padremike wrote:
Several times recently I have posted the cost broken down in a dozen different categories with the supporting government documentation on cost. Actually, it was over $300 Billion. All that you require from yourself is to say "I simply don't believe it" and thereafter it is no longer true or of importance or consequence. Obviously the American angel mom's, dad's, wives etc, mean "nada" to you. You still have not explained why you want millions of criminal illegal aliens invading my sovereign nation many of whom have murdered thousands of our citizens, killed thousands more, raped, robbed and mugged many thousands more. What is their value to you that allows 25 million of them illegally to live in America? Is it, by chance, the prize of another new forced diversity effort?
Several times recently I have posted the cost brok... (
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How many immigrants are living in the U.S. illegally?
There were 12.1 million immigrants living in the country illegally as of January 2014, according to the most recent estimate from the Department of Homeland Security. The estimates from two independent groups are similar: The Pew Research Center estimates the number at 11.1 million in 2014, and the Center for Migration Studies says there were 11 million people in 2015 living in the U.S. illegally.
That would be about 3.5 percent to 3.8 percent of the total U.S. population in 2014.
All three groups use Census Bureau data on the foreign-born or noncitizens and adjust to subtract the legal immigrant population. And all three groups say the population of immigrants living in the country illegally has been relatively stable since about 2008-2009.
DHS estimated that the population had increased by 500,000 people total from 2010 to 2014, which “reflects relative stability,” especially when compared with 500,000-person increases each year on average from 2000 to 2007.
The Pew Research Center found a peak of 12.2 million in the population in 2007, decreases for 2008 and 2009, and then a “relative stability” since then.
All three groups find Mexicans make up the majority of the undocumented population — 55 percent in 2014, according to DHS — but the number and share of Mexicans among this population has been declining in recent years.
Those living in the country illegally also have increasingly been here for 10 years or more. DHS says more than 75 percent in 2014 have lived in the U.S. for more than a decade, and only 5 percent came to the country over the previous five years.
The Pew Research Center has slightly different figures, but they show the same trend. “This overall change has been fueled by the decline in new unauthorized immigrants,” it says, “especially those from Mexico.”
What are the facts behind the economic impact of immigrants? We checked Trump's figures with immigration and tax policy experts across the political spectrum,who said he was exaggerating, at best.
"That $200 billion figure does seem inflated to me," said Randy Capps, director for research for U.S. programs at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.
"A little high," said Robert Rector, a senior research fellow with the Heritage Foundation.
"It sounds extraordinarily high to me," said Meg Wiehe, deputy director at the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP).
"Frankly absurd," David Dyssegaard Kallick, the deputy director of the nonpartisan Fiscal Policy Institute, told NBC News.
IF TRUMP'S WRONG, WHAT'S THE TRUE COST?
Conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation have sought to put a price tag on illegal immigration amid lobbying efforts against legalization, but none have pegged it as high as Trump's estimate.
Rector said his 2013 estimate pegged the cost of undocumented immigrants — the cost of services received minus their tax contributions — was about $54 billion a year.
Fundamentally I think it’s the wrong question. The right question for undocumented immigrants and any group is, 'Are they paying their fair share of taxes and getting their fair share of service?'" Kallick said. "You’re talking about people who work for very low wages and are excluded from nearly all social services. It takes a real act of will to say they're exploiting us."