The Center for Immigration Studies has summarized the findings of the March 2005 issue of the Current Population Survey (CPS). I include a few of the highlights below, from its December 2005 study, Immigrants at Mid-Decade: A Snapshot of America’s Foreign-Born Population in 2005
The 35.2 million immigrants (legal and illegal) living in the country in March 2005 is the highest number ever recorded — two and a half times the 13.5 million during the peak of the last great immigration wave in 1910.
Between January 2000 and March 2005, 7.9 million new immigrants (legal and illegal) settled in the country, making it the highest five-year period of immigration in American history.
Nearly half of post-2000 arrivals (3.7 million) are estimated to be illegal aliens.
Immigrants account for 12.1 percent of the total population, the highest percentage in eight decades. If current trends continue, within a decade it will surpass the high of 14.7 percent reached in 1910.
Of adult immigrants, 31 percent have not completed high school, three-and-a-half times the rate for natives. Since 1990, immigration has increased the number of such workers by 25 percent, while increasing the supply of all other workers by 6 percent.