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Immigrant numbers are difficult to estimate, officials say
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Pinning down just how many legal or illegal immigrants are in the Mobile Bay region or other areas of the United States is a tough task, officials say.

The Pew Hispanic Center in Washington estimated that about 11 million illegal aliens were in the United States in 2005. The center said that between 30,000 and 50,000 undocumented immigrants were in Alabama, but the estimate did not break down the numbers by region or county.

In the 2000 census, Baldwin County had 2,466 residents who identified themselves as Hispanic or Latino. The number was 1.8 percent of a total population of 140,415.

A 2004 census estimate still had the Hispanic population at 1.8 percent of the total population, which was estimated at 156,701.

A 2005 estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau put Baldwin's population at 162,586 but did not have any projections of Hispanic population.

Numbers from some agencies, such as schools, show the region's immigrant population rising faster than even Baldwin's overall population, which has one of the highest growth rates in Alabama.

In Mobile County, a Census Bureau estimate for 2004 set the number of people 5 or older with a native language other than English at 14,070 out of a total population of 401,107. Of those, 7,845 spoke fluent English, according to the estimate.

The report also said that of the non-English-speaking residents, Spanish was the native language of 5,017, with 1,448 speaking English "very well," according to the Census Bureau.

Jan Rivers, director of the English as a Second Language program for Mobile County schools, said the number of non-English-speaking students increased about 16 percent in the last year, from 1,602 to 1,864. She said the largest single group in the program is Vietnamese speakers -- 586 of the 1,864 -- followed by Spanish with 493.

The native languages of some other students in the program include Cambodian, 158; Laotian, 152; Arabic, 75; Russian, 47; Chinese, 40; Tagalog (Philippines), 34; Bosnian, 27 and Hindi, 23.