In a written statement to Human Events, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has conceded it cannot vouch for the accuracy of its claim that there are 314,000 immigration "absconders" in the United States. Absconders is the agency’s term for illegal aliens who have been ordered deported by immigration judges but who remain in the country anyway.
Statistics published by the Justice Department’s Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), which is independent of the INS, suggest that the number is far higher than the INS has claimed. Indeed, they indicate it is likely there were about 425,000 new absconders just in the five-year period from fiscal 1996 to fiscal 2000. And that number would exclude all absconders in the years before 1996, and all absconders since Oct. 1, 2000.
House Immigration Subcommittee Chairman George Gekas (R.-Pa.) told Human Events he now believes the number of absconders could run as high as one million.