The following is an excerpt from a report, authored by Robert Rector, for the Heritage Foundation. It was first published in 2006.
Current Trends in Immigration
Over the last 40 years, immigration into the United States has surged. Our nation is now experiencing a second “great migration” similar to the great waves of immigrants that transformed America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 2004, an estimated 35.7 million foreign-born persons lived in the U.S. While in 1970 one person in twenty was foreign born, by 2004 the number had risen to one in eight.
About one-third of all foreign-born persons in the U.S. are illegal aliens. There are between 10 and 12 million illegal aliens currently living in the U.S.[1] Illegal aliens now comprise 3 to 4 percent of the total U.S. population. Each year approximately 1.3 million new immigrants enter the U.S.[2] Some 700,000 of these entrants are illegal.[3]
One-third of all foreign-born persons in the U.S. are Mexican. Overall, the number of Mexicans in the U.S. has increased from 760,000 in 1970 to 10.6 million in 2004. Nine percent of all Mexicans now reside in the U.S.[4] Over half of all Mexicans in the U.S. are illegal immigrants,[5] and in the last decade 80 to 85 percent of the inflow of Mexicans into the U.S. has been illegal.[6]
The public generally perceives illegals to be unattached single men. This is, in fact, not the case. Some 44 percent of adult illegals are women. While illegal men work slightly more than native-born men, illegal women work less. Among female illegals, some 56 percent work, compared to 73 per cent among native-born women of comparable age.[7] As well, Mexican women emigrating to the U.S. have a considerably higher fertility rate than women remaining in Mexico.[8]
Illegal Immigrants and Education
The education levels of illegal aliens are lower than those of legal immigrants. Half of all adult illegal immigrants lack a high school degree.[9] Among Latin American and Mexican immigrants, 60 per cent lack a high school degree and only 7 percent have a high school diploma. By contrast, among native-born workers in the U.S., only 6 percent have failed to complete high school degrees and nearly a third have a college degree.[10]
[1]Jeffrey Passel, Unauthorized Migrants: Numbers and Characteristics, Pew Hispanic Center, Washington, D.C., June 14, 2005, p. 6.
[2]Ibid.
[3]Ibid.
[4]Ibid., p. 36.
[5]All figures are from Passel, op. cit.
[6]Passel, op. cit.,p. 16.
[7]Ibid., pp. 18 and 25.
[8]Ibid., p. 38. Passel asserts this is due to the socioeconomic characteristics and region of origin of the emigrant women.
[9]Ibid., p. 23. By contrast, the Center for Immigration Studies estimates that two thirds of illegal immigrants lack a high school degree. Steven A. Camarota, The High Cost of Cheap Labor: Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget, Center for Immigration Studies, Washington D.C., August 2004, p. 5.
[10]Robert J. Samuelson, “We Don’t Need ‘Guest Workers,’” WashingtonPost, March 22, 2006, p. A21.