Undocumented immigrantsNumber of undocumented immigrants in U.S. unchanged over the 2010-2016 period
The issue of undocumented immigration has been central to the campaign of Donald Trump — and major motivation behind the surge of Hispanic voters supporting Hillary Clinton. The number of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border may be too high than some Americans want, but experts point out that it has not risen in recent years. The numbers of unauthorized immigrant in the United States grew rapidly in the 1990s and early 2000s, but that trend changed with the onset of the financial crisis. The total number of Mexican immigrants in the United States is virtually unchanged over the 2010-2016 period.
One of the central political issues of the 2016 election has been immigration. The issue was a major part of the campaign of Donald Trump – and major motivation behind the surge of Hispanic voters supporting Hillary Clinton.
“We are a nation that is seriously troubled. We’re losing our jobs. People are pouring into our country,” Trump said in the first presidential debate.
Other GOP politicians agreed. “Absent visa reductions, the annual rate of immigration, the total level of immigration, and the percentage of the country that is foreign-born will continue surging every single year,” Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) and Representative Dave Brat (R-Virginia) said in a letter last year.
Fortune reports that Ira Glass noted in a recent episode of the podcast “This American Life” noted that the problem with this view is that it is not true.
The number of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border may be too high than some Americans want, but it has not risen in recent years. A new report from Pew Research Centre shows, the number of illegal immigrants working or looking for work in the United States has been roughly flat between 2009 and 2014, at about eight million people.
Pew notes that people do cross the border illegally, but the numbers are not large: About 350,000 illegal immigrants have entered the country each year, but the same number have also left the country.
Together, unauthorized immigrants make up 5 percent of America’s civilian labor force, a proportion which is down slightly since 2009, Pew says. The numbers of unauthorized immigrant in the United States grew rapidly in the 1990s and early 2000s, but that trend changed with the onset of the financial crisis.
Some reports have noted an increase in immigration after 2014 – and data from one survey, the 2015 Current Population Survey show an increase in Mexican immigration.
Jeffrey Passel, a senior demographer at Pew, says, however, that the results from that survey were an anomaly — which is something that happens with individual surveys — rather than offering evidence of a big migration event.
“Those numbers were not consistent with anything else we’ve seen,” Passel said.
The 2015 Population Survey showed an increase in Mexican immigration, but Passel noted that the 2015 American Community Survey, which is based on a much larger sample, showed that the total number of Mexican immigrants in the United States is virtually unchanged over the 2010-2016 period.
Passel added that the 2016 Current Population Survey, labor-force surveys of out-migration in Mexico, and apprehensions of undocumented Mexicans at the Southern border all pointed to the same trend — that the number of Mexican immigrants in the United States has been roughly constant for many years.
— Read more in Jeffrey S. Passel and D’Vera Cohn, Size of U.S. Unauthorized Immigrant Workforce Stable After the Great Recession (Pew Research Center, 3 November 2016)
