New Illegal Immigrants to U.S. Surpass Legal Immigrants
Destinations of New Immigrants Have Broadened
Immigration, both legal and illegal, remains high, however, and over the past 12 years the number of immigrants coming into the United States illegally has surpassed those coming legally despite tighter security, according to the report by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research center in Washington, D.C. Arizona was among the states that experienced some of the greatest increases in immigration, the report said.
"The U.S. economy was obviously a very important factor in these flows," said Roberto Suro, executive director of the Pew Hispanic Center and one of the report's co-authors. The report analyzed the year-to-year flow of immigration to the United States from 1992 to 2004.
Angela Kelley, deputy director of the National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigrant organization in Washington, D.C., said the report underscored a need to reform the nation's immigration policy to better match the economic demands of the country.
She mentioned specifically the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act of 2005, a bipartisan immigration bill in Congress co-sponsored by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. The bill would attempt to link immigration policy and the economy by granting more visas to immigrant workers, provided employers first showed there were not enough American workers to do the job.
"Pew seems to be giving us the data that people come when there are jobs, when the economy is strong," Kelley said. "It (the report) gives breathing room for policymakers struggling to come up with a solution."
To measure the annual flow of migration to the United States, the Pew report relied on three sources of data: Census 2000, the Current Population Survey and the American Community Survey. The last two are conducted annually.
Suro said the report showed that contrary to the perception that the recent surge in immigration had continued unabated, it instead was part of a wave that included "a beginning, middle and an end."
It was too early to tell whether an upswing in immigration in 2004 was the beginning of another wave, he said.
"The extremely high (immigration) flows at the end of the past decade were not the norm, nor part of a long-term trend, but rather the peak of a momentary increase that lasted for only a few years," said the report, authored by Suro and demographer Jeffrey Passel. "Thus, even as the United States consistently experiences historically high rates of migration, flows are subject to considerable variation."
Immigration, both legal and illegal, topped 1.5 million people in 1999 and 2000 and then tumbled to 1.1 million by 2003, nearly the same level as 1992, the report said.
By the end of that same period, illegal immigration outpaced legal immigration, the report said.
In other words, more immigrants were coming illegally than legally. About five in 10 immigrants came illegally before the peak, compared with six in 10 after the peak, according to the report.
The decline in the number of immigrants entering legally appears "to reflect processing backlogs, security delays and other developments that followed the Sept. 11 attacks," the report said.
The destination of new immigrants also changed, the report said. At the beginning of the wave, most settled in states that already had large foreign-born populations such as California, Texas, Illinois, Florida and New York. By the end, large numbers of new immigrants were settling in Arizona and other states that previously didn't have large immigrant populations.
The countries where most immigrants come from, however, have remained constant, the report said. The largest share, about one-third, comes from Mexico, and 20 percent come from other Latin American countries. About 14 percent come from Europe and Canada, and about 25 percent come from Asia. The rest come from Africa and other countries.
