Report: Two-thirds of undocumented adults have lived in the US for at least 10 years
A new report by the Pew Hispanic Center found that a majority of adults who live in the country illegally have strong ties to the U.S. (Getty images)
By JUAN GASTELUM
Channel: Immigration
Nearly two-thirds of the 10.2 million unauthorized adult immigrants in the United States have lived here for at least 10 years and almost half are parents of underage children, according to a new report by the Pew Hispanic Center.
The report, released Thursday, also found that about 35 percent of the same group have lived in the U.S for more than 15 years, a figure that has more than doubled since 2000.
In the same period, the number of unauthorized adult immigrants who have lived in the country for less than five years has been cut in half, from 32 percent to 15 percent.
Pew’s figures could have an impact on the 2012 presidential campaign: former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), one of the leading GOP candidates, has proposed offering legal status to some undocumented immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for decades. His plan has sent shockwaves through the GOP field, which is largely opposed to providing legal recognition to the nation’s 11 million-plus undocumented immigrants.
Most Republican presidential candidates have said they would focus their efforts on stopping the flow of undocumented immigrants into the U.S., but the Pew report indicates that illegal immigration has already begun to significantly subside.
The data suggest that the lesser amount of newer undocumented immigrants reflects the fact that the unauthorized population grew most in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and that inflow has tapered off as a result of a troubled U.S. economy and increased border enforcement.
The slow down also reflects reduced flows among Mexicans, who make 58 percent of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. The reports says the annual rate of Mexicans who immigrated to the U.S. between March 2007 and March 2009 decreased by 70 percent from the first half of the decade. The number of Mexicans who left the U.S. voluntarily remained steady, but deportations are on the rise, with Mexicans accounting for 73 percent of deportees in 2010.
The number of U.S.-born children with at least one unauthorized immigrant parent has more than doubled since 2000. At least 9 million people are in “mixed status’ families, or families that include one or more authorized child and parent, according to the report. About 16.6 million people are in families with at least one unauthorized immigrant.
The Pew Hispanic Center used data from the March 2010 Current Population Survey (CPS), a joint project of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau. That data is expanded to produce information on the foreign-born population and adjusted to compensate for some groups that are undercounted. Additional data came from the center’s 2010 National Survey of Latinos.
The center estimates the total number of authorized immigrants living in the U.S. at 11.2 million. That number increased from 8.4 million in 2000, but has decreased since it peaked at 12 million in 2007.
