Declining Enforcement a Likely Contributor to Growing Illegal Population

Center for Immigration Studies — Amnesty proponents will bravely spin the new Pew Hispanic Center report showing increasing illegal immigration as evidence that enforcement doesn’t work, as if the Obama administration has actually made an effort to enforce immigration laws. Unfortunately, internal ICE statistics show otherwise. The upward trend in the size of the illegal population is more likely at least partially the result of a significant decline in enforcement, especially in the interior, where we notice it the most. Internal ICE statistics show that the number of aliens expelled from the interior of the country declined by 20 percent from 2010 to 2012. Removals and returns are on track to decline another 20 percent in 2013.

The New York Times played its part in packaging this news by including in its coverage of the Pew Hispanic Center study a reminder of the administration’s manufactured deportation numbers:

“The new estimates . . . show that the population of immigrants here illegally did not decline significantly from 2009 to 2012. That result occurred despite record numbers of deportations by the Obama administration — about 400,000 each year — and laws to crack down on illegal immigration in such states as Alabama, Arizona, and Georgia.”

It’s kind of interesting how the NYT copy editors choose the long way of expressing things; for instance, saying “did not decline” instead of “went up” and “immigrants here illegally” instead of the more accurate “illegal aliens”… [Read More]