Wikipedia Overview of Illegal Immigration

[johnkarls]

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Illegal immigration to the United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

· 1 Modes of entry
· 2 Dangers
· 3 Visa overstays
· 4 Causes of illegal immigration
o 4.1 High population growth[8]
o 4.2 Global disparity in standard of living
o 4.3 Illegal employers
· 5 Impacts
o 5.1 Economic
o 5.2 Racial tension
o 5.3 Crime
o 5.4 Terrorism
o 5.5 Health
o 5.6 Environmental
o 5.7 Corruption
o 5.8 Demographic transition
o 5.9 Apprehension & Deportation Expenses
· 6 Immigration enforcement
o 6.1 Police and military involvement
o 6.2 Sanctuary cities
o 6.3 Critics
· 7 Legal issues
o 7.1 Birthright citizenship
§ 7.1.1 Deportation complications
o 7.2 Equal protection under US law
o 7.3 Locally mandated immigration policy
o 7.4 Immigration Reform and Control Act
o 7.5 Immigration with and without quotas
o 7.6 Matrícula Consular identification cards
o 7.7 REAL ID Act
· 8 Historical context
o 8.1 Chinese experience
· 9 Current immigration issues
o 9.1 Defining the issue
· 10 Terminology
· 11 Public reaction to current immigration issues
o 11.1 Public opinion
· 12 See also
· 13 References
· 14 Further reading
· 15 External links

Illegal immigration to the United States refers to the act of foreign nationals voluntarily resettling in the United States in violation of U.S. immigration and nationality law. Those who have entered the United States in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act are subject to deportation, often after being found to be removable in a civil removal proceedings before an Immigration Judge. Crossing the United States border without US Government authorization or failing to honor the terms of authorized forms of entry, such as tourist visas, represent the most common means of violation. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act illegal entry into the US constitutes a misdemeanor for first-time offenders, while persons who have been shown to repeatedly enter the US can be charged as felonies. Entering the US for seasonal employment without proper government authorization is also normally classified as illegal immigration, even when the individual plans to return to their country of origin when their employment ends. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a bureau of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is the primary federal agency tasked with enforcing the Immigration and Nationality Act.

In March of 2006 the Pew Hispanic Center estimated the undocumented population ranged from 11.5 to 12 million individuals[1], a number supported by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO)[2]. Pew estimated that 57% of this population comes from Mexico; 24% from Central America and, to a lesser extent, South America; 9% from Asia; 6% from Europe, and the remaining 4% from elsewhere.[3]
, The National Academies Press 1997</ref> The United States Government Accountability Office estimates that “between 400,000 and 700,000 illegal immigrants have entered the United States each year since 1992.” A substantial portion did so by crossing the United States–Mexico border and to a lesser extent the United States-Canada border.[4]

Modes of entry

According to the Pew Hispanic Center somewhat more than half of the undocumented migrant population entered the country without a visa: "some evaded customs and immigration inspectors at ports of entry by hiding in vehicles such as cargo trucks. Others tracked through the Arizona desert, waded or swam across the Rio Grande or American Canal in California or otherwise eluded the United States Border Patrol which has jurisdiction over all the land areas away from the ports of entry on the borders with Mexico and Canada."[5]

Dangers

The unfenced rural mountainous and desert border between Arizona and Mexico has become a major entrance area for illegal immigration to the United States, due in part to the increased difficulty of crossing illegally into California. The dangers that many immigrants face when crossing the border are somewhat unknown to the general public. These dangers include: exposure to the elements, traffic accidents, and inhumane treatment at the hands of corrupt human traffickers (Nunez). When one realizes that “exposure to the elements” encompasses hypothermia, dehydration, heat strokes, drowning, and suffocation. The death of the Chavez brothers, as cited in Martinez's Crossing Over, is a mere example of the tragedy’s that happen while crossing the border. The people that choose to emigrate across the border put their lives in the hands of “coyotes,” smugglers who promise a safe passage into the United States. To escape the Mexican crisis “. To pay these “coyotes” people borrow about a thousand dollars and risk their life sneaking across the U.S. – Mexico border…” (Martinez, p10). The consequences that come as a result of borrowing money are severe. When a poor individual is loaned money in Latin American countries it is highly unlikely that they will receive this loan from a trusted back or loaning service, for in most cases they refuse to loan money to individuals who live in such depths of poverty. Who then provide these poor indigenous men and women with the money to pay coyotes? Loan-sharks, that’s who; usually being part of the coyote’s smuggling organization, for oftentimes the victims of human trafficking are coerced into agreeing to “pay back” the coyote through the earnings made during their employment in the north (U.S. Business). This “payment” then turns into the gateway for exploitation, because if one fails to repay the “loan” within a timely manner, the impoverished immigrant’s family member’s end up being the one’s to pay the price.

