Fewer children are being born to undocumented immigrants in the United States, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center that was released on Friday. Around 295,000 children were born to parents who were undocumented immigrants in 2013, which is around 8% of the estimated 3.9 million births in the United States in that year. This is in comparison to 370,000 and 9% eight years ago in 2007.
The new report comes during a national debate over birthright citizenship, with a number of would-be presidential candidates ‒ most notably controversial real estate billionaire Donald Trump ‒ proposing that the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution should be overhauled and that automatic citizenship for anyone born in the US should become a thing of the past.
In March 2013 there were approximately 11.3 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, which was around 4% of the overall population; however, their birth rates tend to be higher than for other groups. Women in the US are generally having fewer children, with the US birth rate reaching a record low two years ago.
Back in 2012 4.5 million children born in the United States lived with at least one parent who was an undocumented immigrant. 5.8 million of the undocumented immigrants in the country – the great majority – come from Mexico and another 1.4 million come from Asia, according to the Washington Post. The increasingly diverse population of the US has also been fueled by legal immigration.
