Another confirmation that enforcement works
posted at 3:40 pm on October 2, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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A new study by the Pew Hispanic Center shows a marked drop in illegal immigration into the United States. Legal immigration outpaced illegal immigration for the first time in a decade. The reason for the reduction? A combination of enforcement and limited economic possibilities:
The number of illegal immigrants entering the United States each year has dropped substantially since the first half of this decade, according to a study released today by the Pew Hispanic Center. A sluggish economy and stepped up enforcement of immigration laws could be behind the decline.
The study found that the number of illegal immigrants entering the United States each year has dropped from an average of 800,000 per year between 2000 and 2004 to 500,000 per year between 2005 and 2008.
By contrast, the inflow of immigrants who are legal permanent residents has remained relatively steady at about 650,000 per year, exceeding the number of illegal immigrant arrivals for the first time in a decade.
Improving economic conditions in home countries may also have contributed to the decline. Pew’s report stated that they could not be certain of these causes, but these changes in conditions certainly look more than coincidental.
This report provides yet more support for an enforcement policy for border control. The Bush administration has stepped up enforcement efforts, including employer verification requirements and more investigations into illegal operations involving workers using fraudulent documentation. The effect has been to make illegal immigration less attractive for both employers and workers, which has provided less of an incentive to cross the border.
We need more of this strategy in the future.
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I wonder how you accurately measure something that’s illegal?
hippie_chucker on October 2, 2008 at 3:44 PM
This should not come as a Muppet News Flash to anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together: Enforcment of the law leads to following the law. Why not let SF declare itself a sanctuary city to burglars and arsonists, and see what happens.
rmgraha on October 2, 2008 at 3:44 PM
As soon as we start building more homes they will all be back.
multiuseless on October 2, 2008 at 3:45 PM
Tru dat, playas.
That…….and “build the g-ddamn fence” while you are it, too.
Dr.Cwac.Cwac on October 2, 2008 at 3:45 PM
For emphasis.
*eats*
Grue in the Attic on October 2, 2008 at 3:46 PM
This is good news. Now how ’bout that fence, and not throwing into prison those who enforce the border?
Weight of Glory on October 2, 2008 at 3:47 PM
I saw on Lou Dobbs the other night that e-verify is set to expire next year and they don’t expect the e-verify program to be renewed. Please let everyone know about this.
luckybogey on October 2, 2008 at 3:47 PM
It’s funny how we can count them but we can’t stop them.
Cicero43 on October 2, 2008 at 3:49 PM
Easy. It goes something like this … wait … I’m just … pulling … something out …. of my pants.
AeroSpear on October 2, 2008 at 3:51 PM
As Newt said, send them all a Fedex package. Then we can find them.
lorien1973 on October 2, 2008 at 3:51 PM
Recessionmania!
Vincenzo on October 2, 2008 at 3:52 PM
These numbers are meaningless. President Obama has already given the wink and the nod to Hispanic groups that his administration (and by extension, a Dem controlled Congress) will not pursue any reform or controls that will keep future Democrat voters from the polls.
By next summer we will be talking about illegals living in homes the government is ‘holding’ onto until the can sell them at a higher price.
grdred944 on October 2, 2008 at 3:56 PM
Or it just might be the Rat and sinking ship thing kicking in…. just saying.
Buzzy on October 2, 2008 at 3:56 PM
The folks in S.F.are just about there. They don’t have laws , just suggestions.
Sanjoboy on October 2, 2008 at 3:56 PM
Don’t let the guard down. It is reports like this that will be used to try to tell us that illegal immigration is no longer a problem and we are ready for amnesty.
Mark1971 on October 2, 2008 at 3:57 PM
Answer? One word: land mines.
Akzed on October 2, 2008 at 3:57 PM
With the Dems in power and the possibility of Goofus and Dufus getting elected, we might actually see emigration if this trend is correct.
Hening on October 2, 2008 at 3:58 PM
I’ve got an idea for how to build the fence on the cheap.
Offer illegals a chance at a green card - but they have to:
A) Pass a quick criminal history check
B) Be drug free
and the kicker
C) Donate their labor to build the fence
The work gets overseen, and if they screw it up, toss em right back over the border. Muahahahaha!
TheUnrepentantGeek on October 2, 2008 at 3:58 PM
Ah, the Henry Paulson method of coming up with numbers.
rbj on October 2, 2008 at 3:58 PM
/facepalm
COUNTING FAIL.
TheUnrepentantGeek on October 2, 2008 at 3:59 PM
If we build a damn fence, when can save a lot of money on ICE and customs.
lodge on October 2, 2008 at 4:01 PM
You know what I mean.
Akzed on October 2, 2008 at 4:02 PM
I am not worried about amnesty being granted under an Obama presidency. I am more worried about enforcement measures not being pursued and the recent increase in raids being halted. We have had a Democratically controlled Congress and a President that supports amnesty for the past two years. They have not been able to get anything passed. The new Dems from swing districts are not going to let this be hung around their neck. The people still oppose this, and if anything will get them fired up is Obama pushing amnesty.
