As Republicans in the Florida legislature move forward with immigration-enforcement bills, new data shows that the number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States has remained stable.
According to a report released on Monday by the Immigration Policy Center:
Recent estimates from the Pew Hispanic Center and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) indicate that the number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States has remained unchanged at roughly 11 million since 2009. This comes after a two-year decline of approximately one million that corresponded closely to the most recent recession, which ran from December 2007 to June 2009.
The report also shows that three-fifths of unauthorized immigrants have been in the United States for more than a decade, and that unauthorized immigrants already in the U. S. have approximately 5.5 million children. Around 1 million of those children are unauthorized immigrants, while the remaining 4.5 million are native-born U.S. citizens who have at least one unauthorized parent.
Nationwide, unauthorized immigrants represent about 28 percent of the total foreign-born population. Naturalized U.S. citizens make up about 37 percent and legal permanent residents 31 percent.
The data used by the Immigration Policy Center report indicates that Florida has the third highest unauthorized population in the U.S. (825,000).
Citing Pew Hispanic Center data, the report indicates that the current unauthorized population accounts for roughly 1-in-20 workers: around 5 percent of the U.S. labor force.
โUnauthorized immigrants who are already in the country have become integral to U.S. businesses, communities, and families,โ according to the report.
