Legal permanent residents were 32 percent of the foreign-born (11.8 million, including 1.3 million who arrived as refugees).
Naturalized citizens were 35 percent (12.8 million, including 1.3 million who arrived as refugees).
Temporary legal residents (such as students and temporary workers) were 3 percent (1.3 million).
Unauthorized migrants were 30 percent (11.1 million).
Many immigrants are becoming citizens, but many more who are eligible face barriers to naturalization.
The number of naturalized citizens almost doubled between the mid-1990s and 2002, from 6.5 to 11 million.[source]
Although naturalization numbers and rates have increased, at least eight million immigrants are eligible to naturalize but have not.[source]
Language is a major barrier: 60 percent of naturalization-eligible immigrants have limited proficiency in English.[source]
Delays in immigration processing have increased waiting times for naturalization and green cards: Between 1990 and 2003, the number of applications pending approval increased by more than 1,000 percent, from 540,688 to 6.08 million.[source]
Nevertheless, immigrants' interest in becoming U.S. citizens remains high.
In the first three months of 2006, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security received more than 185,000 naturalization applications, representing a 19 percent increase over the same period last year.[source]
In March 2006, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services received a record 6.6 million hits on its website. The website received 2.2 million requests to download forms, including the N-400 for naturalization-- a leap from 1.8 million requests in February.[source]
The undocumented population has increased since the mid-1990s.
Annual arrivals of undocumented immigrants have exceeded legal admissions since the mid-1990s. Since 2000, legal admissions have averaged 610,000 a year and unauthorized entries have averaged 700,000 a year. In contrast, in the 1980s, legal admissions averaged 650,000 a year and unauthorized entries averaged 140,000.[source]
As of March 2006, between 11.5 and 12 million undocumented immigrants resided in the United States, constituting 30 percent of all immigrants.[source]
Although the number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. has grown, the rate of undocumented migration from Mexico has remained steady, as a percentage of the Mexico population, since 1980.[source]
Immigrants, regardless of their immigration status, are thoroughly woven into the fabric of American families and communities.
Eighty-five percent of all immigrant families with children are mixed-status families, with at least one immigrant parent and one U.S. citizen child.[source]
Three-quarters of children in immigrant families are U.S. citizens.[source]
Two-thirds of the 4.9 million children with undocumented parents are U.S. citizens.[source]