- Conversion therapists: 'You can't say gay once, gay always'
- West Point cadet quits, cites 'criminal' behavior of officers
- Video: Photographer: ‘No way’ I could have saved subway victim
- Disability-compensation claims for veterans lag as 'VA backlog' worsens
Follow US news from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook
Leave a Comment:
Well DUH! Most of those people want to work. With a stagnant economy, the risk:reward ratio is not worth it for many of them. Simple economics.
So do Americans
Pssst... don't tell the Republicans. They'll say it's another liberal media lie. It's CLEARLY President Obama's attempt to make everyone think his policies are working!
LOL, you Dems are certainly full of conspiracy theories.
What we want is for our government to enforce the law and not to reward those persons that have broken the law.
And yes I do question Obama's motives given that this segment of the population highly favors the Dem party.
Liberals claim to champion diversity of ideas and yet they are surprised to find out that other ideas exist.
Why would you reject a bill to give visas to math and science graduates? We need those because apparently we don't have enough Americans smart enough to study anything hard. And we don't need a lottery for poor Africans to come here so give those visas to students, too. Maybe we can raise our educational level instead of watching the rest of the developed world get ahead of us.
See, this is where you get tripped up with news reports and government surveys.
Not long ago, the very same Census Bureau reported that many Hispanics/Latinos across the country refused to mark the section that asked for "race" because the forms indicate "white" as the race for them. They lost count of the number of forms that were returned with the "race" section unmarked.
The information from the Census Bureau cannot be used for factual information.
As far as a "work force" for the future.... will there be any jobs to be "worked" here in the US?
Hi, Scooter!
This guy doesn't know what he's talking about. Whether or not a person is Hispanic and their race are separate questions on the census. "Hispanic" is an ethnicity and they can be any race. You can see the actual data here:
http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-04.pdf
While it is true that many Hispanics, particularly Mestizos of native-American ancestry, do consider themselves to be a unique "race," the majority of Hispanics in the U.S. self-identify as "white."
Mark #1.3
"What we want is for our Government to enforce laws"....
You bet - the only problem with that is you only started wanting this on Jan 20, 2009.....you had no problems with increased illegals during the Bush administration.....you remember, right?
You evidently missed the news article that stated the Hispanics have lobbied for the federal government to refer to all Latinos in the US as the Hispanic "race." They are offended that the census forms refer to them as "white."
The next census forms that come out will, indeed, refer to Hispanics as a race, according to the news article.
FYI, I am female, not male.
"This conversation is a question about how we as a nation define who is an American," Vargas said. Uh, excuse me, but as an acknowledged illegal alien what right do you have to be a part of the conversation? Perhaps you can hop back over the fence and mail your opinion in.
Oh sure-" All you illegal aliens stand up and be counted we're taking a new census"...imagine that. This data is total guess work nothing more. The numbers can only be estimated of people who totally fly under the radar as a way of life.
I've always loved the part about how they can tell us with such accuracy how many illegals are living here, yet on the other hand tell us the millions of dollars it would cost to "find" all the illegals for deportation.
It's like... hey, dude... how could you count them if you couldn't find them... and if you found them to count them... then you certainly could find them to deport them...
So which is the lie? Guess it depends on the election cycle.
I'm still stunned that the word "illegal immigrant" is used in this article. What happened to "undocumented"?
If 11.1 Million ILLEGAL FOREIGN NATIONALS are still in the U.S., they should be deported. We Americans (and I am a registered Democrat) will not accept granting rewards and special treatment to those who selfishly believed that our laws are inapplicable to them.
How insulting must it be for a LEGAL IMMIGRANT (appx. 1 Million EVERY YEAR) who paid a high price, waited the wait, and went through a background check to hear our elected officials (unfortunately the Democratic leadership), pledge their commitment to grant rewards and special treatment for ILLEGALS to be able to circumvent the very rules by which appx. 1 million LEGAL immigrants abide EVERY SINGLE YEAR! It is DISGUSTING, indeed. And, it is for this very reason, that I did not vote for O as President in 2012.
As Americans, we must demand that our elected officials do what is in the LONG-TERM best interests of U.S. Citizens--- and that is enforcing our immigration laws (the MOST GENEROUS IMMIGRATION LAWS IN THE WORLD) and changing the anchor-baby rules tout de suite! Additionally, it is inexcusable that the Democrats are rejecting a policy which would grant visas to the smart and educated (as opposed to the impovered and uneducated). Incredible!
What defines an American asks the insufferable Mr. Vargas???--- NOT YOU! IF YOU ARE FOREIGN-BORN AND AMERICAN, THAT MEANS YOU COMPLIED WITH OUR IMMIGRATION LAWS TO BECOME NATURALIZED. SOMEONE WHO SEEKS TO SUBVERT AND CIRCUMVENT OUR IMMIGRATION LAWS AND THEN DEMANDS TO BE ABOVE THE VERY RULES BY WHICH 1 MILLION OTHER (LEGAL) FOREIGN NATIONALS PLAY EVERY YEAR AND SOMEONE WHO SEEKS SPECIAL TREATMENT--- IS, MOST CERTAINLY-- NOT AN AMERICAN!!!
