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View Full Version : Drop in Illegal Immigration Numbers Inflames Activists (are we inflamed?)


Borderwatch
02-13-2010, 07:18 AM
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/drop-in-illegal-immigration-numbers-inflames-activists/19355942

Feb. 12) -- The population of illegal immigrants in the U.S. has fallen by 1 million in the past two years due to a combination of the recession and increased law enforcement, according to the latest estimate by the Department of Homeland Security. While activists largely agree that the influx of illegal immigrants is at a welcome ebb, some vehemently contest the accuracy of the agency's figures and remain bitterly divided on what impact they should have on the country's immigration policy going forward.

"I strongly disagree with the number of immigrants they say are living here," said Jim Gilchrist, president and founder of the Minuteman Project, a volunteer group of about 1,000 civilians who monitor the northern and southern borders of the continental U.S. for illegal crossings, which they then report to Border Patrol. "There's no credible way to way to tag and count them, and very few will admit to their illegal status, so it's all just a guesstimate at best."

To counter the Homeland Security estimate of 10.8 million illegal immigrants residing in the U.S. as of 2009, Gilchrist offered AOL News his own "guesstimate" of 30 million, which he said was based on older projections put forth by Time magazine and now-defunct banking firm Bear Stearns.

An activist on the opposite side of the immigration debate also questions official government counts.

"There are lots of scholars who do work on immigration, and nobody can give accurate figures," Kat Rodriguez, spokeswoman for immigrants advocacy group Coalicion de Derechos Humanos, told the Christian Science Monitor.

News media frequently confuse the number of illegal immigrants with the number of "apprehensions," a mistaken assumption since one person can be apprehended over and over again on different occasions, said Rodriguez, whose organization seeks to reduce what it sees as suffering among immigrants caused by the militarization of the border region.

Still others, including Shuya Ohno, a spokesperson for the National Immigration Forum -- the self-described "leading immigrant advocacy organization in the country" -- accepted the Homeland Security estimate at face value.

"The DHS figures are the most accurate," Ohno said in an interview with AOL News. "Most rational and apolitical academics put the number between 10 (million)and 12 million."

The full statistical methodology used to reach the estimates is described in the the latest Homeland Security report, which can be downloaded as a PDF from the agency's Web site.

No matter their opinion on the precise figures, activists largely agreed with Homeland Security that the rate of new illegal immigrants entering the country had slowed considerably following the economic meltdown in 2008.

"The reason for the decline is simple: fewer jobs," said Daily Finance's Jonathan Berr.

More contentious is the assertion by Homeland Security and other groups that the decline has as much to do with a corresponding increase in immigration law-enforcement resources made during the tail-end of the Bush administration.

As the Washington Times wrote: "After the last effort to pass an immigration bill failed in mid-2007, the Bush administration announced it would step up enforcement, including high-profile raids and granting powers to enforce immigration laws to some state and local police departments."

Since the election of President Barack Obama, an additional $30 million has been designated toward increasing security on the U.S. southwestern border, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has emphatically asserted that the new administration has taken a different tack than its predecessor, narrowing the focus of joint law enforcement efforts on apprehending "dangerous criminal aliens" as opposed to pursuing those who have committed minor offenses.

The new approach has disappointed both border-control and amnesty-minded groups.

"At a time when enforcement was beginning to pay dividends, the Obama administration has curtailed many aspects of enforcement -- particularly in the workplace," Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform told the Christian Science Monitor. FAIR is a nonprofit citizens' organization that seeks to "improve border security, to stop illegal immigration, and to promote immigration levels consistent with the national interest."

On the contrary, assert some advocates, Obama has taken a stricter and less humane stance on immigration than his predecessor.

"As a Latina, I am fed up with President Obama's lack of leadership on immigration reform," Ana Perez wrote in The Progressive magazine. "More immigrants have been deported in Obama's first year than in the last year of the Bush administration. Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano have found a behind-the-scenes strategy to get rid of immigrants. They have the immigration agency comb through local jails and place deportation holds on anyone suspected of being undocumented."

Still, one thing all activists maintain is that the decrease in the population of unauthorized residents affords the country the best opportunity to correct massive problems with U.S. immigration policy. It might be the last chance to do so before a resurgent economy again raises the incentive for people to immigrate illegally en masse.

"What this affords us is a great opportunity to fix the immigration system now," Ohno told AOL News. "Illegal crossing of the border is at its lowest point in 40 years. Just like we wouldn't want to fix a bridge during rush hour, we should take the same consideration with the country's immigration system."

He and his organization, the National Immigration Forum, support a "common sense" approach to allow immigrants who are currently classified as illegal to come forward, pay a fine and get to the back of the line for citizenship requests without fear of being deported.

"I'm saying let's force the debate on this issue and solve the problem," said Minuteman President Gilchrist. "Let's bring left, right and the political center together to make sure immigration is a process that occurs lawfully, according to our Founding Fathers. My main concern is that we might have another million illegal aliens who will come here shortly and stay, and not respect our rule of laws."

Gilchrist wants immigration laws currently on the books to be enforced emphatically, which he believes would require the repatriation of millions of illegal immigrants currently in the U.S.
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