Does your stance change in any way if were taking about as many as 40 million illegals as opposed to 11 million?

What's the Real Number of Illegals in America?

Few things require a more willing suspension of common sense than a single statistic pounded into the heads of the public by corrupt progressives and their equally corrupt media collaborators. The Daily Signal columnist William Campenni gets right to the heart of the matter, explaining that a call to any journalist, pundit, anchor, strategist or lobbyist asking about the total number of illegals in this country and the source for that number yields two identical answers: 11 million illegals, sourced by the Pew Research Center. And where does Pew get its information? “An estimated 11.3 million unauthorized immigrants lived in the U.S. in 2014, according to a new preliminary Pew Research Center estimate based on government data,” their website states. “Government data” is shorthand for the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Census Bureau. In December 2003, DHS estimated between 8 million and 12 million illegal aliens resided in the United States—and that 700,000 more enter each year and remain here. Writing for the Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform, Fred Elbel highlights the absurdity of those stats. “As of 2014, those estimates have not changed for eleven years, even though the official annual increase alone would yield an (sic) corrected estimate of 15.7 million to 19.7 million illegal aliens today (not adjusting for Obama’s unconstitutional 2014 executive amnesty),” he explains.

In other words, Americans are supposed to believe just as many illegals have died, or repatriated themselves as have snuck into the nation or overstayed their visas, for more than a decade. This despite three straight years of record-breaking border “surges” described by U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske as the “new normal;” a stand down order issued to U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents, who are being told to release illegals and no longer order them to appear at deportation hearings; and the reality that the Obama administration’s tracking of how many foreigners overstay their visas is non-existent, as revealed by assistant DHS secretary Alan Bersin during a recent congressional hearing. “How many visitors overstay their visas every year?” asked Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) “We don’t know,” Bersin replied. What we do know is that this week, the number of illegals has been officially raised: according to a new analysis of 2015 U.S. Census data, a record-setting 61 million immigrants and their American-born children reside in the U.S., of which 15.7 million are illegal aliens. Are those numbers accurate? Perhaps. But does anyone remember this is the same U.S. Census Bureau Obama ordered to work directly with the White House prior to the 2010 tabulation? That move was described as a “shamefully transparent attempt by your administration to politicize the Census Bureau and manipulate the 2010 Census,” by House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform members Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) in a letter to the president.

Even if the Bureau is less politicized, their tabulations remain suspect for the simplest of reasons: how many illegal aliens would willingly admit their illegality to a government census-taker? Other methodologies used to calculate the number of illegals, while attempting to remove the thumb of those with a vested interest in open borders and amnesty from the scales, come up with far more disturbing estimates. Estimates that conclude as many as 20 million to 40 million illegals “have evaded apprehension and live in the United States.” The estimates are based on a combination of analytical factors that include porous borders, the amount of remittances to one’s country of origin, school enrollment stats and building permits. Demographic expert Nancy Boulton, who has done extensive research on the issue, reveals a simple but sobering reality noting that if “even one person is successful for every apprehension, it implies over 1 million foreigners per year illegally cross our southern border.” And while there is no data on how many foreigners overstay their visas, “data from the Australian Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs indicate about 8 percent of those admitted to that country on temporary visas overstay their visa and about 86 percent of those overstay by a year or more. If just 1 percent of the 30 million admitted on temporary visas to the U.S. do not leave as they are required to, that adds another 300,000 foreigners illegally in the U.S. each year,” she adds. Boulton wrote those words in 2007. If they are accurate, approximately 10.8 million illegals have entered the U.S in the past eight years alone. So why the numbers game? “Well, professional and institutional reputations are invested heavily in the number, perhaps because with its longevity the public has become comfortable or apathetic,” writes Campenni. “Were it 20 million or more—a larger population than New York state—Americans might be getting really angry. Imagine the reaction if the media reported daily that this 20 million cohort, supplemented by chain migration and family reunification mandates, would swell to 40 million or 50 million in a decade.” We don’t have to imagine the reaction. Despite what is best characterized as the biggest media disinformation campaign in the history of the republic, millions of Americans are furious at the prospect at having their birthright sold out from under them by Democrats invested in cheap votes, and Republicans invested in wage-depressing labor. And make no mistake: since wide open borders and visa overstays directly affect the economy, national security and the ultimate character of the nation—one where the rule of law remains paramount, or one that devolves into a Third World banana republic—immigration is the issue in this election cycle. Thus it’s about time more than a few feckless politicians who favor “comprehensive immigration reform,” a “pathway to citizenship” or some other epithet used to disguise the real nature of what is going on were asked the simplest of questions: Does your stance change in any way if were taking about as many as 40 million illegals as opposed to 11 million? Inquiring American minds want to know.

Arnold Ahlert -- Bio and Archives Arnold Ahlert was an op-ed columist with the NY Post for eight years.

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