Oregon's unauthorized immigrant population hits 155K
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The number of unauthorized immigrants in Oregon hit 155,000 by mid-2023, per new estimates, yet growth has likely slowed (and perhaps reversed) since then.
The big picture: The report, from non-partisan think tank Migration Policy Institute, offers insight into a group that's notoriously hard to count — and thus understand.
- The overall U.S. unauthorized immigrant population grew by 3 million between 2019 and mid-2023, MPI found, noting the country "has not experienced a pace of change this rapid ... since the early 2000s."
Zoom in: In Oregon, construction and agriculture are the industries with the largest share of workers who are undocumented, at 13.7% and 12.7% respectively.
- A 2021 report from the Oregon Center for Public Policy found that roughly 57,000 migrant and seasonal farmworkers in the state were undocumented.
The latest: Recent reports suggest an increase in the presence of federal immigration agents in Oregon's immigrant communities and detentions among the state's farmworkers, raising concern within the industry.
Between the lines: Oregon enacted its sanctuary law in 1987 — which, at the time, was the first of its kind in the nation — prohibiting local police and sheriffs from assisting with federal immigration enforcement without a judicial warrant.
- This means police cannot ask someone about their immigration status.
The bottom line: Unauthorized immigration probably stopped growing last year and potentially began reversing this year, MPI's report notes.
- That's "based on the very low numbers of U.S.-Mexico border encounters, heavy immigration enforcement inside the country, and an overall atmosphere intended to convince would-be migrants not to come and current unauthorized immigrants to leave."
Go deeper: These states have the highest shares of unauthorized immigrants