A new report released Monday by Pew Research noted that 61% of the country’s undocumented population lives in 20 US metro areas. Of those 20 areas, Pew said, the top cities are New York, Los Angeles, Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth.
“The nation’s unauthorized immigrant population is highly concentrated, more so than the U.S. population overall,” Pew’s Jeffrey S. Passel and D’Vera Cohn wrote. “In 2016, the 20 metro areas with the most unauthorized immigrants were home to 6.5 million of them, or 61% of the estimated nationwide total. By contrast, only 37% of the total U.S. population lived in those metro areas.”
The report also said that “The number of unauthorized immigrants in these 20 metros has declined sharply since 2007, when 7.7 million of them lived in these areas. These metro areas account for much of a national decline of the U.S. unauthorized immigrant population over the past decade.”
Pew estimates the current U.S. undocumented population to be at 10.7 million. It also look at historical trends from 2007-2016.
For a detailed look at 182 U.S. metropolitan areas, go here.
