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Friday, March 16, 2001

The Immigration and Naturalization Service had figured the number of illegal aliens as 6 million. Scholars at Boston's Northeastern University are now suggesting that the actual number might run as high as 13 million.

Several facts point toward there being far more illegals than had been previously admitted. A year ago, the Census Bureau expected to count about 275 million residents of the United States on Census Day, April 1, 2000. Instead, it found 281.4 million.

This, by the way, is an unadjusted number based on the raw count. The Census Bureau thinks it might have missed counting between 0.96 percent and 1.40 percent of the population, as many as 4 million people. A sizable fraction of the undercount would consist of people, such as illegal aliens, who don't want the government to find them. The Northeastern economists think even the Census Bureau's adjusted figure would be too low. So, the population of America remains a mystery.

The bureau found it had particularly underestimated the number of Hispanics. In March 2000, the bureau claimed, "In 2000, 32.8 million Latinos resided in the United States." Yet, after compiling the Census data, it had changed its tune: "According to Census 2000 ... 35.3 million, or about 13 percent, were Latino." In other words, the rigorous Census 2000 search had found 8 percent more Hispanics than the government's more spotty annual estimates had turned up.

Demographers had long been predicting that the Hispanic total would catch up with that of blacks by the middle of this decade. Instead, the two groups appear to be virtually equal in numbers already.

Experts found this new view of illegal immigration quite plausible. For example, demographer William H. Frey of the University of Michigan and the Milken Institute, noted: "This surprising data from the 2000 Census has provided proof positive of why we have a census. All the estimates based on samples were too low. A census where you go out and look for everybody is a much better way of doing it."

Frey added, "It would be great to do a census every five years." The Constitution mandates a census every 10 years.

Northeastern University researchers Andrew Sum, Neeta Fogg and Paul Harrington have been researching for some time another anomaly. From 1994 to 2000, U.S. businesses reported creating 5.2 million more jobs than U.S. workers had been reporting obtaining. They believe this discrepancy largely stems from illegal aliens who wish to avoid coming to the government's attention. This would suggest that the annual increase in illegal aliens is between 500,000 and 1 million. That would be about the same as the net number of legal immigrants each year.

What remains unclear is whether illegal immigration has soared recently, or if the 2000 Census just proved a lot better at counting illegals than previous attempts.

The Northeastern study suggests that the number of illegals did grow rapidly in the 1990s, probably driven by the Mexican economic collapse of 1995 and the U.S. boom of the last few years.

On the other hand, the 2000 Census does appear to have done a better job of finding illegal residents. Widespread complaints by Hispanic and black leaders that the 1990 Census missed sizable numbers of minorities have led to strong efforts being made by the bureau to reduce the undercount in 2000. The census appears to have been more accurate at counting Hispanics, who make up the majority of illegal aliens, than in 1990. The bureau estimates that in 1990, it missed 5 percent of Hispanics.

In contrast, this year it expects to miss only between 2.2 percent and 3.5 percent. Of course, it is possible that it missed far more Hispanics in 1990 than even its follow-up surveys found.

Dan Stein, executive director of an anti-immigration campaign, Federation for American Immigration Reform, stated, "The Northeastern study places the figure at nearly double any previous estimate of the size of the illegal population, indicating gross incompetence on the part of the government agencies charged with enforcing immigration laws."

The new estimates of illegal immigration have important implications for long-term population growth. Last year, the Census Bureau estimated that America's population would grow to 571 million in 2100, with the number of Hispanics growing to 190 million. But these figures may now have to be looked at again, because they seem to have been based on an underestimate of the actual population and an underestimate of illegal immigration.

If the number of illegal aliens is now 13 million, as estimated by Northeastern demographer Paul Harrington, instead of the 6 million estimated by the INS, then any new amnesty for illegals, which Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, D-Ill., and the pro-Democrat labor federation AFL-CIO are calling for, would have a much more sizable effect than previously assumed.

The INS has estimated that about 40 percent of illegal aliens live in California. Of course, these figures, like all estimates about illegal aliens, are now open to question.

Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved.

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