The tightening of border enforcement has disrupted the "traditional" circular movement of many migrant workers from Mexico by increasing the costs and risks of crossing the border, thereby reducing their rate of return migration to Mexico. The difficulty and expense of the journey has prompted many migrant workers to stay in the United States longer or indefinitely.[6] The percentage of illegal immigrants who used to routinely return home and no longer do is unknown.

Visa overstays

Visa overstays are a second significant form of violation. A "visa overstayer" is someone who remains in the United States after the temporary authorization afforded by a visa expires. Visa overstayers tend to be somewhat more educated and better off financially than those who crossed the border illegally.[7]

To help track visa overstayers the US-VISIT (United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology) program collects and retains biographic, travel, and biometric information, such as photographs and fingerprints, of foreign nationals seeking entry into the United States. It also requires electronic readable passports containing this information.

Causes of illegal immigration

See also causes for illegal immigration.

High population growth[8]

World population has grown from 1.6 billion in 1900 to an estimated 6.6 billion today. In Mexico alone, population has grown from 13.6 million in 1900 to 107 million in 2007[9]

In 2000, the United Nations estimated that the world's population was growing at the rate of 1.14% (or about 75 million people) per year. According to data from the CIA's 2005–2006 World Factbooks, the world human population currently increases by 203,800 every day.[10] The United States Census Bureau issued a revised forecast for world population that increased its projection for the year 2050 to above 9.4 billion people, up from 9.1 billion people. Almost all growth will take place in the less developed regions.
Global disparity in standard of living

The chief cause of illegal immigration is considered to be economic. Illegal Latino immigrants traditionally have been portrayed as seeking jobs and wages better than those available in their home countries. The United States Department of Labor calculates that the Zone A (most industrialized) minimum wage in Mexico in 1999 was 34.45 pesos, or about US$3.50 per day. The Zone C (rural/agricultural) minimum wage was 29.70 Pesos a day, or roughly US$3.02 a day. By contrast, the U.S. minimum is set at $5.85 per hour under US federal law, and many States required rates higher than the federally mandated minimum.[11]

Illegal employers

The continuing practice of hiring unauthorized workers has been referred to as “the magnet for illegal immigration.” [12] Illegal hiring has not been prosecuted aggressively in recent years: between 1999 and 2003, according to the Washington Post, “work-site enforcement operations were scaled back 95 percent by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which subsequently was merged into the Homeland Security Department.[13] Major Illegal employers have included:
· Wal-Mart, which in 2005 agreed to pay $11 million to settle a federal investigation that found hundreds of illegal immigrants were hired to clean its stores. Wal-Mart used sub-contractors and claimed that it was unaware that the sub-contractors were employing illegal immigrants as janitors.[14] In August 2006 Wal-Mart instituted a policy to require any contractors working for them to have in place a system of verifying worker eligibility and auditing their worksites to assure their projects stay in compliance, handing out their own fines to contractors for not staying in compliance with this policy. Contractors wanting to bid on Wal-Mart projects are now required to have a system in place to accomplish this outlined in their bid. [15]
· Swift & Co.: in December 2006, in the largest such crackdown in American history, U.S. federal immigration authorities raided Swift & Co. meat-processing plants in six U.S. states, arresting about 1,300 illegal immigrant employees. Because Swift uses a government Basic Pilot program to confirm whether Social Security numbers are valid, no charges where filed against Swift. Company officials have questioned the program's ability to detect when two people are using the same number.[16]
· Tyson Foods, has also been accused of actively importing illegal labor for its chicken packing plants; However, the jury acquitted the company after evidence was presented that Tyson went beyond mandated government requirements in demanding documentation for its employees. Tyson also used its enrollment in the Basic Pilot and EVP Programs (voluntary employment eligibility screening programs) as part of its defense.[17]
For decades, immigration authorities have alerted ("no-match-letters")[18] employers of mismatches between reported employees' Social Security cards and the actual names of the card holders. On September 1, a federal judge halted this practice of alerting employers of card mismatches.[19]

