As of 2014, an estimated 77.5 percent of the overall U.S. population identified as white, whereas just 48 percent of the foreign born reported their race as white. Only 17.4 percent of the overall population identified as “Latino” or “Hispanic”—terms for people of Latin American heritage or their descendants, who may identify as any race or combination of races. Some 46 percent of the foreign born reported having Hispanic or Latino origins.10
Who are the undocumented immigrants?
Out-of-status immigrants make up a little more than a quarter of the foreign-born population, but they are often the focus of political debate and media stories. People sometimes use “immigrants” as shorthand for undocumented immigrants—and also make generalizations about the undocumented that are incorrect or overly broad.
There’s a common assumption that all out-of-status immigrants are Mexican, or at least Latino or “Hispanic.” Mexicans in fact make up the majority: about 52 percent of the estimated 11.7 million out-of-status immigrants in 2012 came from Mexico, according to the Pew Research Center—six million people. This is a slight decline from 2010, when Pew estimated that some 58 percent came from Mexico, with about 23 percent coming from Central and South America and the Caribbean, 11 percent from Asia, 4 percent from Europe and Canada, and 3 percent from Africa.11
People sometimes assume all out-of-status immigrants “jumped the border.” Probably about half to two thirds of them come here without permission (“enter without inspection,” in immigration jargon): they slip across the Mexican or Canadian border in secret, take a boat from a Caribbean island, or use false papers to come through a port of entry. Some present themselves at a border post to request asylum. But many people enter with permission and then fail to leave when that permission expires—they become “overstays.” The overstays are more likely to come from Europe or Asia, rather than from Latin America or the Caribbean.12
The undocumented are often stereotyped as agricultural laborers. Many did work on farms in the past, and as of 2012 they made up just over a quarter of the U.S. agricultural labor force. But farmworkers are a small minority of the unauthorized immigrant labor force—about 4 percent.13 Some 18 percent of out-of-status workers were employed in leisure and hospitality (working in restaurants and hotels, for example), 16 percent in construction, 13 percent in manufacturing, and 22 percent in professional, business, or other services, a broad category that includes legal services, advertising, landscaping, nail salons, car washing, and more.14
Another stereotype is that the undocumented all work “off the books,” that is, in the informal, or underground, economy. In 2005, the New York Times quoted a Social Security Administration (SSA) official as saying the agency assumed that about 75 percent of unauthorized immigrants were working in the formal economy, paying the same income, Social Security, and Medicare taxes as other workers. The proportion later shrank as the government cracked down on people who were using false documents to work on the books. In a 2013 report, the SSA estimated that as of 2010 about 44 percent of undocumented workers were employed on the books, while 56 percent were working in the informal economy.15
One common perception is true: many of the undocumented work at low-paying jobs. A 2009 Pew report found that while households headed by the native-born had a median yearly income of $50,000, median income for households headed by out-of-status immigrants was just $36,000, even though these households generally had more members who worked.16
There’s also a common assumption that most unauthorized immigrants are recent arrivals. Yet as of 2015 the vast majority—probably about 85 percent—had been living here for more than a decade.17
Is there a “new wave” of immigration?
In 2013 the U.S. population was over 316 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and about 44 million foreign-born people were living here that year. This means that a little more than one in eight people—13.9 percent or less of the total population—came from somewhere else. The 11.3 million undocumented immigrants were 25.7 percent of the immigrant population, or 3.6 percent of the entire U.S. population.18
In 1965, just 4.4 percent of the total population in the United States was foreign born. The proportion of immigrants rose gradually to 6.2 percent in 1980, then more rapidly to 7.9 percent in 1990 and to 11.1 percent in 2000.19 The foreign-born population was 19.8 million in 1990; it had jumped to 31.1 million by 2000, a 57 percent increase.20 The 1990–2000 growth rate was even faster for out-of-status immigrants. Their numbers rose at an annual rate of 500,000 a year, more than doubling from 3.5 million in 1990 to 8.5 million in 2000.21
The undocumented population continued to grow at the same rate until it reached 12.2 million in 2007. But with the onset of the “Great Recession” that year, the growth stopped—in fact, the estimated number of undocumented immigrants fell to about 11.2 million in 2010, and rose only slightly to about 11.3 million by 2013. In addition to the economic crisis in the United States, other factors slowing the flow of unauthorized immigrants include a significant reduction in birth rates in Mexico over the past half-century.22
Is the “new wave” really new?
At 13.9 percent, the proportion of immigrants in the U.S. population of 2013 was comparable to what it was during much of the sixty-year period between 1860 and 1920, when the foreign-born population never dropped below 13.2 percent.23
The number of new immigrants started to decline after 1924, when Congress approved a law severely restricting immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe. Immigration from Asia had already been curtailed by a number of laws barring Chinese and other Asians. Because most immigrants at the time came from Europe and Asia by sea, it was relatively easy to slow immigration by blocking entry at the major ports where ships docked. The lack of opportunities here during the Depression also cut back immigration from Europe and Asia in the 1930s, as did the virtual suspension of commercial sea travel during the two world wars in the first half of the century.24
The result was that for fifty years, from 1940 to 1990, the foreign born made up a much smaller proportion of the population, ranging from 4.7 to 8.8 percent.25
Some people look at these numbers and see two waves of immigration, the current wave since 1990 and the earlier one between 1860 and 1920. But it makes as much sense to see current levels of immigration as the norm, and the fifty-year period of lower immigration—largely the result of restrictionist policies designed to keep out certain ethnic or national groups—as the exception.
In contrast to the wave of immigration at the turn of the twentieth century that brought new arrivals mainly from Europe, a large proportion of immigrants now, both documented and undocumented, come from Latin America, Asia, or the Caribbean.26
Another distinction is in the places where immigrants settle. Since 2010, more than half of the foreign born live in the suburbs of the country’s largest 100 urban areas; another third live inside these major cities, and the rest live in smaller towns or in rural areas. Immigrants are increasingly arriving directly into these suburbs and smaller cities, especially in southeastern and midwestern states, instead of settling first in traditional gateway cities like Los Angeles, Miami, and New York City.27 Because of long-standing stereotypes around race, native-born whites are often apprehensive about demographic shifts that bring people of color—immigrant or otherwise—into areas where whites are accustomed to being the dominant group.
Are politicians stirring up a panic about immigration?
In November 1973, under President Richard Nixon, former marine officer Leonard F. Chapman took office as commissioner of the Immigration
