Illegal immigration to Mexico

Illegal immigration in Mexico has occurred at various times throughout history, especially in the 1830s and since the 1970s. Although the number of deportations is declining with 61,034 registered cases in 2011, the Mexican government documented over 200,000 illegal border crossings in 2004 and 2005. The largest source of illegal immigrants in Mexico are the impoverished Central American countries of Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, and El Salvador and African countries like Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Guinea, Ghana and Nigeria. The largest single group of immigrants in Mexico is from the United States, at 1.5 million, many of whom overstay their visas. Americans are the largest group of immigrants in Mexico. They number 1.5 million, many of them being without legal status since they overstayed their visas.