According to a new study, fewer immigrants from Mexicans are coming in from the U.S.-Mexico border based on the arrests made in 2014 by Border Patrol agents.

A new Pew Research Center study, which analyzed more than six decades worth of Border Patrol data, reveals more non-Mexicans were found to have been apprehended by Border Patrol agents in 2014 than Mexicans.

Official Border Patrol data from FY 2014 issued recently shows that there were 486,651 arrests made at the U.S.-Mexico border during that time, a 16 percent increase year-to-year from 2013. Of those arrests, 229,178 were Mexicans compared to the 257,473 other arrests made at the border, meaning that only 47 percent of those arrested at the border in the past year were from Mexico.

That number represents a large dip from 2000, when Mexican apprehension numbers by the Border Patrol peaked at a whopping 1.6 million. The number of Mexicans arrested at the border this year has not been as low since 1970, when roughly 219,000 Mexicans were caught by Border Patrol agents; in contrast, 12,000 arrests at the border that year were non-Mexican.

However, the study indicates that this is the first time since border arrests have been recorded that more non-Mexicans arrests have surpassed Mexican apprehensions. Part of that is attributed to the summer crisis of Central American migrant children who flooded the U.S. border without their parents, of which roughly 52,000 – originating from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras – were caught trying to enter the country.

Previous studies have indicated that the wave of immigrants heading without authorization into the U.S. from Mexico began to half and drop in 2012 after a steady and steep rise in those figures. Researchers have indicated that it was possible that fewer Mexicans were heading in from the border due to the weakened U.S. economy, declines in the housing and job markets, increased border security and higher numbers of deportations and declines in birth rates from Mexico.

However, while fewer Mexicans are crossing the border, Pew Researchers projected that Mexicans still make up roughly 52 percent, or 5.9 million, of the undocumented immigration populace in the U.S.

According to the Migration Policy Institute, Mexican immigrants have been the nation's largest national origin group since 1980. Furthermore, Mexican immigrants living in the U.S. – projected by the 2012 U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey to be at 11.6 million – make up 28 percent of the nation's 41.3 million-strong immigrant community.