U.S. immigration has reached a major milestone, according to to a research study by the Pew Hispanic Center. In 2011, the number of immigrants increased to a record 40.4 million people, including 11 million unauthorized immigrants. Since 2007, the number of immigrants living in the U.S. has increased by 2.4 million.
The number of immigrants represents 13 percent of the population, down from a peak of some 15 percent between 1890 and 1920, when the U.S. saw a significant growth of European immigrants. Of the current immigrant population, about 50 percent come from Latin America while 27 percent come from Asia.
The number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. also grew in the last decade, increasing from 8.4 million in 2000. But it has fallen since 2007, when the number was 12 million.
The decline is attributed to a decrease in immigration from Mexico, the homeland of 58 percent of unauthorized immigrants in 2010. About two-thirds of unauthorized immigrants in 2010 lived in the United States for 10 years and 46 percent of them had children.
With the report, the Pew Research Center also included a statistics portrait of the nation’s foreign population. It comes right off of the Census Bureau’s 2011 American Community Survey and features detailed traits of the immigrant population by the entire nation as well as state. The survey narrowed down the statistics in different topics including age, nationality, citizenship, language, marital status, schooling, earnings, employment, poverty, and health insurance coverage.
Read more at pewhispanic.org.