Undocumented immigrants fall to nearly 10-year low

The number of undocumented immigrants in the United States has dropped to its lowest level since 2009, according to a new analysis of government data by the Pew Research Center.

The report released Tuesday found there were 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country in 2015, down from a high of 12.2 million in 2007.

The numbers include an estimated 5.6 million people from Mexico, down from 6.9 million in 2007. Mexicans make up an estimated 51 percent of U.S. undocumented immigrants, compared to 57 percent in 2007.

More Mexicans have left the United States than have entered since at least 2009, according to a previous Pew study. Less than half of all undocumented immigrants apprehended at the southern border were Mexicans in 2014 and 2016. 

{mosads}Central American migration to the United States, meanwhile, has grown.

Pew estimates that the Central American undocumented population grew to 1.8 million in 2015 from 1.6 million in 2009.

Undocumented immigrants from Asia are also on the rise. Undocumented Asians grew to 1.5 million in 2015 from 1.3 million in 2009.

According to preliminary estimates, 2016 could be the first year since at least 2005 in which Mexican citizens did not constitute a majority of the undocumented population.

Those preliminary estimates also show there were 11.3 million undocumented immigrants in the country in 2016, but the report warned those numbers came from a smaller sample size with a larger margin of error, making it statistically impossible to assert whether the downward trend continued, stagnated or was reversed.

The 2016 estimates are based on numbers from March 2016, so they do not reflect changes due to President Trump’s enhanced immigration enforcement actions, which have led to steep drops in illegal border crossings in the first months of 2017.