A roadside sign just north of the Tijuana border crossing. (Credit: Flickr/Jonathon Mcintosh)

What’s the plan for America’s 11.1 million undocumented immigrants?

It’s the million dollar question, and the most divisive element of the Senate’s sprawling new effort to overhaul the country’s messy immigration system. After months of painstaking negotiation, a bipartisan group of senators, known as the “Gang of Eight”, recently unveiled a proposal to — among other things — create a path to citizenship for the millions who live here in the shadows. But legislators have made abundantly clear that this proposal is a far cry from “amnesty”. The path they outlined for almost all the undocumented (except for young “DREAMers” who would be on a streamlined 5-year path) is a tedious, decade-plus-long process full of steep hurdles and strict conditions, in which citizenship is a distant destination at the end of a long journey.

Where do the undocumented live?

The following map, produced by the online magazine Slate, uses the most recent Pew Research Center analysis of 2011 data, which includes state-by-state estimates. Slate notes that the data meets the 90-percent confidence interval for population estimates for each state (except for the handful of states where the undocumented immigrant population is so low that it’s nearly impossible to confidently estimate).

Many more undocumented immigrants reside in California (topping 2.5 million) and Texas  (more than 1.5 million)  than any other state, according to Pew data. However, Nevada has the largest proportion of undocumented immigrants—7.2 percent of the state population and nearly 10 percent of its workforce.

Mouse over each state to see the estimated number of undocumented immigrants living there, what percentage of the total state population and workforce they make up, and how the number of undocumented immigrants has changed over the past two decades.

Editor’s note: since production of the map, most media organizations have begun referring to this population as “undocumented” rather than ‘illegal” immigrants.

What else do we know about undocumented immigrants in the U.S.?

• The population has actually gone down quite a bit since 2007, when it spiked at about 12 million, according to Pew. The decrease is due largely to the U.S. recession and increased border enforcement and deportations, with the rate of undocumented immigration from Mexico falling the most.
• Mexicans made up close to 60 percent of all undocumented residents, according to a Pew analysis of the 2010 population. DHS estimates that in 2011, 70 percent of this population came from Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador.
• Today’s estimated 11.1 million undocumented immigrants make up less than a third of all foreign-born residents in the U.S. Roughly 40 to 50 percent of the undocumented entered the country legally and overstayed their visas, according to a Pew 2006 analysis. And although about 1.6 million of the total undocumented population today arrived within in the last years , the majority of the current population has lived here for at least a decade, reports the Department of Homeland Security reports.

So how do we know all this?

Counting America’s undocumented population is a true exercise in estimation. Pew, a non-partisan public policy group, came up with the latest 11.1 million figure (for 2011) primarily by analyzing census data, which provides a measure of the total immigrant population (both legal and undocumented). Pew then analyzed a variety of other government data sources – including DHS – to estimate the number of legal immigrants (green card holders and refugees) and then subtracted this figure from the total number of immigrants. Of course, a lot more statistical wizardry goes into the calculation (as described here) but this is the basic framework for its estimation.

John Moore/Getty Images

The message was short but – for a lot of young people – pretty sweet:

“Effective immediately, up to 800,000 young people living in the U.S. illegally will no longer be subject to automatic deportation.”

And with that executive order, announced June 15, President Obama shook up in America’s immigration policy.

At least a little bit.

It’s no DREAM Act, but the Department of Homeland Security’s shift in policy – which bypassed Congress and went into effect immediately – will definitely effect the lives of a whole lot of young people. And no where will the impact be felt as widely as in California, where roughly a quarter of the nation’s young undocumented immigrants live, according the Migration Policy Institute.

The administration’s order – considered by many a political tactic to woo Hispanic voters – allows eligible undocumented residents to receive what’s called “deferred action,” which delays deportation proceedings and offers them a green light to apply for two-year work visas (that can be renewed indefinitely).

How many are eligible?

The Obama administration said that its new policy would benefit about 800,000 undocumented immigrants. Some, however, put that figure higher: the non-partisan Pew Hispanic Center estimated the change to affect as many as 1.4 million young people, more than 10 percent of the total population of undocumented immigrants in the U.S.  About 70 percent of potential beneficiaries will be Mexican, the Center predicts. And of the 1.4 million eligibly people, about 350,000 live in California,  the Migration Policy Institute estimates.

What are the criteria for eligibility?

• Be 30 years old or younger
• Have come to the United States before the age of 16 and lived here continuously for at least five years
• Be currently enrolled in school; or have a high school diploma/GED; or be an honorably discharged veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard or Armed Forces

• Have no criminal record and pose no threat to national security or public safety

Does this policy offer amnesty or a path to citizenship?

Nope. And it doesn’t offer the possibility of a green card either. In this respect, the new policy doesn’t shake things up nearly as much as would the DREAM Act, which would offer a path to citizenship and expand educational opportunity for roughly the same group of immigrants – often labeled DREAMers. That act, though, while supported by the administration, has been has been repeatedly stalled by Congress for upwards of a decade.

In his announcement, Obama called the new plan a temporary measure put in place until he and Congress could pass long-term comprehensive immigration reform.

“Let’s be clear,” Obama said.  “This is not amnesty. This is not immunity. This is not a path to citizenship. It’s not a permanent fix. This is a temporary stopgap measure that lets us focus our resources wisely while giving a degree of relief and hope to talented, driven, patriotic young people.”

Can undocumented immigrants now apply for drivers licenses and college financial aid?

The administration’s policy change hasn’t changed anything in this arena. For now, each state still has digression to permit or prevent undocumented residents from applying for licenses, financial aid, and even whether they can attend public universities. Currently, only New Mexico and Washington State allow undocumented immigrants to get drivers licenses. And Utah offers a driving privilege card. California does not allow undocumented residents to apply for licenses, and the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles hasn’t commented yet on whether it plans to make any changes to the status quo. The state, however, will implement it’s own version of the Dream Act next year, allowing undocumented immigrants who fit certain criteria to apply for and receive state-funded financial aid for public universities.

Say Obama loses the election … then what happens?

It’s unclear. If Mitt Romney wins, he could technically reverse the policy, although he hasn’t specified if he would do so.

How do you apply for a deferral?

Government immigration agencies are still working out the specifics. Individuals who qualify will have to submit a request for review and provide supporting evidence to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. And eligible individuals currently in the middle of deportation proceedings will soon be able to request a review.

Government Resources

• United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (hotline: 800-375-5283)
• Immigration and Customs Enforcement (hotline: 888-351-4024)
• Department of Homeland Security

And then, of course, there’s Stephen Colbert’s take on it all ….