How many illegal immigrants are there?

Its a fair question, especially since so much of the debate about what to do with the illegal immigrants that are here already. I've been hearing 12 million a lot lately, but how do they know? We are in fact talking about "undocumented" people--people off the grid, so where are we getting this number from?

A CNN article in 2003 touted an estimate of 7 million, up from 5.8 million in 1996. The estimates came from A Department of Homeland Security executive summary that used census data from 2000 to produce the number and the estimate that illegal migrants were coming across the borders at a rate of 350,000 a year.

For the 12 million number being bandied about, illegal immigration would have had to triple between 2000 and 2005, for a rate of one million illegals coming across the borders every year? I find that not just unlikely, but ridiculous.

What would account for this massive increase?

A Washington Post article from a year ago states that illegal immigration is increasing, but offers no support for the view except that Mexican illegals are being found in states where they previously had not been found in significant numbers.

Not only is the premise suspect, but the numbers that they do quote are just wrong.

Based on Census Bureau and other government data, the Pew Hispanic Center, a private research group in Washington, estimated the number of undocumented immigrants at 10.3 million as of last March, an increase of 23 percent from the 8.4 million estimate in 2000. More than 50 percent of that growth was attributable to Mexican nationals living illegally in the United States, the report said.

Perhaps this is just another example of Pew Research engaged in deliberate fraud, but the 8.4 million estimate is not supported by the INS or U.S. census bureau which is broken down as 5.5 million illegals came to this country during the entire decade of the 1990s, with an additional 1.5 million residual immigrants who came in the 1980s.

The implication of this is remarkable--the Pew Hispanic Center and others are suggesting that rate of illegal immigration doubled since the 90s in the midst of an era that featured enhanced post-9/11 viligance and an economy that has been recovering from a recession that started in 1999/2000, took a huge hit in 2001 and has only now reached the employment level peaks of the 90s.

I smell a rat.

Clearly it is in the interest of the pro-illegal lobby to inflate the number of illegals in this country, but we're fools if we buy it. If I were to guess, and why shouldn't I since everybody else seems to be, the rate of illegal immigration to this country could have at best remained steady and in all likelyhood declined. When the economy was booming in the late nineties and the Clinton administration had no intent of doing anything more than token patrol of the border, the rate of immigration was probably at its high water mark..

Even at a rate of 300K a year, the current number of resident illegals would be 8.5 million, not 10, 11 or 12 million. I actually suspect that the rate declined and that there are probably only about 8 million or so in the country. We may even have seen a net negative in-flow. Americans don't realize that most immigrants, particularly Mexicans, don't see their stay in the U.S. as permanent. Over the years I've spoken with many of them, both in Mexico and the U.S. and they see their stay in the U.S. as a way to get ahead, to put enough money away to build a hacienda or accumulate enough capital for a business venture in Mexico. Mexicans naturally prefer Mexico, which shouldn't be all that surprising. Those that do stay, often don't start out with that in mind--they get married, have children and find themselves with a life here, and little reason to go back. Paradoxically, the services we offer freely to illegals--education, medical, etc... make it attractive to stay, in spite of the call of their native culture.

Their is an incredible duality in our immigration policy--we make legal immigration hard, and illegal immigration easy. I have to disagree with the point that the problem with illegals is that they are illegal. Is something really illegal when its barely enforced and almost never punished? I can think of a dozen "illegal" things that people do routinely because if enforced at all, it is done so haphazardly that it is largely meaningly--how many of you routinely go 10-20 miles over the "speed limit"?

Frankly the disincentive to speed is actually greater than the disincentive to immigrate illicitly because at least you get a fine when you get caught speeding. If you get caught entering this country illegally, you go home, and if you are well past the border, then you get a hearing and are free on your own recognizance.

Contrast this with one of my neighbors who had to work for two years and spend many hundreds of dollars to bring her mother over from Canada.

Its a crazy system, and intentionally so. We've been sold out by the politicians yet again.