Dallas (WBAP/KLIF News) – Research by the non-partisan Center for Migration Studies shows the number of immigrants in the United States is increasing, but the population of undocumented immigrants is falling.
“In terms of the undocumented population, that population has been falling steadily for seven or eight years,” says Center for Migration Studies Senior Fellow Bob Warren.
The study finds that the population of undocumented immigrants dropped below 11 million in 2014, the most recent statistics available, for the first time since 2004.
“I hear Donald Trump say the number could be five million or it could be 30 million. He says no one knows,” Warren says. “That’s just not true.”
The study finds that the number of undocumented immigrants from Mexico has dropped by about 600,000 between 2010 and 2014.
The study finds that the overall population of immigrants continues to increase. Warren says that figure is driven by students, temporary workers or people who had emigrated to the United States, left and are now coming back.
“These estimates we’ve made of returning immigrants are the first that have ever been made,” he says. “It’s a very elusive population.”
In 2014 and preliminary data from 2015, the organization says legal immigrant arrivals have accounted for the entire increase of the population of people born outside the United States.
Warren says the goal of the study aims to offer a clearer picture of the source of the increase in immigration.
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