Thursday, April 16, 2009
For all the faults that are levied on illegal immigrants in the United States, one thing they can’t be knocked for is their propensity for nuclear families. In a new report by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center, it was found that nearly half of all illegal immigrant households (47%) consist of a mother, father, and children. This amount is considerably more than what’s found in U.S.-born households—of which only 21% could be considered a nuclear family. The Pew study also found that most children in illegal immigrant families (73%) are U.S. citizens by birth.
Pew researchers estimated that unauthorized immigrants represent 4% of the nation’s population and 5.4% of its workforce. Their children (both legal and illegal) make up 6.8% of the students enrolled in the nation’s elementary and secondary schools. Almost half (49%) of children of illegal immigrants who have graduated from high school go on to college. The comparable figure for children of U.S.-born families is 71%. Adult unauthorized immigrants (age 25-64) tend to be under-educated, with 47% having not graduated from high school. By contrast, only 8% of U.S.-born adults are high school dropouts.
More than half of the illegal immigrant population lives in just four states: California, Texas, Florida and New York. The majority (59%) of undocumented immigrants, 7 million, come from Mexico.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
A Portrait of Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States (by Jeffrey S. Passel and D'Vera Cohn, Pew Research Center)
Report: Portrait of Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States (by Jeffrey S. Passel and D'Vera Cohn, Pew Research Center) (PDF)
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