There were an estimated 11.2 million undocumented immigrants living in the US in March 2010, the Pew report finds, a number statistically unchanged from the year before. “The US economy is still doing better than the Mexican economy, and the figures suggest these immigrants are finding enough here to hang on,” said Pew demographer Jeffrey Passel. “The downward trend may have lost steam. They’ve invested a lot of effort and money to get to the US and this suggests they aren’t going to leave easily.” The study found that the number of children born to one or more illegal immigrants on U.S. soil also held steady last year. The children have been at the center of the recent debate over birthright citizenship and the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, to which several GOP lawmakers have proposed a change. Four states — Florida, New York, Virginia and Colorado — experienced continued decline in their illegal immigrant populations through 2010. Arizona, Nevada and Utah, combined, also saw a statistically significant decrease, the report found.
Three south-central states — Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas — saw a net influx in illegal immigrants in 2010, however. An estimated 1.55 million illegal immigrants lived in that tri-state region in 2007; the number grew to 1.8 million in 2010. (abc)