section_path: Profile and demographics/Population
section_name: Population
paragraph_text: Population
  
  From 2005 to 2009, the number of people entering the US illegally every year declined from a yearly average of 850,000 in the early 2000s to 300,000 in 2009, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. The most recent estimates put the number of illegal immigrants at 11 million in 2015, representing 3.4% of the total US population. The population of illegal immigrants peaked in 2007, when it was estimated at 12.2 million and 4% of the total US population. As of 2014, illegal immigrant adults had lived in the US for a median of 13.6 years, with approximately two-thirds having lived in the US for at least a decade. Pew Research estimated in 2017 that there were over seven million illegal immigrants in the US workforce.
  
  Narrowing the discussion to only Mexican nationals, a 2015 study performed by demographers of the University of Texas at San Antonio and the University of New Hampshire found that immigration from Mexico; both legal and illegal, peaked in 2003 and that from the period between 2003 and 2007 to the period of 2008 to 2012, immigration from Mexico decreased 57%. The dean of the College of Public Policy of the University of Texas at San Antonio, Rogelio Saenz, states that lower birth rates and the growing economy in Mexico slowed emigration, creating more jobs for Mexicans. Saenz also states that Mexican immigrants are no longer coming to find jobs but to flee from violence, noting that the majority of those escaping crime "are far more likely to be naturalized US citizens".
  
  According to a 2017 National Bureau of Economic Research paper, "The number of undocumented immigrants has declined in absolute terms, while the overall population of low-skilled, foreign-born workers has remained stable.... because major source countries for US immigration are now seeing and will continue to see weak growth of the labor supply relative to the United States, future immigration rates of young, low-skilled workers appear unlikely to rebound, whether or not US immigration policies tighten further."