Illinois

Summary Demographic State Data (and Source)
Population (2009 CB est.):	12,910.409
Population (2000 Census):	12,419,293
Foreign-Born Population (2009 CB est.):	1,740,763
Foreign-Born Population (2000 Census):	1,529,058
Share Foreign-Born (2009 FAIR est.):	13.5%
Share Foreign-Born (2000):	12.3%
Naturalized U.S. Citizens (2009 CB est.):	783,504
Share Naturalized (2009):	45.0%
Legal Immigrant Admission (DHS 2000-2009):	441,899
Refugee Admissions (HHS 2000-2009)	21,164
Illegal Alien Population (2010 FAIR est.):	550,000
Costs of Illegal Aliens (2010 FAIR)	$4,592,100,000
Projected 2050 Population (2006 FAIR)	17,962,000

Illinois : Census Bureau Data

STATE POPULATION

Using the American Community Survey (ACS), the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that in July 2009 Illinois’ population had increased to 12,910,409 residents, i.e., an annual average increase of about 52,810 residents since 2000. That is a rate of increase of about 0.4 percent per year compared to the national average annual increase of 1.0 percent.

The 2000 Census found 12,419,293 persons resident in Illinois. This was an increase of 988,691 persons (8.6%) above the 1990 Census. That indicated an annual average rate of population increase of 0.8 percent compared to the national rate of 1.2 percent.

The 2000 population is about 370,000 more persons than the Census Bureau had expected to find in the state in 2000 when it issued its state population projections in 1996. The significance of this was that the Census Bureau concluded that much of the shortfall in their population estimates during the 1990s was due to an underestimation of the illegal alien population.

The 1980 Census recorded 11,427,409 residents in Illinois. By 1990, the population had increased only slightly to 11,430,602 residents. That was a 0.01 percent annual rate of change compared to a national annual average change of 1.0 percent.

FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION

Based on the ACS, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that the foreign-born population of Illinois was 1,740,763 persons in 2009. That was an increase of 211,705 residents since 2000 when the Census found 1.529,058 foreign-born residents. That represents and annual average increase of about 22,765 or 13.8 percent above 2000. That compares with a 2.8 percent increase in the native-born population.

Immigration also contributes to population growth through the children born to immigrants after arrival. Nationally the share of births to the foreign-born is about double their share of the population. A 27 percent share of the state’s current births is large enough to account for about 48,770 births a year. Combining the increase in the foreign-born population and estimated immigrant births suggests that immigration may account for nearly 71,530 persons added to the state’s population annually, i.e., more than the total (135.5%) of the state’s overall population increase.

NET INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION (NIM)

Based on the Current Population Survey (CPS), the Census Bureau estimated that between the 2000 Census and July 2009 the state’s population increased by about 403,980 residents from net international migration (more foreign-born arriving than leaving). That was an annual average increase of about 43,430 residents, i.e., more than four-fifths (82.3%) of the total population increase (not including the children born to the immigrants after their arrival in the United States).

FOREIGN-BORN CHANGE

The amount of change in the ACS data in the foreign-born population since the 2000 Census indicates an average annual rate of increase in the foreign-born population of about 22,765 people, which is more than two-fifths (43.1%) of the state’s annual average population increase. Since 2000, the foreign-born population has increased by 13.8 percent compared to a 2.6 percent increase in the native-born population.

The 2000 Census found that 45 percent of Illinois' foreign-born population had arrived in the state since 1990. That was higher than the national rate of 42.5 percent. The 2009 ACS estimate was that 16.1 percent of the foreign-born population had entered since 2000, i.e., lower than the national rate of 20.9 percent.

During the 1990s the state’s foreign-born population increased by about 576,785 persons from 952,272 persons. That was an increase of 60.6 percent compared to a 3.9 percent increase in the native-born population. The increase accounted for 58.3 percent of the state’s total population increase. On an annual basis, the foreign-born population increased by 6.1 percent compared to a national rate of 4.6 percent.

FOREIGN-BORN CHARACTERISTICS

An indicator of the change in Illinois' immigrant population may be seen in data on the share of the population over five years of age that speaks a language other than English at home. Between 1990 and 2000 the share of non-English speakers at home (over age 5) in Illinois increased by more than one-third, from 14.2 percent to 19.2 percent. nearly half (47.5%) of those who said they spoke a language other than English at home in 2000 also said they spoke English less than very well. In the 2009 ACS data, the share of those speaking other than English at home was 21.7 percent. Of those 43.9% said they spoke English less that very well. Of those speaking other than English, 58.4 percent were Spanish speakers. Of those not speaking English very well, 63 percent were Spanish speakers.

