Suchergebnisse

Executive Summary This report describes estimates of the undocumented population residing in the United States in 2022 compiled by the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS). The estimates are based on data collected in the American Community Survey (ACS) conducted by the US Census Bureau ( Ruggles et al. 2023 ). The report finds that the undocumented population grew from 10.3 million in 2021 to 10.9 million in 2022, an increase of 650,000. The increase reverses more than a decade of gradual decline. The undocumented populations from 10 countries increased by a total of 525,000: Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and India; El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras in Central America; and Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela in South America. The undocumented population in Florida increased by about 125,000 in 2022, Texas increased by 60,000, New York by 50,000, and Maryland by 45,000. The report explains why undocumented population growth is much less than the number of apprehensions by DHS. Finally, the Appendix provides a detailed description of the CMS methodology.

Executive Summary In 2021, the undocumented population residing in the United States (US) increased slightly to 10.3 million, compared to 10.2 million the previous year. The gradual decline or near-zero growth of this population has continued for more than a decade. However, the large increases in apprehensions at the southern border in recent years, along with continued legislative gridlock in Congress, could portend a new era of growth of this population. Unfortunately, the data needed to determine whether the population will enter a period of growth after 2021 — or whether the era of near-zero growth will continue — will not be available for at least a year or two. The most accurate demographic estimates of the undocumented population are derived from data collected in the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey. Estimates of the size of the undocumented population in 2022 will not be available until early 2024. This report focuses on the most significant trend in the undocumented population in the past decade — the remarkable decline of 1.9 million in the undocumented population from Mexico from 2011 to 2021. The decline for Mexico in this period was 600,000 more than the total population increase from the seven countries (in order) with the fastest growing US undocumented populations: Guatemala, Honduras, India, Venezuela, El Salvador, Brazil, and China. This paper finds that: The long-term decline, or near-zero growth, of the total undocumented population that began in 2008 continued in 2021. The percent of undocumented residents in the total US population declined from 3.8 percent in 2011 to 3.1 percent in 2021. The undocumented population from Mexico declined from 6.4 million in 2011 to 4.4 million in 2021, a drop of 1.9 million in 10 years. A total of 2.9 million, or 47 percent, of the US undocumented population from Mexico in 2011 had left the undocumented population by 2021. The drop in the undocumented population from Mexico from 2011 to 2021 occurred nationwide, and the decline affected the undocumented population in nearly every state. The fastest growing undocumented populations by country in the last 10 years were from Guatemala, Honduras, India, El Salvador, Venezuela, and Brazil. The combined undocumented populations from these six countries grew by 1.2 million. Countries that had declining populations after 2011 included Poland, Peru, Ecuador, Korea, and Philippines, in addition to the large drop for Mexico. California had the largest decline in undocumented residents — 665,000 from 2011 to 2021. The undocumented population from Mexico living in California during this period declined by 720,000. The combined undocumented population in California, New York, and Illinois fell by more than one million from 2021 to 2011.

This report shows estimates of the undocumented population residing in the United States from 2010 to 2020, by US state of residence and country of origin. The estimates are based primarily on data from the American Community Survey (ACS) collected annually by the US Census Bureau. 1 As it does each year, the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) assessed the accuracy of the ACS data for 2020 for the noncitizen population from more than 150 countries or areas of origin. The CMS analysis determined that almost one million undocumented residents were omitted from the 2020 ACS. The paper then segues into an extensive discussion of trends in the undocumented population for US state and country of origin over the 2010 to 2020 period.

