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PEW Hispanic: Number of Undocumented has Remained Stable Since 2009
The number of undocumented immigrants living in the United States has remained stable since the 2007-2009 recession and half of them have lived in this country for at least 13 years, according to a study from the Pew Research Center.
In March 2013, there were 11.3 million undocumented immigrants in this country, according to the report, a number that “has remained stable over the past four years,” Pew research associate Ana Gonzalez-Barrera told Efe on Thursday.
The study says that no significant increase in the number of undocumented migrants is expected in the near future.
The “significant reduction” in arrivals of new immgrants translates into an exaggerated tendency for undocumented workers to become long-term residents and raise families with U.S.-born children.
The immigration debate has been exacerbated with the arrival of 63,000 unaccompanied minors from Central America over the past 10 months.
“Despite the increase in detentions on the border,” the flow of people who are returning voluntarily to their countries of origin has increased, Gonzalez-Barrera said.
Also, the debate on immigration has been revived after President Barack Obama promised in June to “repair the immigration system” with executive orders given the logjam created by Republicans in Congress on the issue.
The percentage of long-term resident immigrants, according to the Pew Center study, which is based on Census data, has increased significantly in recent years, with 62 percent of them arriving more than a decade prior to 2012, compared with 35 percent in 2000.
This could be due, according to Gonzalez-Barrera, to the fact that the construction sector, which attracted the greater part of the short-term immigrants in the past, still has not fully recovered from the recession.
The undocumented immigrants arriving in this country have tended to establish their residence on a permanent basis here, the Pew Center said, and raise families with U.S.-born children. There were four million undocumented immigrant adults with U.S.-born children in 2012, compared with 2.1 million in 2000.
Published in Latino Daily News
Source: http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com/latino-daily-news/details/pew-hispanic-number-of-undocumented-has-remained-stable-since-2009/31052#When:19:03:10Z