Speakers of Foreign Languages (at home in Illinois in the 2000 Census)
Spanish	1,253,670
Polish	185,750
German	63,355
Tagalog	62,365
Italian	51,975
Chinese	51,930
Korean	43,710
Greek	40,580
French	40,310
Russian	38,055
(Source: Census Bureau report: Language Spoken at Home for the Population 5 Years and Over, April 2004)

The chart above shows the foreign-born population increasing by 13.8 percent since 2000 and the share of that population from Latin America and the Caribbean increasing by 13.2 percent. That region’s share of the state’s immigrant population fell slightly from 47.8 percent to 47.6 percent in 2009.

NATURALIZATION

Data from the 2009 ACS indicate that 783,504 residents – or 45 percent of the foreign-born population in Illinois – were U.S. citizens, compared to 603,521 residents (39.5%) in 2000.

Nationally, 40.3 percent of the foreign-born population was U.S. citizens in 2000, compared to 43.7 percent in 2009.

Limited English Proficiency Students

In Illinois, overall enrollment in 2008 (2,112,805) was 4.2 percent above enrollment in 1999. LEP enrollment was 22 percent higher than a decade earlier. The share of LEP enrollment rose from 7.1 percent to 8.3 percent.

POPULATION PROJECTION

We projected Illinois’ population in 2050 likely would be between 17.17 million and 17.96 million depending on what happens with immigration policy. See “Projecting the U.S. Population to 2050: Four Immigration Scenarios,” FAIR 2006.

Illinois : Extended Immigration Data

REFUGEES

Illinois received 18,751 refugees over the most recent ten fiscal years (FY'00-'09).

FOREIGN STUDENTS

The 2009/2010 annual report of the Institute of International Education (IIE) lists the number of foreign students attending post-secondary school in Illinois as 31,093. Five schools in Illinois are listed as having a major concentration of these students:

U. of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign. – 7,287.
Illinois Inst. Tech. – 3,739
U. of Illinois-Chicago – 2,503
Northwestern – 2,426
So. Illinois U.-Carbondale – 1,456

Those schools represented more than half (56%) of the total foreign students in the state.

For information on foreign student issues see: Foreign Students in the United States

Illinois : Immigrant Admissions

Illinois Immigrant Admissions by Fiscal Year
2000	36,180
2001	48,296
2002	47,235
2003	32,413
2004	46,314
2005	52,419
2006	52,459
2007	41,971
2008	42,723
2009	41,889
Total	441,899

Recent immigrant admissions have more than doubled (211%) since the level of admissions just after adoption of the current immigration system in 1965. During the 1965-'69 period, annual admissions averaged about 21,950 immigrants. During the most recent five years, admissions averaged about 46,920 persons.

The charts below show recent immigrant admissions and the cumulative immigrant admissions data since 1965. The number of annual admissions has ranged from 15,587 in FY'65 to 83,858 in FY’90. The cumulative total of admissions to Illinois between fiscal years 1965 and 2009 was about 1,550,650 immigrants.

INS DATA BY NATIONALITY: FY'96 - FY'05

The table below furnishes INS data on the immigrants who have been admitted for residence in Louisiana since 1996 by nationality.

The INS data are for nationals of the countries with the largest number of immigrants admitted or adjusted to legal residence each year since 1996. The absence of data means that the total number of admissions to the United States by nationals of that country was not enough to merit detailed reporting in that year.

The nationalities may change each year, so the totals in some cases will not reflect all the immigrants of that nationality who have become legal immigrants in Illinois during this period.

The Department of Homeland Security website is has detailed data on immigrant admissions since FY’03 by year and by country. That resource has data for all source countries. (See http://www.dhs.gov/ximgtn/statistics/data/dslpr.shtm).

A dash (-) indicates that the data for that year was not published for that country in the Immigration Statistical Yearbook. * China includes Hong Kong and Taiwan. The Soviet Union includes Russia and former parts of the USSR. Yugoslavia Bosnia-Herzegovina Croatia Macedonia, Montenegro-Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.

The 31 nationalities above represent more than four-fifths (82.5%) of all immigrant settlement and adjustment in Illinois during this ten-year period. More than three-fifths (62.7%) of all immigrants since 1996 came from Mexico, Poland, India, Philippines, former Soviet Union or China. Mexico alone accounted for one-quarter of all new immigrants (25.0%).

Illinois : Illegal Aliens

ILLEGAL ALIENS

FAIR Estimate - FAIR estimates the state’s illegal alien population as of 2010 is as many as 550,000 persons. This is part of an overall estimate of the U.S. illegal alien population of about 12 million persons.

INS/DHS Estimate - The INS (now dissolved into the Dept. of Homeland Security) estimated that the illegal population in Illinois was 432,000 as of January 2000. This number was 142,000 higher than the INS' 1996 estimate. In November of 2006, DHS updated the estimate of the state's illegal alien population to 520,000. The most recent estimate by DHS put the illegal population in the state at 490,000 in 2010.

