There were 10.7 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. in 2016, representing 3.3% of the total U.S. population that year. The 2016 unauthorized immigrant total is a 13% decline from the peak of 12.2 million in 2007, when this group was 4% of the U.S. population.
The number of Mexican unauthorized immigrants declined since 2007, but the total from other nations changed little. Mexicans made up half of all unauthorized immigrants in 2016, according to Pew Research Center’s estimate, compared with 57% in 2007. Their numbers (and share of the total) have been declining in recent years: There were 5.4 million Mexican unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. in 2016, down from 6.9 million in 2007.
Meanwhile, the total from other nations, 5.2 million in 2016, remained about the same as in 2007, when it was 5.3 million. The number of unauthorized immigrants has grown since 2007 only from one birth region: Central America, from 1.5 million that year to nearly 1.9 million in 2016. This growth was fueled mainly by immigrants from the Northern Triangle nations of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
The totals also went down over the 2007-2016 period from South America and the combined region of Europe plus Canada. The remaining regions (the Caribbean, Asia, Middle East-North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world) did not change significantly in that time.
House of Brat 