A noted immigration research group says it is concerned about the swelling population of illegal aliens in the United States, pointing out that at least some could be linked to terrorist organizations worldwide.
The Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies, said that last week, after making some statistical adjustments, the U.S. Census Bureau released a “troubling” figure showing that as many as 8 million immigrants could be in the country illegally.
“When the Census Bureau announced its decision last week concerning statistical adjustments to the 2000 Census, it also released, virtually unnoticed, its estimate that 8 million illegal aliens live in the United States,” the group said.
“This number, larger than might have been expected from earlier estimates by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, is especially troubling given the role failures in immigration control played in September’s terrorist attacks,” the center added in a statement released yesterday.
The center said the new statistics indicate that the illegal alien population in the U.S. grew by about a half-million each year during much of the 1990s – a decade dominated by Clinton administration immigration policies.
“We know this because a draft report given to the House immigration subcommittee by the INS estimated that the illegal population was 3.5 million in 1990,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the center.
For the illegal population to have reached 8 million by 2000, the net increase had to be 400,000 to 500,000 per year during the 1990s.
“Moreover,” the center said, “a net increase of this size implies that the total flow of new illegals entering each year must be more than 700,000, because the INS estimates that several hundred thousand illegals return home each year or receive legal status as part of the normal ‘legal’ immigration process.”
The revised Census Bureau figures also demonstrate that a number of other immigration policies touted as either successful or potentially successful by lawmakers and the Bush administration would not or are not working, the center said.
For instance, the center concluded that Census estimates “clearly demonstrate that amnesties don’t solve the problem of illegal immigration.”
“Although 2.7 million of the estimated 5 million illegal aliens living in the country in 1986 were given amnesty (legal permanent residence), the new estimates indicate that they have been entirely replaced by new illegal aliens and that by last year the illegal population was 3 million larger than before the last amnesty,” the center said.
Also, the center does not fault the INS, even though that is the agency charged with managing the nation’s borders and interdicting illegal immigrants. Rather, Krikorian and the center believe politics is to blame for the stout increase.
“…The problem lies with Congress and previous administrations, Democratic and Republican,” the center said. “All have failed to provide the money or political support the INS needed to enforce the ban on hiring illegals, to track down those who overstay their visas (as was the case with several of the [suspected Sept. 11] terrorists), and to adequately guard all parts of the nation’s land borders.”
“These new estimates have enormous implications for the security of our nation,” said Steven A. Camarota, director of research at the center. “If a Mexican day laborer can sneak across the border, so can an al-Qaida terrorist.”
Camarota acknowledged that the “vast majority” of illegal immigrants are not terrorists, but after the attacks in New York and the Pentagon – and in light of the ongoing mail-borne anthrax cases – lawmakers can’t be too careful.
“We can’t protect ourselves from terrorism without dealing with illegal immigration, and selective enforcement would be both immoral and ineffective,” Camarota said.
According to IRS Commissioner James Ziglar, at least three of the terrorists who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks were illegally in the United States. INS said it had no information on many of the others.
The sheer numbers of immigrants – legal and illegal – are overwhelming current U.S. capabilities to police national borders. The center said, quoting the Census Bureau, that the immigrant population more than tripled in size during the last three decades, from 9.6 million in 1970 to 31.1 million last year.
“No nation in history has ever attempted to incorporate and assimilate 31 million newcomers into its society,” Camarota said. “And the experiment is by no means over.
“If policy remains unchanged, at least 13 million legal and illegal immigrants will likely settle in the United States over the next ten years,” he said.
If you’d like to sound off on this issue, please take part in the WorldNetDaily poll.