Other Estimates - The Pew Hispanic Center estimated the illegal alien population of the state at 525,000 as of 2010.

COSTS OF ILLEGAL ALIENS

FAIR’s 2010 fiscal cost study, “The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers” estimated the following cost outlays and tax receipts:

Illinois Fiscal Costs In 2009
Due to Illegal Aliens ($M)		(Pct.)
K-12 educ.	$2,046.7	44.6%
LEP educ.	$430.3	9.4%
Higher educ.	$93.2
Medicaid	$570.8	12.4%
SCHIP	$154.4	3.4%
Justice	$379.7	8.3%
Welfare+	$328.7	7.2%
General	$588.3	12.8%
Total	$4,592.1
Tax Receipts	$273.4
Net Cost	$4,318.7

Source: “The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers,” FAIR 2010.

Illinois : Poll Data

Rasmussen Poll: Arizona Law SB 1070
July 2010

Suppose the new Arizona immigration law was being considered for your state. Would you favor or oppose passage of that law in your state?

The U.S. Justice Department has decided to challenge the legality of Arizona’s new immigration law in federal court. Do you agree or disagree with the decision to challenge the legality of Arizona’s new immigration law?

The Northern Illinois University's Center for Government Studies released the Illinois Policy Survey taken from November of 2006 until January of 2007 (of 1,200 residents of voting age) found that:

66% find that illegal immigration is either a ‘big problem’ (32%) or ‘somewhat of a problem’ (34%).
66% favor punishing employers who hire illegal immigrants.
47% support laws against landlords who rent to illegal immigrants.

Illinois : Immigration Impact

ENVIRONMENTAL AND QUALITY OF LIFE PROFILE

Water: If the current trends continue, by 2050 Illinois' population will have increased from 12.8 million in 2006, to over 19.9 million.¹ Illinois residents currently have a per-capita, daily water usage of 141.7 gallons.² This means that by 2050 human, water usage will exceed that of 2006 by over one billion gallons each day.

Particularly in the Chicago area, massive urban sprawl is making future water constraints more and more of a concern. By 2030, another 2 million people are expected to move to the greater Chicago area. Conversation has begun circulating on how water can be conserved to prepare for this inevitable growth.³ By 2050, population projections suggest an increase of 3.4 million residents in the area, which will increase Chicago's water demand by up to two-thirds.⁴ FAIR projects a population increase of nearly 1.3 million residents by 2025.

With many groundwater sources such as the Cambrian-Ordovician aquifer becoming severely depleted, it is probable that increased demand in the Chicago area will turn toward Lake Michigan.⁵ In 1967, the Supreme Court ruled that Illinois could only divert up to 2.1 billion gallons each day from the Lake Michigan basin.⁶ However, this limit could provide an impetus for controversy as area populations continue to boom. Unfortunately, this additional thirst will come at a time when climate change and excessive drainage continue to threaten lake levels, which are currently near historic lows.⁷

A planning agency projects that eleven townships in five counties on the outer rim of Chicago will experience severe water shortages by 2020, a number that may double by 2030.⁸ Exacerbated by population growth, Illinois will be facing a water crunch in the near future.

Disappearing Open Space: The amount of developed land in Illinois increased by 760,800 acres from 1982 to 2007, growing at a pace of 29,040 acres per year over the last ten years of that period.⁹ Illinois lost 67,900 acres of prime farmland to development from 1987-1992, the fifth highest rate in the country, according to the American Farmland Trust. The loss accelerated to 160,900 acres from 1992-1997, a 137 percent increase. Much of the farmland loss is to lakefront development, housing, and new subdivisions.¹⁰

A study of urban sprawl between 1970 and 1990 that calculated the impact of population increase and per capita land use found that 307.3 square miles of additional land were consumed by urban sprawl in the Chicago-NW Indiana metropolitan area, and 5.3 percent of that sprawl was attributable to population increase. In the St. Louis metro area, which crosses into Missouri, sprawl consumed an additional 267.6 square miles and population increase accounted for 7.3 percent of the increase.¹¹

"There is a lot of farmland conversion that has occurred in the state the last 10 to 15 years," says the supervisor the Illinois Department of Agriculture's office of farmland protection. "If the population continues to increase, our reliance on production agriculture will continue to increase, and we could see a crisis down the road."

