Denver Seminary

A recent report by the Pew Hispanic Center provides some surprising—and important—statistics. It reveals that over 60 percent of adult undocumented immigrants have been in this country for over 10 years. According to their research, about 35 percent have been here for over 15 years. In 2010 only 15 percent had been in the United States for less than 5 years.

These statistics demonstrate that immigrants and their families are settling into communities, in spite of the negative attitudes and legislation in parts of the country and the lack of political will in both parties to make constructive changes to current immigration law.

Clearly, immigrants are investing themselves into their new context. It will not do to say that these individuals are not interested in becoming part of this country or that they have no stock in their new land. These data also contradict a second falsehood, the erroneous idea that a flood of undocumented immigrants is streaming daily into this country. The evidence shows that the influx of undocumented immigrants has gone down significantly in the last few years. 

We need to get beyond the caricatures and skewed presentation of the realities of immigration and turn our efforts to rectifying the nation’s broken immigration system. 

You can access this report at http://www.pewhispanic.org/.