The size of the unauthorized immigrant population in Colorado and Kansas fell between 2009 and 2012 and stayed the same in Texas and Oklahoma, according to an updated tracking report from the Pew Center for Research.
Texas ranks third among all states in the share of unauthorized immigrants at 6.3% of the total population or 1,650,000 people, unchanged from the 2009 estimate. Colorado’s population is estimated at 180,000, down 30,000 from 2009, or 3.5% of the state population. In Oklahoma the 2012 estimate is 100,000, the same as 2009, and 2.6% of the state’s total population. Kansas’ population declined by 20,000 to 75,000 during the same period, or 2.6% of the state population.
In each of these states the share of school children who have at least one unauthorized immigrant parents is higher than the share of the total population with Texas at 13.1%, Colorado at 8.1%, Kansas at 7.0% and Oklahoma at 5.5%.
The Pew Research Center has been estimating and tracking the unauthorized immigrant population across the United States since 1995. The current report provides interactive maps for checking several aspects the population by state, including:
- unauthorized immigrant population size
- shares of the overall population
- shares of the foreign-born population
- shares of the labor force
- share of elementary and secondary school students with at least one unauthorized parent
- share of Mexicans
- change for 2009 to 2012 in the unauthorized immigrant population