Mark1971 on October 2, 2008 at 4:03 PM
You know who this economy is really hurting? The illegals.
carbon_footprint on October 2, 2008 at 4:03 PM
It’s easy.
Equip a chopper with body heat sensors. Fly over city. Any dwelling that has more than 8 people in it is most likely an illegal immigrant hideout.
The illegal alien is a pack-minded creature….
leetpriest on October 2, 2008 at 4:03 PM
Housing boom is over. No more construction jobs and mortgages for illegals with no documentation of income.
rockmom on October 2, 2008 at 4:04 PM
The bottom dropping out of the housing market probably accounts for much of the reduction. No construction jobs.
RightOFLeft on October 2, 2008 at 4:04 PM
Read a good article in Forbes yesterday about privatization of PEMEX, Mexico’s national oil company. Forbes said tens of thousands of good paying jobs could keep Mexicans at home if they would only privatize PEMEX and oil exploration in MX. Whoever becomes president should push this. A growing and prosperous Mexico is what we need and it is the Mexican elite that keeps Mexico poor. Imagine that /sarc
DerKrieger on October 2, 2008 at 4:07 PM
Don’t forget the number of people who will start cutting their own grass.
DerKrieger on October 2, 2008 at 4:07 PM
Land mines, starving wolves, and those nifty autocannon from Aliens.
Job done.
LimeyGeek on October 2, 2008 at 4:07 PM
Has our country really hit such hard times that less and less people are trying to sneak into it? That’s sad really..
Bill Scrunty on October 2, 2008 at 4:07 PM
I still say the mortgage crisis was caused because of a pyramid scheme of selling to illegal immigrants. When the immigrants left, the mortgages didn’t get paid and jammed up the system.
Skywise on October 2, 2008 at 4:08 PM
They didn’t buy that many homes.
DerKrieger on October 2, 2008 at 4:10 PM
Illegals caused this economy.
They drove down wages. As wages fell, more and more people turned to credit cards to maintain even a modest lifestyle. High credit card balances eventually turned into variable-rate home-equity-line balances and teaser-rate ARM refinances.
Illegals built all the homes that sprang up during the boom and resulted in severe overbuilding in places like Las Vegas. Many of these homes would not have been built if the builders had had to pay market wages and benefits.
Banks who wanted to lend to illegals to fill their federally-mandated race quotas had to throw out all their lending standards. Pretty soon anyone could get a mortgage with little or no documentation of income or downpayment.
Mortgage brokers found out they could make more money on these no-doc loans (they carried higher interest rates and brokers’ compensation is tied to the rate n the loan) and started pushing them to everyone.
Then Fannie and Freddie started buying these loans. You know the rest of the story.
rockmom on October 2, 2008 at 4:13 PM
“Improving economic conditions in home countries may also have contributed to the decline.” Even Mexican jobs are going to China and India where they use children and pay them next to nothing. Jerome Corsi’s book The Late Great USA will clarify this for you, (BTW, he isn’t a 9/11 conspiracy theorist).
What Mark 1971 said…when you live in S. Cal you’re not allowed to believe your own eyes or experience; no way will I believe something that the Pew Hispanic Center says.
Christine on October 2, 2008 at 4:14 PM
800,000 down to 500,000.
Well there’s something to boast about! NOT.
How about this, build the f’king fence and get the number down to 10,000 or less. Lets not forget that that 500,000 per year adds up to another 10 million in ten years after they simply have two kids–low by their own standards.
Yeah great job.
patrick neid on October 2, 2008 at 4:14 PM
It will be interesting to see the waves and waves of folks crossing our borders illegally if the “One” is elected as President.
mindhacker on October 2, 2008 at 4:16 PM
That book was sitting on my parents’ shelf long before 9/11, if I’m thinking of the right one. If so, I should probably get around to reading it.
*eats*
Grue in the Attic on October 2, 2008 at 4:20 PM
In all seriousness, yep. That’s welcome news for the people of Mexico that their corrupt government is releasing its stranglehold on PEMEX. Unwelcome news if you’re an American business looking for a cheap source of labor.
RightOFLeft on October 2, 2008 at 4:20 PM
rockmom on October 2, 2008 at 4:13 PM: You hit it on the head!
I would also like to know how many of those bad loans were issued to illegal aliens…Bank of America and Wells Fargo were signing them up without IDs, but in the latter case, it didn’t affect WF (our bank) enough to bankrupt it.
Yes, WHERE’S THE FENCE!
Christine on October 2, 2008 at 4:21 PM
It’s unfortunate that to reduce the influx of illegal alien criminals into this country, the US has to turn into as big a sh_thole as Mexico is. And El Salvador is. And…
Spanglemaker on October 2, 2008 at 4:22 PM
What is the rationale for the e-verify ever to expire?
onlineanalyst on October 2, 2008 at 4:24 PM
They’re building “the fence”, as we speak, the one authorized in 2006.
If you want a 2000 mile long fence, that’s not going to ever happen, so we should be happy that more enforcement is working, and let’s have more of that.
