Wrong. For years they said 2 - 3 million, tops. The government kept downplaying it for a variety of reasons, none good.
It's probably more like 15 million. Headed for 50 million.
Figure it this way: Mexico's social and political institutions can't support any more than about 35 - 40 million in any kind of reasonable comfort. Those people will live in a country essentially trapped, technologically, in about 1940. Their country is always between 50 and 100 years behind, depending on the social sector you look at.
But the problem is that they have over 100 million. 120 million if you count the overflow here. So about half their population is marginalized - so what can they do?
1. Social change for the better -- never happen, at least not peacefully. Mexican upper class will not stand for it.
2. They leave, come to the U.S. -- Two problems solved for Mexican upper class: revolutionary threat and lack of influence over U.S. politics. They get the latter because the emigre's still have emotional attachment to overtures from SOB's they left behind.
That's the reality. Over 10 million, tens of millions yet to come....unless they get stopped.
And if they don't get stopped, your kids ain't gonna live in the U. S. of A.
Seems like I remember the high numbers in old CIS/FAIR reports. Don't have time to dig them up and I could be wrong. But I have NEVER heard anything as low (and laughable) as "2 - 3 million, tops".