Immigration

There were 11.9 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States in March 2008, according to new Pew Hispanic Center estimates.

The unauthorized immigrant population grew more slowly in the period from 2005 to 2008 than it did earlier in the decade.

The inflow of immigrants who are undocumented has now fallen below that of immigrants who are legal permanent residents, reversing a trend that began a decade ago.

Although the growth of the unauthorized population has slackened, its size has increased by more than 40% since 2000, when it was 8.4 million. In 2005, the Pew Hispanic Center estimated there were 11.1 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. The most recent estimate, 11.9 million, indicates that unauthorized immigrants make up 4% of the U.S. population.

These estimates are based mainly on data from the 2000 Census and the March Current Population Surveys for the years since then. Because the Census Bureau does not ask people their immigration status, these estimates are derived using a widely accepted methodology that essentially subtracts the estimated legal-immigrant population from the total foreign-born population. The residual is treated as a source of data on the unauthorized immigrant population.

Latino immigrants to the U.S. are more diverse, successful, and assimilating more rapidly than is widely assumed in public debate, scholars observe in recent research published by the American Political Science Association (APSA). While immigration, assimilation, national identity, and relevant public policy questions are rightly being discussed today, the research finds that much of the concerns regarding Latino immigration are rooted in inaccurate assumptions, oversimplifications, and poor data.

These conclusions appear in a research symposium entitled “Immigration and National Identity,” edited by Gary M. Segura (University of Washington), in the June issue of Perspectives on Politics–a journal of the APSA.