Impacts

Economic

Main article: Economic impact of illegal immigrants in the United States

The Economic impact of illegal immigrants in the United States depends on whether taxes paid by illegal immigrants and their contributions to the economy make up for the government services which they use, as well as the economic input of the immigrants themselves and the cost of externalities such as added strain on public health that they may add. Those who find that immigrants, including illegal immigrants, produce a negative effect on the US economy often focus on the difference between taxes paid and government services received and wage-lowering effects among low-skilled native workers[20][21], while those who find positive economics effects focus on added productivity and lower costs to consumers for certain goods and services.
Illegal immigrants are a net drain on state and local governments, according to a new report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.[22]

Research by George Borjas, Jeffrey Grogger, and Gordon H. Hanson found that a 10-percent immigrant-induced increase in the supply of a particular skill group reduced the black wage by 4.0 percent, lowered the employment rate of black men by 3.5 percentage points, and increased the incarceration rate of blacks by almost a full percentage point. [23]

Paul Samuelson, a Nobel prize-winning economist from MIT, concurs asserting that there is no unitary, singular effect, good or bad, that arises from illegal immigration, but instead a variety of effects on Americans depending on their economic class. Samuelson posits that wealthier Americans tend to benefit from the illegal influx, while poorer Americans tend to suffer.[24][25]

Research by George Borjas, Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy at Harvard University, shows that the average American's wealth is increased by less than 1% by illegal immigration. The effect on wages for middle class individuals was an overall wealth increase. However, illegal immigrants had a long-term reduction of wages among American poor citizens during the 1980s and 1990s by 4.8%[26].

One of the most important factors regarding public opinion about immigration is the level of unemployment; anti-immigrant sentiment is highest where unemployment is highest and vice-versa.[27]

Editorialist Robert Samuelson points out that poor immigrants strains public services such as local schools and health care. He points out that "from 2000 to 2006, 41 percent of the increase in people without health insurance occurred among Hispanics."[28] According to the Center for Immigration Studies, 25.8% of Mexican immigrants lived in poverty — more than double the rate for natives in 1999.[29] In another report, The Heritage Foundation notes that from 1990 to 2006, the number of poor Hispanics increased 3.2 million, from 6 million to 9.2 million.[30]

Most Americans would not see any wage increases if illegal immigrants disappeared. However, high school drop outs would expect to see an average of 25 dollar a week raise if illegal immigrants disappeared. On the other hand, they would also see an increase in the costs of some goods and services[10]. Illegal immigrants are thought to have disproportionately affected certain groups of American citizens such as black and Hispanic poor.

Professor of Law Francine Lipman writes in a 2006 paper in the peer-reviewed journal Tax Lawyer of the American Bar Association Section of Taxation that the belief that undocumented migrants are exploiting the US economy and that they cost more in services than they contribute to the economy is "undeniably false". Lipman asserts that "undocumented immigrants actually contribute more to public coffers in taxes than they cost in social services" and "contribute to the U.S. economy through their investments and consumption of goods and services; filling of millions of essential worker positions resulting in subsidiary job creation, increased productivity and lower costs of goods and services; and unrequited contributions to Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance programs."[31]

Ernesto Zedillo, former President of Mexico and current Director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, asserts that illegal immigrants are only a drain on government services when they are incapable of paying taxes; and that this incapacity is the result of restrictive federal policies that require proof of citizenship. He further argues that the US economy has "crucial" need for migrant workers, and that the current debate must acknowledge this rather than just focus on enforcement.[32]

In 2003, another former President of Mexico, Vicente Fox stated that remittances of Mexican nationals in the United States, both legal and illegal, totaled $12 billion, and were the largest source of foreign income for Mexico. [11]. In 2005, the remittances from Mexican nationals worldwide was $18.1 billion[12]. Undocumented workers are estimated to pay in about $7 billion per year into Social Security.[33].
Free market advocates claim that we are not in a free market due to government interference (e.g., taxes, subsidies, etc.), but that if we were, restrictions on free migration would also limit the free market.[34][35]

