US is home to 11 mn illegal immigrants

Washington, Feb 26: Uncle Sam is home to nearly 11 million illegal immigrants. Though not surprising but still least expected at least in these days, is the fact that India still accounts for a major chunk of them.

According to a report published by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Immigration Statistics, about 11 million illegal immigrants lived in the US as on Jan 2010. Mexicans made up nearly 62 per cent of the total population of illegal immigrants.

Among all the illegal immigrants in the US, 39 per cent of them entered during and after the year 2000. However, the statistics of Jan 2010 shows a reduction of 0.8 million illegal immigrants since 2007. The report said that most of the undocumented immigrants, "either entered the US without inspection or were admitted temporarily and stayed past the date they were required to leave".

80 per cent of the illegal immigrants, i.e. nearly 8.5 million came from North America while Asia accounted for one million, followed by South America with 800,000. Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Philippines, India, Ecuador, Brazil, South Korea and China made up the list of top ten contributors respectively.

OneIndia News