CMS Presents Estimates of the US Undocumented and Eligible-to-Naturalize Populations

Posted: 8/10/2021 (Demography News)

The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) has released its estimates of the US undocumented and eligible-to-naturalize populations and updated its Democratizing Data mapping tools. CMS estimates that 10.35 undocumented immigrants and 8.1 million immigrants who are eligible to naturalize reside in the United States. These estimates and detailed demographic information about these populations are available through CMS’s Democratizing Data mapping tools. Data tool users can conduct their own state and local queries of the size and characteristics of the US undocumented and eligible-to-naturalize populations at data.cmsny.org. With these tools, it is possible to obtain detailed profiles of immigrant populations at a national, state, and sub-state level.

CMS estimates are based on data from the 2019 American Community Survey (ACS) conducted by the US Census Bureau. Because of the in-depth questions the ACS asks, CMS can derive detailed profiles of immigrant populations that provide estimates of country of origin, years of US residency, race/ethnicity, occupation, health insurance coverage, and more. Since the launch of CMS’s Democratizing Data Initiative in 2013, CMS estimates have been broadly used by scholars, researchers, government officials, and service-providers in crafting, implementing, and evaluating programs that serve noncitizens. After a review of its data-sharing policies, CMS has again made public its sub-state level data on the US undocumented population.

For sub-state level data, please visit: http://data.cmsny.org/puma.html.

For national and state level data, please visit: http://data.cmsny.org/state.html.