Illegals in U.S. - 10.5 Million and growing

The Associated Press is reporting:
About 11 million illegal immigrants were living in the U.S. at the start of this year, the federal government said in a report Friday.

That's up from an estimated 8.5 million living in the country in January 2000, according to calculations by the Office of Immigration Statistics in the Department of
Homeland Security.

In March, the Pew Hispanic Center used Census Bureau data to estimate that the United States had 11.1 million illegal immigrants in March 2005. The center used monthly population estimates to project a total of 11.5 million to 12 million in March.

Mexico is the largest contributing country of illegal immigrants, with nearly 6 million in the U.S. in 2005, the government said. El Salvadore, Guatemala, India and China followed with a combined contribution of about 1.4 million unauthorized immigrants.

And for those of you not in bordering states such as California, Texas, or Arizona ... it's now being reported that the problem is spreading throughout the country.

Click map to view state-by-state levels

NPR.org reports:
New Census Bureau figures confirm what many Americans can already see with their own eyes: The numbers of their foreign-born neighbors are growing. And the change is most dramatic in states not known for having large numbers of immigrants.

Virtually every state in the nation saw a rise in its Latino population from 200 to 2005, according to the new mid-decade Census Bureau report known as the American Community Survey. In states like Georgia, Tennessee, Nevada and South Carolina, the Hispanic population jumped more than 40 percent in the period -- and Arkansas has seen an almost 50 percent increase.

Nationally, West Virginia was the only state in the period studied that did not show a rise in minority population.