Last week I was notified about a study done by Steven A. Camarota and Karen Jensenius of the Center for Immigration Studies which claimed that in the last year the population of illegal immigrants has declined about 10 percent nationwide. And while stepped-up enforcement got some of the credit, this drop was moreso simply because of a stagnant economy – there’s fewer jobs that Americans will do so the number Americans won’t do dropped as well.
To come up with their findings, the CIS duo used Census data along with information on other areas like cross-border remittances, incarceration data, and even school enrollment. The study itself is well-documented with several charts and graphs to show the trends in various areas.
But one weakness of this report is the glaring omission of state-by-state numbers. What piqued my interest in looking this over was whether the illegal immigrant population decline was spread among all 50 states, or concentrated in areas which have gotten tough on illegals over the last few months like Arizona and Oklahoma. Conversely, I wanted to know if the safe-haven laws in force in other states have contributed to increasing their illegal population despite the overall trend. (Obviously I was really interested in Maryland’s numbers given the ease which illegals can acquire a driver’s license. It’s my belief we’re among the most magnetic of states for these undocumented workers.)
Another interesting sidebar of their findings is that the illegal population rose sharply during the debate over the amnesty bill proposed by, among others, Senator John McCain. Apparently the newcomers were hoping against hope that they could be legitimized by the bill but once the measure died many decided to head back home.
Regardless of its main flaw of not having state-by-state information, as background material the study by Camarota and Jensenius is good for showing a trend that could accelerate if other states would be more aggressive in addressing the problem. Since no one really wants to maintain a stagnant economy for the long term, perhaps an approach that discourages illegals from even bothering to come is the best one. Speaking for myself, I have no problem whatsoever with those who wish to make a better life for themselves in America, I just want them to go about it in the proper manner and (especially) learn the language!
Since you say you want people to come here in the proper manner, I assume you support reforming our current laws to make it easier for those from, say, Mexico who want to come here to work and those here who want to employ these workers to connect up, right? The only reason these illegal immigrants are coming here illegally is because our laws make it so difficult for them to come here legally. Reform the system and you’ll see a reduction in those who sneak in. People want to work and others want to employ them — as a Republican you should be in favor of reducing government barriers that prevent this from happening.
And as far as them learning our language, Latino immigrants (whether illegal or legal) are learning the language at the same rate as past immigrants. I’m sure that when the first Swartz landed on these shores there were plenty of citizens who looked down their noses at him and wished he’d “learn the language!” The first generation of any immigrant class almost always speaks mainly in its first language. The second generation is bilingual and the third generation speaks only English. It’s been that way whether we are talking about Germans, Italians, Poles, Chinese, or Mexicans. Since we generally notice first-generation immigrants from Mexico now, we forget our history and somehow think they are different from past immigrants.