Understanding the U.S. Immigrant Experience: The 2023 KFF/LA Times Survey of Immigrants
Findings
Supplemental to the Survey of Immigrants, KFF also conducted a representative survey of 1,049 U.S.-born adults. to compare the immigrant and native-born experience. KFF/LA Times Survey of Immigrants: U.S. Born Adult Comparison (June 29 – July 9, 2023).
The estimate of the total number of noncitizens in the US is based on the 2021 American Community Survey (ACS) 1-year Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS). The ACS data do not directly indicate whether an immigrant is lawfully present or not. We draw on the methods underlying the 2013 analysis by the State Health Access Data Assistance Center (SHADAC) and the recommendations made by Van Hook et. al.1,2 This approach uses the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to develop a model that predicts immigration status; it then applies the model to ACS, controlling to state-level estimates of total undocumented population from Pew Research Center. For more detail on the immigration imputation used in this analysis, see the Technical Appendix B.