Air Pollution: As population increases, pollution often rises along with it. Emissions from Illinois contribute more to global warming than releases from 99 developing countries combined, according to a study by the National Environmental Trust. Illinois discharged 58.6 million metric tons of carbon equivalent into the atmosphere in 1999, ranking seventh among all states for carbon dioxide emissions, blamed for global warming.¹²

Cook, Madison, and St. Clair counties all received a grade of "F" in the American Lung Association's 2010 assessment of high ozone days. Peoria, Randolph, and Lake Counties received a "D," and the rest were split between "B" and "C" marks.¹³

Solid Waste: Illinois generates 1.3 tons of solid waste per capita each year.¹⁴

Traffic: Traffic on highways in Illinois increased 23 percent between 1990 and 2008, further straining an already-congested road system. In 2010, 43 percent of Illinois' major urban highways were considered congested.¹⁵

The typical Chicago commuter lost 41 hours and burned 28 extra gallons of fuel because of traffic congestion in 2007, resulting in a total cost of about $4.2 billion. Commute times were extended by about 43 percent during the peak periods (6-9 am and 4-7 pm), the second-longest relative delay of any city.¹⁶ About 22 percent of Illinois commuters had a commute of 45 minutes or longer in 2008, which trailed only New York and Washington, D.C.¹⁷

Road maintenance has not fully kept up with vehicle traffic. One third (33%) of the state's major roads are considered to be in poor or mediocre condition, and one sixth (16%) of its bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. The average Illinois driver pays an extra $292 in repair and operating costs each year due to the condition of the state's roads. ¹⁸

Schools: Public school enrollment in Illinois increased by about 101,000 students between 1998 and 2008. Over the same period, the number of students per teacher decreased from 16.5 to 14.4, outpacing the national decline of 1.4 students per teacher.¹⁹

Despite opening four new public schools in 2002, Chicago still has the same number of crowded schools as it did the previous year, due to rising enrollments. Funding for new construction is drying up because of a cap on local property taxes and limited state dollars. About 150 area schools are overcrowded.²⁰

Crowded Housing: An estimated 120,089 of Illinois' housing units were classified as crowded in 2008, defined as units with more than one occupant per room. This amounted to 2.5 percent of the state's housing units. In addition, 29,601 units were severely crowded, with at least 1.5 occupants per room.²¹ Nationally, crowded housing rates are driven upward by immigration, where 27 percent of children in immigrant families live in crowded housing compared to 9 percent of children with native-born parents. In Illinois, the shares are 21 percent of children in immigrant families are in crowded housing compared to 7 percent of those in native-headed households.²²

Poverty: Illinois' immigrants are more likely to be poor than their native-born counterparts. In 2007, 12.6 percent of foreign-born households were below the poverty line, compared to 11.8 percent of native households. An additional 10.6 percent of the foreign-born and 7.3 percent of native households were not in poverty but had incomes less than 1.5 times the poverty level.²³ 23.4 percent of children in immigrant families were poor in 2006, compared to 16.0 percent of native children.²⁴

ENDNOTES:

Jack Martin and Stanley Fogel. "Projecting the U.S. Population to 2050." FAIR. March 2006.
U.S. Geological Survey. 2000.
John Roszkowski. "Water conservation counters area's population growth." Lake Villa Review. May 15, 2008.
Kahrin Deines. "Area's growth will be primed by water; report will lay out scenarios." Medill Reports. May 22, 2008.
Jerry Dennis. "Water: Demand & Supply." Chicago Wilderness Magazine. December 2007.
Kahrin Deines. "Area's growth will be primed by water; report will lay out scenarios." Medill Reports. May 22, 2008.
Jerry Dennis. "Water: Demand & Supply." Chicago Wilderness Magazine. December 2007.
"Table DP-1-4, Profile of General Demographic Characteristics: 2000," Census 2000, U.S. Census Bureau.
USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, "Summary Report: 2007 National Resources Inventory."
Illinois State Factsheet, Migration Information Source, Migration Policy Institute.
Beck, Roy and Leon Kolankiewicz, "Weighing Sprawl Factors in Large U.S. Cities," NumbersUSA, March 2001.
Gary Wisby, "Illinois Emissions Top 99 Countries' Combined," Chicago Sun-Times, September 5, 2002.
American Lung Association, "State of the Air 2010."
Report Card for America's Infrastructure 2005," American Society of Civil Engineers.
The Road Information Project (TRIP), "Key Facts about Illinois' Surface Transportation System and Federal Funding," May 2010.
Texas Transportation Institute, "Urban Mobility Report 2009."
American Community Survey, 2008 Estimates, Custom Data Table.
The Road Information Project (TRIP), "Key Facts about Illinois' Surface Transportation System and Federal Funding," May 2010.
NEA, "Rankings and Estimates," 1999 and 2009 editions.
Kate N. Grossman, "Number of Crowded Schools Stays Same," Chicago Sun-Times, October 10, 2002.
American Community Survey, Three-Year Estimates 2006-2008. Data retrieved using ACS Custom Table tool.
Kids Count Data Center, which used 2008 American Community Survey Data.
Migration Information Source State Data (Migration Policy Institute)
Urban Institute, Children of Immigrants Data Tool.

Other Resources

State Local Reform Organizations

State Representatives Voting Record

Updated December 2011

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