don't use the distance of Dominican Republic as a barometer to measure the prevalance of illegal immigration. Mexicans are mostly in the mid west and west coast. The east coast especially south Florida have MILLIONs of immigrants from all over the world including huge concentrations of Nicaraguans (further than DR ya know), Venezuelans, Argentines, Paraguayans, Haitians, and Lets not forget the millions of Cubans we host down here that would certainly knock out the amount of mexicans, except the cubans are not here illegaly.
you are guessing.....
Illegal Immigrants
Illegals in the CPS. It is well established that illegal aliens do respond to government surveys such as the decennial census and the Current Population Survey. While the CPS does not ask the foreign-born if they are legal residents of the United States, the Urban Institute, the former INS, the Pew Hispanic Center, and the Census Bureau have all used socio-demographic characteristics in the data to estimate the size of the illegal population.15 Our preliminary estimates for the March 2005 CPS indicate that there were between 9.6 and 9.8 million illegal aliens in the survey. It must be remembered that this estimate only includes illegal aliens captured by the March CPS, not those missed by the survey
Illegal Immigration
Illegal Population Overall. So far we have examined the size, growth, and characteristics of the nation's total foreign-born population. As discussed in the methods section of this report, the foreign-born population in the CPS includes both legal and illegal immigrants. We estimate that of the 35.2 million immigrants in the March 2005 CPS, between 9.6 and 9.8 million are illegals. This estimate is not significantly different from those of other researchers who have examined this question.37 It must also be remembered that these figures are only for those in the CPS, not those missed by the survey. Our estimates indicate that illegal aliens comprise 3.3 percent of the nation's total population and 28 percent of the total immigrant population. Estimates prepared by other researchers often adjust for undercount in Census Bureau data. While there is debate about the number missed, most research indicates that roughly 10 percent of the illegal population is not counted in the CPS. Thus, if one wants to know the "true" size of the illegal population, then 10 percent -- or about one million illegals -- should be added to our estimate of the number captured in the CPS for a total of nearly 11 million in March 2005.
One of the most important characteristics of illegal immigrants is the very large share with little formal education. We estimated that of adult illegals over age 21, 61 percent have not completed high school, 25 percent have only a high school degree, and only 14 percent have education beyond high school. As already discussed, this is critically important because education is so important to socio-economic status in the modern American economy.
Illegals by State. Below we examine the demographic characteristics of illegal aliens by state. Since the samples are much smaller than for the nation as the whole, the results should be interpreted with caution, especially for the smaller states. In addition to issues associated with sample size, the identification of illegals in the survey also contains some error. Table 20 reports our best estimates for the number of illegals by state in the CPS. (It should be noted that even if the undercount is 10 percent nationally, this may not be uniform across states.) The table shows that California has by far the largest illegal population, followed by Texas, Florida, and New York. However, with the exception of Texas, these states do not rank at the top in terms of the illegal share of the total foreign-born. In Arizona, Colorado, and North Carolina illegals account for half or nearly half of the foreign-born.
Illegal Aliens from Mexico. A significant percentage of Mexican immigrants live in the United States without authorization. While a large portion of illegals are likely missed by the CPS, perhaps 80 percent are included in this data. It is possible, based Immigration and Nationalization Service (INS) arrival data for legal immigrants and demographic characteristics, to identify persons included in the CPS who have a high probably of being in the country illegally. It is likely that of the 7.9 million foreign-born persons from Mexico in the March 2000 CPS, between 2.5 million and 3.5 million are in the country illegally. Based on year of entry, citizenship status, age, educational attainment, welfare use, and citizenship of spouse, I estimate that the size of the Mexican illegal population in the March 2000 CPS is 2.96 million.
6 These results are consistent with estimates made by the INS
7 and indicate that nearly 38 percent of the Mexican-born population in the CPS are in the country illegally.
Of course, it should be noted that different assumptions about the attributes of illegals will yield different results. By its very nature, estimating the size and characteristics of the illegal Mexican population in the CPS involves a good deal of uncertainty. The above estimates and those that follow from it should not be seen as quantifiable absolutes but rather should be used to provide insight into the relative differences between legal and illegal Mexican immigrants. It is also important to realize that the above figures are only for illegal Mexicans included in the CPS. The total illegal population from Mexico is almost certainly larger. Assuming that the CPS includes 80 percent of the illegal Mexicans, then the total size of the illegal Mexican population residing in the United States in 2000 was perhaps 3.7 million.
Distribution of Legal and Illegal Immigrants Across Occupations. The figures in Table 2 for legal and illegal Mexican immigrants are based on the above method of distinguishing between the two groups. The table shows that there are some differences in the kinds of occupations legal and illegal Mexican immigrants hold in the United States. Almost 18 percent of illegal Mexican immigrants are employed as agricultural laborers, in contrast to only about 10 percent of legal Mexican immigrants. The table also shows that contrary to the popular impression, more than 80 percent of illegal Mexican immigrants work outside of the agriculture sector. Most illegal immigrants work in non-private household service occupations, precision production craft occupations or as operators, fabricators, and laborers.
