By Daniel Gonzalez
AZ Central Blog
February 25, 2010
Mexicans represented 62 percent of the nation's undocumented immigrant population in 2009, according to a new report by the Department of Homeland Security.
The report shows that the percentage of undocumented immigrants who are Mexican also grew from 55 percent in 2000 to 62 percent in 2009.
The report, which was released in January, has been getting a lot of attention because it shows that the nation's undocumented immigrant population declined sharply in 2008 during the recession, following years of rapid growth. In January 2008, the report estimates the nation's undocumented population was 11.6 million. A year later, it has fallen to 10.8 million, according to the report.
But the report also includes lots of other interesting data.
Of the 10.8 million undocumented immigrants estimated in the U.S. in January 2009, 6.6 million were from Mexico.
An estimated 8.5 million of the total 10.8 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. in 2009 were from the North American region, including Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America. About 1 million undocumented immigrants were from Asia, followed by about 740,000 from South America.
After Mexicans, the second largest undocumented immigrant group is from El Salvador (530,000) followed by Guatemala (480,000), Honduras (320,000), Philippines (270,000), India (200,000), Korea; (200,000), Ecuador (170,000), Brazil (150,000) and China (120,000).
California has the highest number of illegal immigrants of any state, with 2.6 million. Texas was second, with 1.7 million, followed by Florida (720,000), New York (550,000), Illinois (540,000), Georgia (480,000), Arizona (460,000), North Carolina (370,000), New Jersey (360,000) and Nevada, (260,000).
In 2009, 61 percent of undocumented immigrants were ages 25 and 44 and 58 percent were males.
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