The growth of illegal Hispanic immigrants in the United States has stalled even though the number of U.S. citizens born to illegal parents is increasing, according to a report released earlier this week.
A Pew Hispanic Center report released Tuesday found 73 percent of children nationwide born to illegal immigrants were born in the U.S. and are American citizens. These children make up 6.8 percent of the students enrolled in elementary and secondary schools throughout the country.
The report also estimated about 4 percent of America’s population — or about 11.9 million people — are illegal immigrants, with Latinos counting for 75 percent of those individuals.
In Wisconsin, there are between 70,000 and 100,000 illegal immigrants, about the same number of unauthorized immigrants as reported in 2005. Mexicans alone make up between 73 to 89 percent of the state’s illegal immigrants, which is higher than the national average ranging from 44 to 72 percent.
In total, illegal immigrants make up less than 2.5 percent of the state’s workforce, far below the United States average ranging between 4.5 and 5.9 percent.
At the University of Wisconsin, there are 1,335 Hispanic American undergraduate students as of the 2008 fall semester, according to the university’s Data Digest report. The number has increased since the 1998 fall semester. There are 250 graduates at the university as well, a number that has remained relatively constant over the past 10 years.
According to Donald Harrier, chief of the state’s Demographics Service Center, Milwaukee County has the largest population of Hispanics and illegal Hispanic immigrants, although the undocumented Hispanic immigrants are more dispersed throughout the state than before.
He added that many times illegal immigrants decide to settle where friends and families live and where housing and jobs are available.
“A lot of these folks are working in some of the dairies around the state. They work construction jobs and in those types of industries,” Harrier said.
Harrier echoed the Pew report, saying undocumented workers from Mexico have not been coming into the country at the same pace as before. Although there is no concrete evidence, Harrier said the decrease in immigration is likely the result of declining economic conditions in the country and less opportunity for work throughout America.
Although the number of U.S. citizens being born to illegal parents is increasing, there is very little concrete information about how government officials handle such situations, according to Enrique Figueroa, director of the Roberto Hernandez Center at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
“Some of the news reports indicate when one or both parents are apprehended … sometimes they are allowed to pursue some kind of path to citizenship, sometimes they are deported,” Figueroa said.
Figueroa said he was aware of a situation where both parents of an 18-year-old American citizen were sent back to Mexico and he decided to stay in hopes of a better life even though it broke up his family. Although the parents were supportive of their son, Figueoa said, the son must pay a high price psychologically.
To help fix such problems, Figueroa advocated for a more comprehensive immigration reform, adding President Barack Obama has signaled such reforms are likely to occur during his presidency.
“Once that happens … there will be a pathway to citizenship for the roughly 12 million undocumented workers in the country,” Figueroa said.
