I take issue with that 11 million number. I heard that the number is more like 20 million illegals. There were 3 million in 1986 when the Immigration Reform and Control Act was passed supposedly to stop the illegal immigration problem. You do the math.
I'm sure that like in 1986, some ineffectual, feel-good immigration bill will be passed that will not even be enforced.
Here is a list from different sources with their guesses.
December 2003 -- President George W. Bush and then Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, used a figure of "8-12 million" illegal aliens. (No link.)
September 2004 -- a report (Who Left the Door Open?), in Time magazine used an estimation of 15 million illegals present in the U.S.
www.kfi640.com/time_dooropen.html.
October, 2004 -- in a one hour documentary (Immigrant Nation - Divided Country), CNN estimated that "7 – 20 million" people were "living in this country illegally".
Transcript: transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0410/17/cp.01.html
January 2005 -- an independent study of the underground economy by the Wall Street financial firm Bear Stearns (The Underground Labor Force is Rising to the Surface), produced estimates of 18-20 million illegal aliens present in the United States.
www.bearstearns.com/bscportal/pdfs/underground.pdf.
March 2, 2005 -- CNN's Lou Dobbs used a figure of "20 million" when discussing the number of illegal aliens on his broadcast "Lou Dobbs Tonight".
transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0503/02/ldt.01.html
April 11, 2005 -- Close to 11 million Mexicans live here – that's about 4 percent of the U.S. population, but nearly 10 percent of Mexico's.
lang.dailybulletin.com/socal/beyondborders/part_1_d2/041105_main.asp
September 9, 2005 -- About 11 million Mexicans live in the U.S., more than half illegally.
www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=71000001&refer=latin_america&sid=a36SJAt7Zwn4
January 6, 2006 -- There are approximately 11 million Mexicans in the United States... according to the Mexican government.
www.eluniversal.com.mx/miami/16528.html
"I'm sure that like in 1986, some ineffectual, feel-good immigration bill will be passed that will not even be enforced."
Your sadly correct, reason being is that the elites (on both sides of the political fence) don't care what the masses think. There are two kinds of governments in the world: The first kind, fortunately there aren't as many as there used to be, oppress their people. This is a fool's errand, and such governments fail sooner or later. The SECOND kind is smarter; this kind of government does not oppress its people, it merely IGNORES them, and largely does the bidding of elites and certain interest groups. This is what we have in the USA today--a representative republic that doesn't represent. You see it in illegal immigration policy, outsourcing, health insurance, even the war in Iraq. There is a cartoon "happy bunny" popular with young people who says insensitive things for a laugh. One of his catchphrases is "I know how you feel, I just don't care." This is the attitude of the US government (all 3 branches) and the American elite toward the population at large.