Tuesday, 18 Nov 2014 07:10 PM

By Andrea Billups

Unauthorized immigrant workers inside the United States make up 5.1 percent of the nation's total labor force, new data from the Pew Research Center has found.

About 8.1 million of those undocumented immigrants were "working or looking for work in 2012," out of a total of 11.2 million in the U.S., Pew noted.

States with the highest numbers of unauthorized workers were Nevada, California, Texas and New Jersey, Pew found. Six states, including Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California, accounted for 60 percent of all unauthorized immigrants, as seven states saw immigrant population increases and 14 marked decreases, marking a geographic shift during the years 2009 to 2012, Pew said.

Half of all immigrants came from Mexico, but after peaking in 2007, those numbers have fallen off from 6.4 million in 2009 to 5.9 million in 2012. During that same four-year span, "the number of unauthorized immigrants from Asia, the Caribbean, Central America and a grouping of countries in the Middle East, Africa and some other areas grew slightly," Pew said, noting that "unauthorized immigrant populations from South America and Europe/Canada did not change significantly."

The latest data on undocumented immigrants comes as President Barack Obama plans to issue an executive order to grant protection to about 5 million illegal immigrants inside the U.S., the New York Times reported. The expected move comes after sharp criticism from immigration activists that his administration is deporting as many 400,000 people who are in the country illegally each year.

Some Republicans who oppose the president have promised to go to great lengths to stop his plan. Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican and possible GOP presidential candidate in 2016, has pledged to take the matter to the Supreme Court, the Washington Times noted.

"I think with regard to immigration reform, he's doing something that Congress has not instructed him to do and in fact has instructed him otherwise, so I think the Supreme Court would strike it down," Paul told the Times. "That takes a while, but that may be the only recourse short of a new president.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Pew.../18/id/608138/