See also: Keeping Families Together: Why All Americans Should Care About What Happens to Unauthorized Immigrants by Silva Mathema
A new analysis from the University of Southern California’s Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration and the Center for American Progress estimates that millions of people, including American citizens, live in mixed-status families with unauthorized immigrants. Given this make-up, large swaths of people will suffer from any actions that target unauthorized immigrants.
Nationally, more than 16.7 million people have at least one unauthorized family member living with them, among whom nearly 50 percent, or 8.2 million, are U.S.-born or naturalized citizens. In fact, there are 5.9 million citizen children who will potentially be at risk if their unauthorized family members are targeted.
Below is an interactive map that illustrates the state-by-state distribution of family members and children among them—broken down by total population, U.S.-born, and naturalized citizen family members—of unauthorized immigrants who will be harmed by anti-immigrant actions. Each state’s population will suffer: For example, in Texas, there are nearly 2.7 million people who have at least one unauthorized family member living with them. Among them, approximately 1.4 million are U.S.-born or naturalized, more than 1 million of whom are children. These estimates are conservative since they do not include family members who do not live in the same household.
Download the complete Excel worksheet to see data for all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
For a full-size version of the interactive, click here.
Note: “Children” refers to people under 18 years of age.
Sources: Author’s analysis of estimates by the Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration using Steven Ruggles and others, “Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, Version 6.0: American Community Survey, 2010–2014,” available at https://usa.ipums.org/usa/ (last accessed March 2016); based on methodology from Manuel Pastor, Tom Jawetz, and Lizet Ocampo, “DAPA Matters: The Growing Electorate Directly Affected by Executive Action on Immigration” (Washington: Center for American Progress, 2015), available at https://americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/report/2015/11/19/125787/dapa-matters/.