A GOVERNMENT WHICH REFUSES TO ENFORCE ITS OWN LAWS IS INTOLERABLE!
So according to the new census a black Dominican will be considered to be the same "race" as a white Spaniard? Makes perfect sense.
LOL... . 9 million is a ' big drop '???? considering the number of illegal immigrations is still a double digit number in the millions that is absolutely hilarious.
estimated....look up the word.....
big drop is an estimation too... yet that number is still astronomically HIGH.
A drop of 900,000
not 9 million.
But yeah, whoever wrote the article has on rose colored glasses.
GreatlyEntitled wrote ".9 million," which is 900,000.
That is why in science courses they always tell you to write the zero preceding the decimal point, to make it stand out!
They always under count illegals.
See ... this is why we need immigrant math & science students.
Greatly Entitled wrote 9 million. Yes.
But 9 million is NOT 900,000. That's nine hundred thousand.
9 million is 9,000,000
So either McGee's math or English is flawed. Not sure which.
Census data.....LOL!! As if illegals will answer their doors for a census person.
What are we at now?....only 5 million sneak in per year instead of 5.2 million? Why are ANY of them here? We have no idea who is sneaking across the border and, per this administration, we have to wait till one of them hurts of kills an American before we will deport them.
At least charge them for being here...the illegals pay thousands to get here and then we give them free benefits, school, health care all while dealing with their crime.
And with the new free citizenships being offered, I HIGHLY doubt the numbers are going down.
See that dot before the nine? It's called a 'decimal point,' jackass.
0.9 x 1,000,000 = 900,000
translation;
we make up numbers as we go, to fit our own views or political agendas...........
The trillion dollar Mexican Border "fence" must be working.......or somebody is trying to justify a Pork Project for a fence extension into California.
I am still dismayed by the failure to address the root question
With unemployment levels this high, why do we permit ANY immigration?
If many illegals simply overstay visa's, wouldn't the issue be solved by not issuing any visa's at all?
The reality is immigrants equal cheap labor. Supply and demand
The more we have, the less the value of the labor of our citizens.
If unemployment was below three percent, perhaps, but at this rate it simply indiccates American industry would rather import illegals than train and compensate actual Americans.
At one time, this would have been called treason, and rightfully so.
simply put? ........votes.....
Well William let me help explain this to you. See you're using this thing we call logic and then there is our politicians and government workers... :-)
We wish it would be as simple as "votes".
Too many powerful constituents using illegal labor and not only on the border states anymore, but all over the U.S. Congress don't want to deal with immigration because they would lose their support and reelection. Those industries have very powerful lobbyist in DC.
While overall employment does remain high, there is actually a shortage of workers in certain STEM fields. Hence immigration via H1B visas, which I bet explains a significant portion of the Asian influx.
I also agree with the posters citing cheap labor. As a food industry professional, I have unfortunately witnessed firsthand employers relying upon illegal labor. Of course, you can't know for sure that they're illegal - there's a "don't ask, don't tell" mentality, and are usually employed through a temp agency to shield the manufacturer from direct liability.
The increase in the Visas is because the students overseas can AFFORD to go to college. Our college students are blackmailed into accepting "loans for life". basically indentured servitude to attend the high cost colleges in the U.S.
Our kids are smart enough, they just aren't rich enough.
The small minority of people capable of creating jobs where there were none before contain a large percentage of immigrants. Eliminating all immigrants in the end costs Americans far more jobs than it saves.
There are two reasons for this. First, the mental attitudes that allow one to immigrate well are useful for building new businesses. Second, US public schools are terrible and very few high school graduates are capable of doing the things that eventually leadsto job creation.
William your comments are true and make sense. Immigration should be reduced to a bare minimum until unemployment is reduced to a reasonable level. Doesn't make sense to allow more people into the country and add to the workforce number. More people equals more unemployment and tax dollars for subsidies and entitlements.
All of them prefer a bigger government that provides more services. Wonder why?
....America: where illegal aliens tell taxpaying citizens how to run our immigration system.....thanks, Hussein...
"This conversation is a question about how we as a nation define who is an American," Vargas said.
Vargas, what is this we? You are not part of this nation. You are here illegally!
Illegals dropping 900,000 to 11,100,000 million from a high of 12,000,000 million does not constitute a "waning" or a "big drop".
9% decrease period.
This article is pure propaganda nothing but spin.
If your DNA was 9% different you would be a duck.
9% is a huge difference. Let's say you're getting a 9% pay cut, does that constitute a "waning" or "big drop"?
Geowill, article is about illegal immigrants not acid, if ur trippin might explain ur post.