And get them to privatize Pemex.
juliesa on October 2, 2008 at 4:26 PM
Wait a minute. I will parse just a bit: the Mexican ‘gov’t’ and the US gov’t are to blame for the credit crisis’ by allowing illegal immigration get to this point, not the majority of Mexican people. Knowing what most Mexicans have to deal with in their lawless system I can understand why they ignore our laws so that they are able to, not really prosper, but survive. They are often the present day slaves, unless they have a job with the drug cartels. That’s a completely different kettle of fish.
Christine on October 2, 2008 at 4:34 PM
Maybe our economy is only strong enough to support 10% of the Mexican population.
cannonball on October 2, 2008 at 4:43 PM
Grue in the Attic: that book by Corsi has a copyright on 2007.
It’s dry reading, but it will open your eyes to the real possibility of the creation of the NAU. Everything in it is well-documented, not wild-eyed rumors.
Christine on October 2, 2008 at 4:44 PM
This topic is the one that no conservatives want to discuss right now. We need McCain to win, then we need to hammer the living crap out of him over Immigration. He has friggin’ Juan Hernandez as his immigration advisor. As in Juan “I want open borders and support La Raza” Hernandez.
cannonball on October 2, 2008 at 4:44 PM
“We” can’t even count them accurately. Not by a long shot.
Fletch54 on October 2, 2008 at 4:45 PM
“Maybe our economy is only strong enough to support 10% of the Mexican population.”
cannonball: just wait ’til our economy will be forced to ‘even out’* Canada’s and Mexico’s economies when the NAU is made real by either administration. *The demise of America and the redistribution of it’s wealth are at the heart of the plan.
I see the possibility of the worst but hope for the best. If everyone is informed, we have a better chance of survival as a nation.
Christine on October 2, 2008 at 4:51 PM
I would be satisfied with a legal immigration stream of 1,000,000 a year provided the immigrants met certain criteria.
1. Pledged allegience to the United States of America
2. English proficiency
3. Waiting period of five years before eligibility for public assistance
4. Passed knowledge test of US history and civics.
5. No criminal record. Probationary status for first five years
Surely this is not too much to ask of people who wish to live in the greatest country on God’s Green Earth.
gridlock2 on October 2, 2008 at 4:53 PM
Not the one I was thinking of then. Still, I might get around to looking it up.
*eats*
Grue in the Attic on October 2, 2008 at 5:03 PM
It’s not that we can’t stop them, it’s that our government won’t stop them.
AZCoyote on October 2, 2008 at 5:14 PM
This morning’s radio news clip announced that our “economic slow down” LAST YEAR hurt the illegal alien income in America. Boohoohoo.
maverick muse on October 2, 2008 at 5:35 PM
AMEN! I am hardcore against illegal immigration but I am not going to muddy the waters by participating in any McCain-bashing on this subject. I have resisted commenting on several recent immigration posts. My primary objective right now is to get McCain elected. Now, after that happens I will be right back on his and Congress’s a** about this subject. My fellow immigration people, don’t get distracted. Keep your eye on the ball. We HAVE to win.
mrsmwp on October 2, 2008 at 5:59 PM
While I salute the efforts at employee verification and securing the border, Visa Overstays still pose a high national security
risk and threat to our country.
As Michelle Malkin has noted in the past, the 9-11 terrorists had tourist visa overstays and thus were in the US illegally.
Are the two presidential candidates even concerned about our country’s security within our borders??
ColtsFan on October 2, 2008 at 6:01 PM
In a word, no.
TheUnrepentantGeek on October 2, 2008 at 6:04 PM
…so, the solons at the Pew are telling us that there’s an upside to financial collapse? Cool….
Maybe circumstances can tempt some of ‘em to stay home…and actually make something of that bag of parts we call Mexico…hard to do when you’re exporting all your best talent….
Puritan1648 on October 2, 2008 at 7:17 PM
My parents live in San Antonio, Texas and their neighborhood, just a year ago was overrun by illegal aliens. Now, there are very few families living there. They are still there, with their anchor babies, (looks like a line of ducks walking down the road), but many have left for Mexico.
Or maybe it’s because everytime they play their radios so loud that it shakes your windows, my parents call the sheriff and report them.
Either way, good riddance and don’t let the door hit you where the good Lord split you.
Enforce current immigration laws and build the G*D damn fence!
Are you listening, Juan McCain and Hussein Obama? Whoever wins the White House, we must blitz the phones, emails, and faxes to let them know NO AMNESTY!
HornetSting on October 2, 2008 at 7:35 PM
Not holding my breath with Obama or McCain for that matter.
alwaysright43 on October 2, 2008 at 8:14 PM
This is also likely due to the housing slump where a lot of illegal workers were finding jobs. Less building, less job opportunities, less reason to come here in search of those jobs.
Heywood U. Reedmore on October 2, 2008 at 11:53 PM
During housing price boom, Illegal buys house for $150,000 sells to another illegal $200,000 (profit $50,000 for illegal 1), Illegal 2 sells house to illegal 3 for $250,000 (profit $50,000) to illegal 2, Illegal 3 heads back to Mexico, sticks bank with $250,000 loan and house is trashed by occupants when foreclosed on.
Dasher on October 3, 2008 at 1:11 PM