U.S.-born children complicate debate over immigration

WASHINGTON – Growing numbers of children of illegal immigrants are being born in this country, and they are nearly twice as likely to live in poverty as those with American-born parents, an independent research group says.

The study released Tuesday by the Pew Hispanic Center highlights a growing dilemma in the immigration debate: Illegal immigrants’ children born in the United States are American citizens, yet they struggle in poverty and uncertainty along with parents who fear deportation, toil largely in low-wage jobs and face layoffs in an ailing economy.

The analysis by Pew, a nonpartisan research organization, estimated that 11.9 million illegal immigrants lived in the U.S. as of March 2008. Of those, 8.3 million, or 5.4 percent of the U.S. labor force, worked primarily in lower-paying farm, construction or janitorial work.

Roughly three out of four of their children – or 4 million – were born in the U.S. In 2003, 2.7 million children of illegal immigrants, or 63 percent, were born in this country.

Overall, illegal immigrants’ children account for one of every 15 students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

“One of the most striking features is that it is a population largely made up of young families,” said Jeffrey Passel, an author of the report. “This is a different picture than we usually see of undocumented immigrants – of young (single) men, the day laborers on street corners.”

Illegal immigrants also have become more geographically dispersed, increasingly passing up typical destinations like California in favor of jobs in newly emerging Hispanic areas in southern states like Georgia and North Carolina.

In 2008, California had the most illegal immigrants at 2.7 million, double its 1990 number, followed by Texas, Florida, New York and New Jersey. Still, California’s 22 percent share of the nation’s illegal immigrant population was a marked drop-off from its 42 percent share in 1990.

The latest demographic snapshot comes as President Barack Obama is preparing to address the politically sensitive issue of immigration reform later this year.