A Border Patrol agent looking out at Tijuana, Mexico. About six million Mexican-born immigrants make up 52 percent of the unauthorized population in the United States, estimates said.

As lawmakers in Washington debate an immigration overhaul that could include a pathway to legal status or citizenship for millions of unauthorized immigrants, the figures from the nonpartisan Pew Center are regarded by many demographers as the most reliable estimates of the number of people who might be eligible for those programs.

The new estimates, which are based on the most recent census data and other official statistics, show that the population of immigrants here illegally did not decline significantly from 2009 to 2012, despite record numbers of about 400,000 deportations each year and stepped-up border enforcement by the Obama administration as well as laws to crack down on illegal immigration in states like Alabama, Arizona and Georgia.

Recent figures, including reports from the Border Patrol of illegal crossings at the southwest border, suggest that the numbers began to grow again last year. But Pew researchers said the increases in the 2012 census data — the latest available — were too small for them to conclusively confirm the recent rise.

“For Congress working on the demands of a potential legalization program, these are pretty solid numbers,” said Jeffrey S. Passel, senior demographer at Pew’s Hispanic Trends Project, who wrote the report with D’Vera Cohn and Ana Gonzalez-Barrera.

The Pew researchers, for the first time using larger census samples from past years, also went back to revise some of their previous estimates. The new figures, while only slightly different, show an even clearer picture of the surging growth in unauthorized immigrants to a peak of 12.2 million in 2007 from 3.5 million in 1990.

In 2008 and 2009, there was a steep drop, with the numbers falling to an estimated 11.3 million. After 2009, the population leveled off and by some measures might have been gradually growing. The Pew report does not point to any causes of the changes. But Mr. Passel noted that the dates of the decrease matched the deepest years of the economic slowdown, with its high unemployment.

“We don’t know what caused that decline, but it certainly coincides with the recession,” Mr. Passel said. “And we can say that the current enforcement practices have not led to any measurable reduction beyond the 2009 period.”

Looking at Mexico, the report confirms “dramatic reductions in arrivals of new unauthorized immigrants” from there since 2007. The researchers cite Mexican census figures showing that the rate of migration to the United States dropped by two-thirds from 2007 to 2012. From 2007 to 2009, the report says, more undocumented Mexicans left the United States than came here illegally.

But about six million Mexican-born immigrants still make up 52 percent of the unauthorized population, according to the Pew estimates.

“I don’t see any sign of a return to mass undocumented migration from Mexico,” said Douglas Massey, a sociology professor at Princeton who has studied Mexican migration patterns for decades. “The Mexican population in the United States is stable. Self-deportation is not working,” he said, referring to policies advocated by some lawmakers to increase enforcement pressure on illegal immigrants to spur them to leave voluntarily.

Recent increases in illegal arrivals are migrants from countries other than Mexico, including Central American nations, according to the Pew report.

The report shows variations among states. In Texas, the unauthorized population never saw any significant decline in the last decade. In Florida and New Jersey, the numbers are growing again after falling in the first years of the recession. In California, Illinois and New York, the numbers declined after 2007 and never rebounded.

The Pew researchers derive their estimates with a complex formula that calculates the number of legal immigrants in the country and subtracts that from the overall foreign-born population, which was 41.7 million last year. About 28 percent of that total was immigrants here illegally, according to the Pew report.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/24/us/immigrant-population-shows-signs-of-growth-estimates-show.html?_r=0

New York City plans to spend $18 million over the next two years to help young unauthorized immigrants qualify for a federal program that grants a temporary reprieve from deportation, officials announced on Wednesday.

The money will add 16,000 seats to adult education classes throughout the city, and priority for those slots will be given to immigrants who might qualify for the reprieve.

While more than 20,500 immigrants in New York State have alreadybeen granted the reprieve, known as deferred action, city officials have estimated that about 16,000 others in New York City alone would satisfy all the conditions save for the requirement that they have a high school diploma or General Educational Development certificate, or be currently enrolled in school.

The project — the largest investment made by any municipality in the nation to help immigrants obtain the deferral, city officials said — is one of two new immigrant-assistance initiatives that will receive significant injections of public money in the current fiscal year, which began July 1.

The other budget allocation, which the city plans to announce formally on Friday, will pay for a pilot program that will create what immigrants’ advocates say will be the nation’s first public defender system for immigrants facing deportation.

Together, the two programs further cement New York’s reputation as one of the most immigrant-friendly cities in the nation. They also come at a time when a push for comprehensive immigration reform that would include a path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants has met stiff resistance among Republicans in the House of Representatives.

In a news conference in City Hall on Wednesday, Christine C. Quinn, the City Councilspeaker, seemed to allude to sclerotic politics on Capitol Hill, saying the Council’s budget decisions send a message to the rest of the nation “that local government can take action while we wait for comprehensive immigration reform.”

The federal deportation reprieve was announced by the Obama administration in June 2012. To qualify, an applicant must have arrived in the United States before reaching his or her 16th birthday and been younger than 31 as of June 15, 2012, among other requirements. Recipients of the reprieve, which is subject to renewal after two years, are legally allowed to work and, in many states, obtain a driver’s license.

More than 400,500 people across the nation have been granted the deferral; for many others, the educational requirement has been a major hurdle.

For years, adult education programs in the city have been swamped by huge demand yet been hamstrung by financial shortfalls.

Of the $18 million allocation, $13.7 million will be provided to community-based organizations through the Youth and Community Development Department and used for outreach and the increase in seats. The remaining $4.3 million will help expand related education programs offered through the City University of New York, like English for Speakers of Other Languages and General Educational Development.

In recent days, immigrants’ advocates have also been celebrating the City Council’s decision to help pay for another initiative: the allocation of $500,000 in its current budget for a network of legal service providers to represent immigrants facing deportation.

Defendants in immigration court, unlike those in criminal court, have no constitutional right to a court-appointed lawyer. Hampered by language barriers, lack of money or ignorance, most end up trying to fight their deportation alone — almost always with poor outcomes.

According to a recent study, 60 percent of detained immigrants in the New York region did not have counsel at the time their cases were completed. Of those without counsel, only 3 percent won their cases, compared with 18 percent of those with counsel.

Proponents of the program, called the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project, said it would cost about $8.7 million to provide legal representation for the 2,800 or so immigrants living in New York State who are detained and face deportation every year. The city allocation, however, will help cover the cost of a pilot program to represent just 135 immigrants. Advocates said that despite its limited reach, the pilot program would give them a chance to test their theories and demonstrate the potential impact of a broader plan.

The program will not only help keep families together, argued Andrew Friedman, executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, an advocacy group that helped to lobby for the financing, but will also create “an innovative model program” for other municipalities to replicate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/nyregion/city-to-help-immigrants-seeking-deportation-reprieves.html?_r=0