Published on Thu, Jul 29, 2010
- As of June 30, bills similar to Arizona's law had been introduced in South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Michigan.
- In the first half of the year, 44 state legislatures passed 191 laws and adopted 128 resolutions relating to immigrants and refugees, with governors vetoing five of the bills. This was a 21 percent increase in enacted laws and resolutions from the same time period in 2009.
- Most of the state legislation addresses employment, law enforcement and identification.
- In all of 2009 more than 1,500 bills were introduced in state legislatures related to immigration, compared to 300 in 2005.
- Immigrants made up more than 12 percent of the U.S. population in 2008 and the foreign-born share of Arizona's population was 14.3 percent that year. In California, which is also on the border, foreign-born residents make up more than a quarter of the population. Latinos make up the biggest group.
- The Latino share of Arizona's population was 30.1 percent in 2008. In neighboring Texas, Latinos made up 36.5 percent of the population and in California they made up 32.4 percent. In New Mexico, they represented nearly 45 percent of the population.
Published in the Reuters