Posted on 10/28/2020 3:10:34 PM PDT by Kaslin
In the final presidential debate, former Vice President Joe Biden promised that, if elected, he will create “a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented people.” While most of the pundits focused on how such a massive amnesty would impact America, there is also much disagreement surrounding the question of how many illegal aliens actually reside in the country. So where did Biden get his “11 million [illegal aliens]” figure? And is it accurate?
To answer those questions, we must first consider how experts calculate estimates for how many illegal aliens currently reside in the United States. The answer is, “it’s complicated.” Obviously, there is no running database of this cohort kept by the federal government, so the figures must be stitched together by sorting through other immigration-related data sources.
There are three primary steps to this process. The first is to determine how many foreign-born individuals currently live in the United States. Second, it must be determined what percentage of those foreign-born are lawfully present migrants. Finally, the total number of lawfully present individuals in the United States is subtracted from the total number of foreign-born residents (excluding citizens born abroad). The difference is assumed to be the base figure for an illegal alien population estimate. Most of the data needed to complete this process is available from an array of different federal government agencies, such as the Census Bureau or Department of Homeland Security.
But it doesn’t stop there, and this is where things get tricky. Every credible statistician acknowledges that many illegal aliens refuse to answer census-related surveys out of a desire to have no contact with the federal government. However, there is now significant disagreement as to how many avoid these surveys. In the past, during a now-lost time when both Republicans and Democrats agreed that illegal immigration was a significant issue, experts agreed that this undercount was probably between 25-35 percent. So, if a raw estimate was right around 10 million, the true population was probably somewhere between 12-14 million.
However, as the political climate surrounding illegal immigration became more polarized, many left-leaning organizations began reducing their assumptions of how many illegal aliens avoided participating in census surveys. Over time, many of these were reduced from as high as 35 percent down to as low as 5 percent today. The half-hearted defense offered for these changes is that these groups believe the ACS is becoming more accurate at incorporating illegal aliens into their annual surveys. However, there is no evidence to back up this claim.
This is where estimates from some organizations, such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), depart from many of the more partisan left-wing outfits. FAIR continues to account for the well-established fact that many illegal aliens actively avoid partaking in federal census surveys. By accounting for this, FAIR estimated in 2019 that there were 14.3 million illegal aliens in the United States. That’s approximately 3 million more than the figure that Joe Biden continues to tout.
By contrast, the Pew Research Center (which continues to tweak their methodologies in a manner that yields lower results) believes there are only 10.5 million illegal aliens residing in the United States. That figure is at least 500,000 lower than what the Biden camp claims.
In fact, the only reputable organization that has an estimate which falls in the 11 million range is from the Migration Policy Institute (MPI). However, in addition to employing some of the same statistically questionably tactics as Pew, their estimate is significantly outdated.
So, there is no contemporary data that supports Biden’s claim that there are only 11 million illegal aliens currently residing in the United States. In fact, in 2015, his own administration acknowledged that the real figure was at least 12 million. That figure is on par with FAIR’s estimates at that time, and considerably higher than those by MPI and Pew.
Creating an accurate estimate of the illegal alien population is important. For example, if the Biden administration intends to extend amnesty to all illegal aliens, the difference between 11 million and 14.3 million individuals would have a massive impact on future legal migration. Those who receive amnesty could then in turn sponsor the lawful migration of family members who still live abroad. According to the federal government, each immigrant to the United States, on average, sponsors three to four additional family members for green cards.
Americans deserve to know exactly how a candidate’s platform will impact their lives and the future of this country. And Joe Biden’s botched illegal alien population claims fails to do that.
The immeasurable is not known and will never be known
Between 30 & 40 million.
I too, have heard that 11 million figure for 40 years.
Heck, I bet that 11 million of them are voting in our elections.
“I find it fascinating that we killed a whole bunch of natural born Americans and replaced that population with other country’s rejects”
The Greatest Crime in Human history.
60 million Americans never born because they were aborted.
The Ruling Class kept screaming about Overpopulation, scarce resources, it’s too expensive to have kids...but it was just fine to let in (amazingly) just about that many people from the S**thole country next door.
Humanity will never forgive this massive crime. The next time there is a world war...probably next week, caused by China...who ya gonna call?
The New Mexican Army, cross dressing as “The Americans”?
The Red Chinese and the Speznatz forces won’t be able to stop laughing.
Right after they slaughter them.
Yeah, and imagine the difference between 11 million and the probable number of 30 million!
At least....
And if Harris wins and the Republican Governors don’t stand up to her and the Fed’s, every one of them is a citizen on Day One and millions more will be flooding the country. I’d like to say that the fact that none of them have a job skill is an important aspect. But even that won’t matter. They will simply overwhelm this country in sheer numbers by the 100’s of thousands. As fast as they can get here.
And all the while all those upper middle class, liberal, WHITE, hipsters that occupy their WHITE liberal, hipster neighborhoods and thing they’re better than everyone and their affluence will keep them insulated from their liberal ideology, will quickly learn a painful and expensive lesson. One that there isn’t any coming back from, short of violence.
“Three and more decades ago, actually”
___________
I don’t doubt it and I absolutely can believe it. I started paying attention two decades ago and it was 11 million then. People told me then that the number was an understatement. I looked into entry numbers a few weeks ago and located data that estimated 700,000 to 1.4M depending on the year and they validated with Info on remittances, etc, to show the “official” numbers had been deliberately understated. Cheap labor express, of course.
All of them
Until they are wanted by the authorities for some crime and they skip out on bail then they return home
Years ago, the Pew Foundation estimated that we had over 70 million illegals in the U.S..............not 12-18 million
That sounds high, but they are in every town now.
FIFY
30 million.
The “11 million” number has been used for at least 30 years.
The bigger question is what percentage of young, breeding families are they? And that number is huge.
This author addressed this five years ago.
The facts haven’t changed since (nor has the number of 11 million).
Worth a read:
https://www.dailysignal.com/2015/12/27/you-only-think-you-know-how-many-illegal-immigrants-live-in-the-us/
IF ICED were really serious about finding the illegals-—staking out every Western Union location would round up plenty of them.
Western Union has added Dollar Store to that roster. I am NOT happy with Dollar Store for doing this.
IMO-—You DO NOT need a Western Union location to transfer $$$$ out of the country if you DO NOT have an illegal problem.
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