UDunnoBro, article is about illegal immigrants but just to be fair, if I was making $12mil... 900k wouldn't be shiet.
Bro.DumbazzHow do you count Illegals in the first place. If they are illegal, doesn't that mean that they are not registered anywhere?
in Illinois they want to give them drivers licenses. that way they are no longer "undocumented" uninsured, unlicensed.. illegal aliens ... and therefor they will hence become "documented" uninsured, licensed ...illegal aliens..... and the scary part is they think this is a good thing.....
Check the welfare lines and the emergency room admissions and extrapolate.
how many US citizens and legal immigrants don't have health insurance again? And how come they have welfare in the first place when they are supposedly illegals?
If they have a Illinois drivers license legally?LOL? then the illegal aliens can illegally cast votes... at least TWICE!
You're here illegally. Pretty simple - you're criminals.
OOPS...
Another Republican Hate-on-Obama excuse is going down in flames. Man, come the end of 2013 Republicans are going to have to start making crap up to justify hating on the Pres. Oh wait, Benghazi *face palm*.
...yeah, why should Obama care about a few murdered Americans in Benghazi.....it's a minor loss....certainly not important enough to put dividing class and race on the backburner for him....
LEGAL immigration is a great thing. ILLEGAL immigration is not. Neither is blanket amnesty. We went through that in the '80's and all it did was open a flood gate. If illegals in the US now want to be citizens, there should be fines, back taxes, repayment of any and all public aid they received, clean criminal record, and learning English is a MUST. I am all for homeland pride and believe everyone should know where they come from. But having to provide extra employees for schools, businesses, etc, just because a large portion of people do not want to learn English is unacceptable.
A big drop in illegal immigration? Maybe because they're all here now? The governor of Mass. wants to give those in our state driver's licenses, and he recently ordered that illegal "immigrants" be allowed to attend state colleges at half tuition. Ain't that swell?
Maybe that's a problem you can fix next election.
Sounds like the state laws in places like AZ, AL, GA, etc. are working. Too bad the federal government refuses to enforce federal law to keep illegal aliens out.
Dang this Presidents new policy to keep out illegals. How bad is our economy when poor people don't want to leave their country with its corrupt government, to come here with our corrupt government and work for nothing. Crazy world.
900k less out of 12 million...
So, the remaining 10 percent must be Canadians.
Fines, pay back taxes and learn the language I am ok with that for the people here. I think we also need national identification cards that can't be forged and continue to beef up the border security. Clean up the mess and get on with life. I have been hard core against this for a while also but it is time to start talking about solutions and not just the problems. I would also say that if you get a masters in a US university in Engineering, Math or other areas we have needs in then they get a green card. I got my Masters at a school that had 40% of students from other countries and they left after graduation and this country lost a lot. I am a conservative but have come to the conclusion that if you scratch the tea party you are just going to find the ugly head of the Klan.
They're still here. They're just not illegal anymore. And there's your media spin.
Something tells me that if from tomorrow on not one more illegal immigrant crossed the border, the jaw-jacking idiots, Archie Bunker types and supremacists would start hunting for the next flavor-of-the-moment group of people to hate and blame for their vocational and social shortcomings. When I came back to the U.S. after 20 years, I had yahoos who could hardly spell telling me in barely intelligible backwoods FoghornLeghornPootyTangese that I had to speak English only or I would be deported (If you don't get it, I was born in NYC and lived in Puerto Rico. If you STILL don't get it, never mind *facepalm*).
You might want to sever your citizenship before the IRS starts taxing your income in Puerto Rico.
The middle class is becoming the minority in America. We need to take the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force, invade Mexico and Central America, have those citizens go join their families in the USA. We'll have less borders to patrol and a damn fine fence, little or no winter and let Barry and his bleeding heart liberals have what is left for them to take. Socialism on works as long as you have somebody to take money from to support it. Evil lasts as long as good people take no action against it.
America is no longer the "Land of Opportunity." We have plenty of opportunists, however.
First of all - 55% Mexican; 25% Latin American, 10% Asian - that leaves 10% - DAMN CANADIANS!
Seriously though, this newstory was so poorly researched and the inaccuracies in it attrocious. This is obviously a fluff piece to fill space and pull from as many disparate sources as possible without a concise message. Is this drop good? Bad? Significant? -Why? And why did it drop? Economy? Aging population? Population shift? Politics? It's just a bunch of blabber based on two reports which already define that they are thinly supported speculation on numbers but their goal is NOT to identify the numbers of immigrants but assist in the processes. FAIL as an article.
good analysis, and fairly accurate if i may say.
This means that the rest of the world realizes that we are on the edge of an economic collapse. There's been a decreased number of illegal immigrants because they don't want to go down with the ship.
For all of you who are worried about illegal aliens taking your jobs, check out
www . takeourjobs . com . They will line you up with the jobs that are normally
done by illegal laborers. Lets see if you soft Americans can compete.