About 6 in 10 undocumented immigrants in the United States live in one of 20 metro areas, with three regions in Southern California combining to lead the nation in that particular category.
The population clusters, tracked by Pew Research in a study released Thursday, also show that a big swath of the nation’s undocumented population lives in communities that voted against President Donald Trump in the last election. That could minimize the political fallout for the Trump administration and others who push to deport undocumented immigrants.
Pew, which has tracked the undocumented population for several several years, pegs the total number of undocumented immigrants at about 11.8 million, roughly a million fewer than what Pew found a decade ago.
In Southern California, roughly 1.4 million undocumented immigrants live between the Ventura County border and the Mexican border — the biggest cluster of undocumented people in the country.
The report also suggests that undocumented residents tend to cluster along cultural and demographic lines. Pew found that about 65 percent of documented immigrants live in the same 20 metro areas.
Overall, undocumented immigrants make up about 3.5% of the nation’s population. Pew noted that some cities with the highest concentration of undocumented residents include Houston (8.7%) and Las Vegas (8%).
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
