Crossings into the U.S. on the decline

From the El Paso Times - For the first time in two decades, the flow of undocumented immigrants is dropping, a new report shows. An unstable labor market and tougher immigration enforcement are deterring immigrants from crossing the border and staying in the United States illegally. The Pew Hispanic Center released a report Wednesday that shows the number of undocumented immigrants arriving to the United States declined by 64 percent in the past decade. "Unemployment is really high in the United States," report author Jeffrey S. Passel said. "With the state of the U.S. economy, it is harder and more dangerous for undocumented immigrants." An annual average of 300,000 people crossed illegally into the United States during 2007-2009. The number was 850,000 during 2000-2005. The research center uses government data and U.S. Census Bureau estimates to calculate the number of undocumented immigrants. The number of immigrants living in the United States illegally also dropped from 12 million in March 2007 to 11.1 million in March 2009. It was the first time the research center reported a drop of undocumented immigrants in the country. Ever since 2000, the number had been growing from 8.4 million people. It peaked in 2007 with 12 million immigrants and then decreased to 11.1 million in 2009. Texas had the second-largest undocumented immigrant population at 1.6 million. About 6.5 percent of the people living in Texas are undocumented. California was first with 2.6 million undocumented residents, and Florida was third with 675,000 people. Read more here:

Crossings into the U.S. on the decline