Groups at Odds Over Number of Illegal Immigrants in U.S.

By Eunice Moscoso, The News & Observer & The Austin American-Statesman

WASHINGTON – How many illegal immigrants are there in the United States? It depends on whom you ask and when you ask it.

The Department of Homeland Security calculates about 11.6 million, and the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, estimates about 12 million. The Urban Institute, a think tank that focuses on minority issues, thinks it’s a slightly lower figure, about 10 million.

Meanwhile, the global investment firm Bear Stearns stunned many people a couple of years ago with an analysis that put the figure as high as 20 million, based in part on remittances sent back to home countries.

Groups seeking stronger immigration enforcement think most calculations are woefully low.

Californians for Population Stabilization, which contends that high levels of immigration are ruining that state’s quality of life, released a report last week with studies that estimated there are between 20 million and 38 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

Immigration advocates and Hispanic groups say those estimates are intended to stoke opposition to illegal immigration.

Cecilia Munoz, vice president for policy at the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic civil rights group, said inflated calculations start to appear when the immigration issue stirs up in Congress.

"The estimates of the undocumented population have always been fodder for scare tactics," she said. "Now that we’re back in the land of the hysterical debates, people are throwing around crazy numbers."

Munoz argues that there is a simple way to make accurate calculations of this population. Her group takes the total number of foreign-born people in the United States counted by the census and subtracts the total number of legal immigrants and naturalized citizens, she said. The census does not ask people their legal status.

Jeffrey S. Passel, a senior research associate at the Pew Hispanic Center who specializes in the Latino population, says his estimate of about 12 million illegal immigrants includes an adjustment for those not counted by the census and is backed by comparisons with the number of immigrant children in schools, the number of housing units in the country and the number of people in the work force.

Some say that the main data used in many estimates — the census figures — can’t be trusted because they are based on voluntary information and because illegal immigrants are often afraid to come forward or have no motivation to provide accurate figures.

Diana Hull, president of Californians for Population Stabilization, said that in Santa Barbara, for example, families of 20 to 30 illegal immigrants live in two- or three-bedroom homes and would have no reason to give accurate information to the census.

"Why in the world would they even answer the question, or why would they tell you they’re in violation of all the residential planning rules?" she said.

The highest estimate in the Californians’ report is by James Walsh, a former associate general counsel of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which was split into several agencies under the Department of Homeland Security.

Walsh says there are 38 million illegal immigrants in the United States. His total is based on an assumption that three illegal immigrants succeed in entering the United States for every one caught.