Georgia Has Nation's 7th Highest Illegal Immigrant Population

11Alive.com
February 1, 2011
ATLANTA, GA

An estimated 425,000 illegal immigrants live in Georgia, giving it the seventh highest illegal immigrant population in the country, according to a new report by the non-partisan Pew Hispanic Center.

That translates to about 1 in 25 Georgia residents according to rough estimates from 2010. The report released Tuesday called Georgia a top destination for illegal immigrants, noting that in 1990, there were only about 35,000 in the Peach State.

Nationally, the illegal immigration population appears to have leveled off. It skyrocketed in the first half of the last decade, rising from 8.4 million in 2000 to a high of 12 million in 2007. The numbers started dropping and have remained at around at 11.2 million for the past two years.

Jeffrey Passel, senior demographer at the Pew center, said the continued weakness of the U.S. economy and increased immigration enforcement efforts on the U.S. side have kept the illegal immigration population from growing significantly in the past three years.

"It seems like... people have decided that at this point the cost and risk is not worth trying to get into the United States because the jobs aren't here," Passel said.

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