By Adrian Florido
Researchers have a new estimate for the number of immigrants living in the country illegally.
It is Pew Research Center that is responsible for the number we all cite when talking about the number of unauthorized immigrants currently in the U.S.: 11.2 million.
But Tuesday, Pew senior demographer Jeffrey Passel said that number may have grown.
“The latest estimate of 11.7 million in 2012 points to a possible increase since 2009, but we can’t say so definitively,” he said.
Part of why it’s so hard to say for sure whether the number has actually grown is that the estimate is based on Census surveys, and there’s a large margin of error.
Still, Passel said the information gives an idea of where increases may have come from.
“Unauthorized immigrants from places other than Mexico did register an increase,” he said.
But Mexican migration to the U.S. has leveled off, as has been true in recent years.