A new Pew Research study released Tuesday finds the number of unauthorized immigrants in Indiana fell between 2009 and 2012. The study comes a debate on the isssue between Congress and President Obama heats up.
Nationwide, the unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. plateaued after the Great Recession. But at the state level, the trends vary.
While the unauthorized immigrant population increased in 7 states, it fell in 14 states others.
Indiana lost about 15,000 people in that demographic, which Pew attributes to fewer Mexicans coming to the Hoosier state.
Jerry Conover is the Director of the Indiana Business Research Center at IU’s Kelley School of Business. He says sectors like agriculture and the service industry are most likely to be effected.
“Many of the jobs that the undocumented workers are jobs that are not all that easy to fill with citizens or authorized immigrants, they’re jobs that tend to go empty, unfilled for too long," says Conover. "If that number continues falling it could mean there’s more of a gap in the workforce in certain kinds of jobs.”
Conover says that’s unlikely to have a major impact on the state’s economy, since currently, undocumented workers make up only about 2 percent of the work force.
He adds that over the past several decades there has been a sizeable increase in the total immigrant population in Indiana, due to many professionals with work visas, and a draw from the state’s low cost of living.