Pew Research: Vast Majority of Illegals, 4-in-9 Legal Immigrants, Not English Proficient

The vast majority of illegal aliens and a sizeable portion of legal immigrants living in the United States are not proficient in the English language, a survey finds.

A Pew Research Center study finds that an overwhelming majority of the 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living in the U.S. do not define themselves as being proficient in English. Despite a slight uptick in the number of illegal aliens who claim they are English proficient, still only about 34 percent said they are proficient in English.

Likewise, only about 57 percent of legal immigrants — that is, legal foreign-born residents whom the federal government has admitted to the country — are proficient in English, according to the Pew Research study.

Illegal aliens arriving to the U.S. from Mexico, Northern Triangle countries, and other parts of Latin America have exceptionally low English proficiency rates. For example, only about 25 percent of illegal aliens from Mexico said they were English proficient.

Similarly, only 22 percent of illegal aliens from the Northern Triangle said they were proficient in English, as well a minority of 43 percent of illegal aliens from other Latin American countries.

Overall, Pew Research estimates that only about 3.4 million illegal aliens of the entire illegal alien population said they were English proficient.

As Breitbart News has chronicled, foreign language-speakers have increasingly made up the U.S. population, forcing Americans to adapt in their day-to-day lives and work environment to non-English atmospheres.

For example, nearly half of all residents in the country’s biggest cities speak a foreign language at home, according to research by the Center for Immigration Studies.

Every year, a new flow of illegal aliens either cross the U.S.-Mexico border or overstay their visas and compete against the majority of working and middle class Americans for oftentimes entry-level and generally lower wage jobs. Americans are not only subjected to this illegal labor market competition but also must compete against an additional 1.2 million legal immigrants who are admitted to the U.S. annually.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.