Based on an equation that can be used with available data and that provides a basis for facilitating decomposition analyses, this research estimates that about 2.54 million total (as opposed to enumerated) unauthorized Mexicans resided in the United States in 1996. Comparing this figure with an estimate of about 2.70 million released by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) during the 1990s, we find that the two estimates involve different assumptions about circular, invisible, and ambiguous migrants. Such differences not only can have important policy implications; they can also be sizable and can operate in opposite directions, as illustrated by findings from a components-of-difference analysis. The results are also extrapolated to 2000, and implications for 2000 census counts are discussed.

The saga of U.S. immigrant naturalization is merely sketched for about 25 million immigrants entered in three decades of renewed immigration. This study documents naturalization outcomes for immigrants from ten major countries of origin, using administrative records on immigrants and naturalizations. Following the 1978-1987 admission cohorts for the first decade or more of permanent residence, this study finds significant covariate effects on the timing of naturalization by origin, mode of entry, and immigrant visa class, net other influences of demographic and background characteristics. Immigrants from the Philippines, Vietnam, and China, naturalized more quickly than immigrants from India, Korea, Cuba, Colombia, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico. Those who adjusted from statuses as nonimmigrants, refugees, or asylees became naturalized citizens more quickly. Those immigrants with employment-sponsorship naturalized faster than familysponsored immigrants. Spouses of citizens, spouses of permanent residents, spouses of siblings of citizens, and spouses of sons and daughters of citizens naturalized faster than some other immigrants. Gender was not significant in the multivariate analysis but further research will more fully explore sex-specific variation in the timing of naturalization given likely variation in women's representation by origin and admission categories.

No abstract

"Uncertainties are abundant about the measurement of net undocumented migration [to the United States] and change over the past two decades. This analysis presents possible upper and lower boundaries on components for estimating legal migration in 1980-1989 and on the foreign-born population in 1990. Positing ranges for net undocumented immigration, between 2 million and 4 million undocumented residents may have been counted in the 1990 census. The total number of undocumented residents may have been as high as 6 million."

Special national surveys in the 1980s give the only recent data about emigrants from the USA, based on asking residents about their parents, siblings, and children living outside the USA who ever lived here. Each of the three surveys yielded an initial or minimal estimate of at least one million surviving emigrants. Adjusting for probable omission of emigrants without a resident immediate relative, the number of emigrants surviving as of 1990 is likely to exceed two million and, with alternative assumptions, could exceed three million. Due to inherent uncertainties in differing methodologies for measuring emigration for the past three decades, the implied level of emigration of permanent residents for the 1980s may be similar to previous levels. This finding contradicts popular belief of a simple direct association, i.e., that increasing immigration levels would be associated with increasing emigration levels. Emigration levels result from population heterogeneity on such characteristics as origin country, location and strength of familial ties, and reasons for coming to the USA, and associated probabilities of emigration. For many of the post-1965 immigrant cohorts, there is one or more decades during which emigration may yet occur.