Demographic and poll data show complexities of immigration issues

Published: 2006-04-13

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Amid the enthusiastic rallies and dueling politicians' rhetoric about immigration of the last few weeks, recent demographic analyses and opinion polls put the debate into numerical perspective. Among the conclusions drawn from the data are that the nation's illegal immigrants include many families in complex situations, and that the opinions of Americans on the subject don't line up easily into neat rows. Some of the demographic information may surprise people who think the illegal immigrant population consists largely of single young men. About 36 percent, or 2.3 million, of the estimated 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants are single men with no children; another 12 percent, or 740,000, are single women with no children. About 540,000, or 9 percent, are couples without kids. According to a Pew Hispanic Center analysis of census data, the other 41 percent or so break down into an assortment of "mixed status" families where parents aren't here legally. Those "mixed status" categories include 1.5 million families where all the children are U.S. citizens, but at least one parent is in the country illegally; 630,000 families where all the children are also here without legal papers; and 460,000 families in which some minor children are U.S. citizens and others are not.

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