Children's Legal Rights Journal - Spring 2013

Statistically Speaking: Immigration by the Numbers
By Caitlyn Sharrow
The United States Department of Homeland Security
(“DHS”) collects data on immigration and publishes a variety of
annual reports. Two of the reports are the Estimates of the
Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States,
(“Estimates”) and Immigration and Enforcement Actions
(“Enforcement Actions”). The Estimates report provides general
demographic information including the total estimated number of
unauthorized immigrants, the regions from which they emigrated, the
states to which they have immigrated, and their gender and age. The
Enforcement Actions report details information about the United
States Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) and United States
Immigration and Custom Enforcement (“ICE”) actions such as
apprehension, arrests, detentions, returns, and removals.
These reports do not convey information specific to youth.
However, a report published by the Pew Hispanic Center describes
several statistics about immigrant children. All three reports are
significant because the information they convey offers some context
for the potential impact immigration reform can have on society and
an on undocumented youths.
The Estimates report uses a residual method to generate the
illegal immigrant population estimate. The residual method, as the
report indicates, results from the remainder after estimates of the
legally resident foreign-born population are subtracted from the
estimate of the total foreign-born population. Legally resident
foreign-born individuals include legal permanent residents,
naturalized citizens, asylees, refugees, and certain aliens who were
legally admitted temporarily, such as students. Most of the data used
to generate such estimates are derived from the United States Census
and the American Community Survey (“ACS”) of the United States
Census. Estimating population and demographics for an entire
country is challenging and those challenges are amplified when
trying to collect data about undocumented individuals. Further, the

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