Immigration & Migration

Overview The nation’s total immigrant population reached a record 40.4 million in 2011, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center. Over the last decade, the number of immigrants in the U.S. has steadily grown. Since 2007 alone, the number of immigrants living in […]

*Visit the most recent data. This statistical profile of the foreign-born population is based on Hispanic Trends Project tabulations of the Census Bureau’s 2011 American Community Survey (ACS). Users should exercise caution when comparing the 2011 estimates with estimates for previous years. Population estimates in the 2011 ACS are based on the latest information from […]

The issue of immigration reform is again a hot topic in Washington, with news of a bipartisan Senate compromise proposal to overhaul immigration laws. But immigration is only a middle-tier issue on the public’s agenda, and it has declined in importance since the end of the Bush administration. In the Pew Research Center’s annual policy […]

After a divisive presidential campaign that focused on such polarizing issues as economic class and immigration, a new Pew Research survey finds that the American public perceives less conflict between groups at the center of these debates now than before the campaign began. The survey finds that 58% of adults say there are “very strong” […]

The Census Bureau has released new U.S. population projections that assume a markedly lower level of growth than the agency predicted in the previous projections in 2008. Most of the reduced growth is due to lower projected immigration, but the bureau also forecast lower birth rates than it previously assumed.

There were 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. in March 2011, unchanged from the previous two years and a continuation of the sharp decline in this population since its peak in 2007, according to estimates by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center. The estimate for 2011 is not […]

A new Pew Research Center report concludes that the decline in birth rates and number of births from 2007 to 2010 was led by immigrant women. Overall birth rates declined 8% during this period, but birth rates for immigrant women plunged 14%. Overall numbers of births declined 7% from 2007 to 2010, but births to immigrant mothers fell by 13%. Despite these decreases, foreign-born mothers still account for a disproportionate share of births--23% in 2010, greater than the 17% share of women of childbearing age who are immigrants.

The U.S. birth rate dipped in 2011 to the lowest ever recorded, led by a plunge in births to immigrant women since the onset of the Great Recession. The overall U.S. birth rate, which is the annual number of births per 1,000 women in the prime childbearing ages of 15 to 44, declined 8% from […]