MEXICO CITY – Mexico says 11.8 million of its citizens now live in the United States.

Immigration official Ana Teresa Aranda says some 580,000 Mexican nationals emigrate each year.

She told an immigration forum Wednesday that 98 percent of Mexicans who live abroad reside in the United States, and 21.5 percent of those have U.S. citizenship.

Mexico has a long tradition of emigration to the U.S., although illegal crossings have slowed in recent years.

Some 85 percent of all immigrants working in U.S. agriculture and fishing are Mexican, along with 56 percent of those who work in construction and maintenance.