This paper analyzes and provides estimates of the undercount of the foreign-born in the US Census Bureau's 2020 American Community Survey (ACS). It confirms that a differential undercount occurred in the 2020 ACS. In particular, noncitizens that arrived from Central American countries after 1981 had undercount rates of 15–25 percent, but undercount of noncitizens that arrived from European countries in the same period was not detectable by the methods described in this paper. The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) and others use ACS data to derive annual estimates of the US undocumented population. The Census Bureau recently reported that the total population count for the 2020 Census was consistent with the count for recent censuses, despite the Covid-19 pandemic and the Trump administration's interference in the 2020 Census. Nonetheless, the accuracy of 2020 ACS data for the noncitizen population that arrived after 1981 remains a major concern given the fear generated by the Trump administration's abusive rhetoric and anti-immigrant policies. The estimates set forth in this paper were derived by analyzing trends in annual ACS data for 2016–2020 compiled from the IPUMS website (Ruggles et al. 2021). Decennial census data cannot be used for this purpose because data on country of birth, citizenship, and year of immigration are not collected in the census. However, it is reasonable to believe that the 2020 census and the 2020 ACS experienced similar challenges because they were conducted under comparable conditions. The patterns of undercount of noncitizens described here for the 2020 ACS are likely mirrored in the 2020 census and will reduce federal funding and representation to affected cities and states for the next decade.

Executive Summary This report presents estimates of the undocumented population residing in the United States in 2018, highlighting demographic changes since 2010. The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) compiled these estimates based primarily on information collected in the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS). The annual CMS estimates of undocumented residents for 2010 to 2018 include all the detailed characteristics collected in the ACS. 1 A summary of the CMS estimation procedures, as well as a discussion of the plausibility of the estimates, is provided in the Appendix . The total undocumented population in the United States continued to decline in 2018, primarily because large numbers of undocumented residents returned to Mexico. From 2010 to 2018, a total of 2.6 million Mexican nationals left the US undocumented population; 2 about 1.1 million, or 45 percent of them, returned to Mexico voluntarily. The decline in the US undocumented population from Mexico since 2010 contributed to declines in the undocumented population in many states. Major findings include the following: The total US undocumented population was 10.6 million in 2018, a decline of about 80,000 from 2017, and a drop of 1.2 million, or 10 percent, since 2010. Since 2010, about two-thirds of new arrivals have overstayed temporary visas and one-third entered illegally across the border. The undocumented population from Mexico fell from 6.6 million in 2010 to 5.1 million in 2018, a decline of 1.5 million, or 23 percent. Total arrivals in the US undocumented population from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras — despite high numbers of Border Patrol apprehensions of these populations in recent years — remained at about the same level in 2018 as in the previous four years. 3 The total undocumented population in California was 2.3 million in 2018, a decline of about 600,000 compared to 2.9 million in 2010. The number from Mexico residing in the state dropped by 605,000 from 2010 to 2018. The undocumented population in New York State fell by 230,000, or 25 percent, from 2010 to 2018. Declines were largest for Jamaica (−51 percent), Trinidad and Tobago (−50 percent), Ecuador (−44 percent), and Mexico (−34 percent). The results shown here reinforce the view that improving social and economic conditions in sending countries would not only reduce pressure at the border but also likely cause a large decline in the undocumented population. Two countries had especially large population changes — in different directions — in the 2010 to 2018 period. The population from Poland dropped steadily, from 93,000 to 39,000, while the population from Venezuela increased from 65,000 to 172,000. Almost all the increase from Venezuela occurred after 2014.

For years, noncitizens who fail to abide by the terms of their nonimmigrant (temporary) visas were not widely recognized as major contributors to the US undocumented population. Yet since 2005, the ratio of overstays to illegal entries across the border has increased rapidly as the number of border crossings dropped to 1970s levels. As a result, the inflow of overstays has exceeded border crossers for nearly a decade. These developments highlight the importance of accurate and timely estimates of overstays. In 2017, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a report, Fiscal Year 2016 Entry/Exit Overstay Report, showing estimates of overstays, by country, for the 50.4 million nonimmigrants admitted in fiscal year 2016 (DHS 2017). At the end of the fiscal year, DHS had not verified the departure of 628,799 nonimmigrants.1 The Center for Migration Studies (CMS) compared the DHS overstay estimates to CMS's estimates of the number of undocumented residents that arrived in the past few years. Data were available to make the comparisons for 133 countries; these countries account for 99 percent of all overstays. The major findings include the following: • For 90 of the 133 countries, the DHS and CMS estimates differ by less than 2,000, and the correlation between the estimates for those 90 countries is .97, which indicates a very close mutual relationship. • The DHS estimates of overstays for Canada are far too high. • The DHS estimates greatly exceed the CMS estimates for about 30 countries, half of them participants in the US Visa Waiver Program (VWP).2 • Slightly more than half of the 628,799 reported to be overstays by DHS actually left the country but their departures were not recorded. • After adjusting the DHS estimates to take account of unrecorded departures, as well as departures in 2016 of overstays that lived here in 2015, overstay population growth was near zero in 2016. • Thus, while overstays account for a large percentage of the newly undocumented, they represent less than half (44 percent) of the overall undocumented population, and they are less likely than illegal border crossers to be long-term residents. • The country-specific figures shown here should help DHS focus its efforts on improving the verification of departures of temporary visitors. • Finally, these comparisons indicate that the DHS estimates do not provide a sound basis for making decisions about admission to, or continuation in, the VWP.

