The new report out this week on immigration from the non-partisan Pew Research Center should get a lot of coverage.
The new Pew Report says the number of unauthorized, undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. illegally has dropped significantly over 10 years.
The report says that after peaking in 2007 at 12.2 million, ten years later in 2017, there were about 10.5 million unauthorized, undocumented immigrants living in the U.S illegally.
Significantly, the reason, says the Pew report, is the big drop in the number of people coming from Mexico, with 47 percent, of unauthorized undocumented immigrants living in the U.S illegally now from Mexico.Pew says that’s the first time since 1965, that less than half are from Mexico.
Says a lead researcher, “What we’ve seen over the last 10 years is a lot more movement from the U.S. to Mexico than from Mexico to the U.S.”.
The study says economic conditions were a big factor, with fewer jobs in the U.S. after the great recession starting in 2007.
The Pew report points out that since 2010, the majority of new unauthorized undocumented immigrants living in the U.S illegally have been people who came to the U.S. with visas and then overstayed their permitted time.
The Pew study’s lead researcher saying:“The people sneaking across the border are definitely a minority now and a shrinking share”.
Each side in the current immigration debate will take what it wants from this new report from the Pew Research Center…but facts are important to any debate.
(Photo credit Getty Images, San Ysidro Port of Entry)