WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 (UPI) -- Illegal immigration into the United States dropped sharply in the second half of the last decade, a report released Wednesday said.
The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that between March 2007 and March 2009 the number of people entering or staying in the country illegally every year was about two-thirds less than in the period between March 2000 and March 2005. In its report, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the center said the number of people living in the country illegally peaked at 12 million in March 2007 and dropped 8 percent to 11.1 million two years later.
The group whose numbers fell the most appears to be non-Mexican Hispanics from the Caribbean and Central and South America, the report said, estimating the population dropped 22 percent in two years.
The Rocky Mountain states and the southeast appear to have had the biggest declines in the number of illegal immigrants. Florida, Nevada and Virginia all saw a significant decline.
Pew analysts estimated the number of illegal immigrants by deducting the number of foreign-born legal residents from the total foreign-born population.
