[txrangerette]

There are tens of millions of illegal immigrants here. They came over many, many years, through every administration. No, there was no 9-ll during those long years of neglect and malfeasance by every US administration and every Congress, but there was no more excuse then than there is the past 8 years. But you in your over the top anti-everything Bush - even the entire Bush family - say President Bush alone has allowed tens of millions of illegal border crossings in his 7 years.

[DoughtyOne]

There are tens of millions of illegal immigrants here. They came over many, many years, through every administration. No, there was no 9-ll during those long years of neglect and malfeasance by every US administration and every Congress, but there was no more excuse then than there is the past 8 years. But you in your over the top anti-everything Bush - even the entire Bush family - say President Bush alone has allowed tens of millions of illegal border crossings in his 7 years.

The slate was clean in 1990 as the 1986 amnesty program wrapped up.  It had been approximately thirty years since the immigration situation had been addressed, when Reagan did it in 1986.   They had only expected 1.5 million to sign up, but by the time they were done, 3.5 million people took advantage of the situation to become U.S. Citizens.  For the record, 3.5 million divided by 30 years is about 116,000 per year.

By the 2000 census, it was claimed there were around ten million illegal immigrants inside our nation.  Around 2005 Time magazine ran an extensive article on illegal immigration.  In the article it claimed it's staff had determined 3.5 million illegal immigrants were entering the United States each year.  I strongly disagree with that figure.

I believe there were somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5 million illegal immigrants entering our nation during the 2000 to 2008 time frame.  Nobody knows for sure.  All we have are best guesses.  The fact that these people are undocumented makes it clear we just don't know how many are coming across.

If we take the low number of 1.5 million per year, in eight years that comes to 12 million.  If we use the higher number, it comes to 20 million.  Add the approximate ten million that came over in the 90s, and you have somewhere between 22 million and 30 million.  It is interesting to note, thought not reliable IMO, that one hispanic leader claimed that the illegals had a lot of clout due to their numbers, which he estimated at about 50 million.  Well, I don't agree with that.  I do agree we have somewhere between 20 and 35 million illegals in the nation today.  I believe that there have been Middle-Easterners coming over the border as well as some Chinese and of course Central and South American people.  People from other nations are smuggled in via ships and some aircraft.  And still others overstay their visas.

We can dismiss the climate we live in today if you like, but I don't believe you think we live in the same world as we did in the 70s through the 90s.  We have a terrorist threat in our homeland today, that simply wasn't there before.  Look, I took Clinton to task on this matter constantly in the 90s.  I have taken Bush to task for it since 2000.  I have been even-handed with both.