Tales from the Trail

President Barack Obama has done his civic duty and filled out his Census form, and in doing so confirmed that he is, indeed, the first African-American U.S. president.

Obama checked African-American on the form when he filled it out, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said. And he did it without giving it a great deal of thought.

“I think he just checked it,” Gibbs told reporters during a briefing in his office at the White House on Friday.

The United States conducts a Census every 10 years, asking every household in the country to fill out a 10-question form. Participants are asked to provide contact information and to check whatever box or boxes they believe best describe their race. There is no box for mixed race. Obama, the son of a white U.S.-born mother and black Kenyan father, could have checked the box for white, the one for  ”black, African Am. or negro” or both.

Picture Credit: U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about jobs and the economy during a visit to Celgard Inc. in Charlotte, North Carolina, April 2, 2010. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

The number of illegal immigrants living and working in the shadows in the United States dropped to 10.8 million in January last year, from a high of 11.8 million two years earlier, as the U.S. economy faltered, according to a U.S. government report.

The study by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which was released earlier this month, found that the “number of unauthorized residents declined by 1.0 million between 2007 and 2009, coincident with the U.S. economic downturn.”

The report, which drew on DHS and Census Bureau figures, found that unauthorized immigrants from Mexico accounted for 6.7 million of the total, followed by 530,000 migrants from El Salvador, 480,000 from Guatemala and 320,000 from Honduras.