This report demonstrates that a broad and sustained reduction in undocumented immigration to the United States occurred in the 2008 to 2015 period. First, the report shows that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the Great Recession had little, if any, role in the transformation to zero population growth. The population stopped growing because of increased scrutiny of air travel after 9/11, a decade and a half of accelerating efforts to reduce illegal entries across the southern border, long-term increases in the numbers leaving the population each year, and improved economic and demographic conditions in Mexico. These conditions are likely to continue for the foreseeable future. It is time to recognize that the era of large-scale undocumented population growth has ended, and that there is a need to reform the US legal immigration system to preserve and extend these gains (Kerwin and Warren 2017, 319–21). Major findings of the report include: • The recession did not reduce arrivals or accelerate departures from the undocumented population; it essentially had very little impact on population change.1 • Population growth was lower in 2008 to 2015 than in 2000 to 2008 for all major sending areas and for 13 of the top 15 countries of origin.2 • Population growth was lower in 2008 to 2015 than in 2000 to 2008 in all of the top 15 states. In 10 of the 15 top states, growth changed to decline. • Nearly twice as many left3 the undocumented population from Mexico than arrived in the 2008 to 2015 period — 1.7 million left the population and 900,000 arrived. • Almost twice as many overstays as persons who entered without inspection (EWIs) "arrived" (joined the undocumented population) from 2008 to 2015 — 2.0 million overstays compared to 1.1 million EWIs. • Overstays leave the undocumented population at higher rates than EWIs: about 1.9 million, or 40 percent, of overstays that lived in the United States in 2008 had left the undocumented population by 2015, compared to 1.6 million, or 24 percent, of EWIs. • The rate of overstays (65% of the newly undocumented), compared to EWIs, is more dramatic than the numbers indicate since estimates of the undocumented count Central American asylum seekers that cross the US southern border as EWIs.

Undocumented immigration has been a significant political issue in recent years, and is likely to remain so throughout and beyond the presidential election year of 2016. One reason for the high and sustained level of interest in undocumented immigration is the widespread belief that the trend in the undocumented population is ever upward. This paper shows that this belief is mistaken and that, in fact, the undocumented population has been decreasing for more than a half a decade. Other findings of the paper that should inform the immigration debate are the growing naturalized citizen populations in almost every US state and the fact that, since 1980, the legally resident foreign-born population from Mexico has grown faster than the undocumented population from Mexico.

Information about the unauthorized resident population is needed to develop and evaluate US immigration policy, determine the social and economic effects of unauthorized immigration, and assist public and private service providers in carrying out their missions. Until recently, estimates have been available only for selected data points at the national and sometimes the state level. The Center for Migration Studies (CMS) convened a meeting in September 2013 to assess the need for information about the unauthorized resident population. The meeting included leading academics, researchers, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that serve immigrants, and local, state, and federal government representatives. Based on the recommendations from that meeting, CMS initiated a project to derive estimates of the size and characteristics of the unauthorized population at the national, state, and sub-state levels, and to make the information readily available to a wide cross-section of users. A series of statistical procedures were developed to derive estimates based on microdata collected by the US Census Bureau in the 2010 American Community Survey (ACS). The estimates provide detailed demographic information for unauthorized residents in population units as small as 100,000 persons. Overall, the estimates are consistent with the limited information produced by residual estimation techniques. A primary consideration in constructing the estimates was to protect the privacy of ACS respondents.