Racial tension

Minority racism is sometimes considered controversial because of theories of power in society. Racist thinking among and between minority groups does occur,[36][37] for example conflicts between blacks and Korean immigrants (notably in the 1992 Los Angeles Riots) or between blacks and Hispanic immigrants.[38][39][40][41][42] [43] There has also been an increase in tensions between Hispanic Americans and Hispanic immigrants and between African immigrants and American blacks.[44]

“We're being overrun,” says Ted Hayes of Choose Black America, which has led anti-illegal immigration marches in south-central Los Angeles. “The compañeros have taken all the housing. If you don't speak Spanish they turn you down for jobs. Our children are jumped upon in the schools. They are trying to drive us out.”[45] He also touts illegal immigration as the biggest threat to blacks in America since slavery.[46] Hayesâ Crispus Attucks Brigade and the American Black Citizens Opposed to Illegal Immigration Invasion have organized protests against illegal immigration.[47]
Crime

Sociologist Tony Waters in his 1999 book Crime and Immigrant Youth agreed with others that immigrants themselves are less likely to be arrested and incarcerated. However, he also noted, that the children of some immigrant groups in the United States are more likely to be arrested and incarcerated. This is a by-product of the strains that emerge between immigrant parents living in poor inner city neighborhoods, and their sons.[48] According to Bureau of Justice Statistics, as of 2001, 4% of Hispanic males in their twenties and thirties were in prison or jail - as compared to 1.8% of white males.[49][50][51]. [52] There were an estimated 25,000 street gangs and more than 750,000 gang members active across the USA in 2004, up from 731,500 in 2002.[53] By 1999, Hispanics accounted for 46% of all gang members, Blacks 31%, Whites 13%, and Asian 7%.[54] A confidential report by the California Department of Justice indicated that in 1995 60% of the 20,000 members of the 18th Street Gang in Los Angeles was composed of illegal immigrants. Also, about 60 percent of the membership of the Columbia Lil' Cycos gang was illegal, according to a 2002 statement by former U.S. attorney Luis Li.[55]

A study published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas has discovered that while property-related crime rates have not been affected by increased immigration (both legal and illegal), in border counties there is a significant positive correlation between illegal immigration and violent crime. [56] However, crime rates from 1994 to 2005 have declined slightly, despite the fact that both legal and illegal immigration have increased.[57] Robert Sampson, Professor in Social Sciences at Harvard University, writes in Harvard Magazine in 2006 that being in the country illegally might give illegal aliens an "extra incentive to keep a clean record and not commit crimes, in order to avoid deportation".[58]

Persons apprehended while attempting to enter the United States illegally after committing previous crimes in the United States are indictable for the attempt to illegally re-enter the country.[59]

One large scale multi-million dollar criminal operation connected to illegal immigration is identity theft.[60]

According to a 1997 report by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims, "Through other violations of our immigration laws, Mexican drug cartels are able to extend their command and control into the United States. Drug smuggling fosters, subsidizes, and is dependent upon continued illegal immigration and alien smuggling."[61] Operation Community Shield has detained over fourteen hundred illegal immigrant gang members.[62] "The Salvadoran gang, known to law enforcement authorities as MS-13 because many members identify themselves with tattoos of the number 13, is thought to have established a major smuggling center in Matamoros, Mexico, just south of Brownsville, Texas, from where it has arranged to bring illegal aliens from countries other than Mexico into the United States."[63] MS13 publicly declared that it targets the Minutemen, civilians who take it upon themselves to control the border, to "teach them a lesson",[64] possibly due to their smuggling of various Central/South Americans (mostly other gang members), drugs, and weapons across the border.[65] A confidential California Department of Justice study reported in 1995 that 60 percent of the twenty thousand member 18th Street Gang in California is illegal.[66]. "Mexican alien smugglers plan to pay violent gang members and smuggle them into the United States to murder Border Patrol agents, according to a confidential Department of Homeland Security memo obtained by the Daily Bulletin."[67]

"A top al Qaeda lieutenant has met with leaders of a violent Salvadoran criminal gang with roots in Mexico and the United States — including a stronghold in the Washington area — in an effort by the terrorist network to seek help infiltrating the U.S.-Mexico border, law enforcement authorities said."[68]

Terrorism

Mohamed Atta al-Sayed and two of his co-conspirators had expired visas when they executed the September 11, 2001 attacks. All of the attackers had U.S. government issued documents and two of them were erroneously granted visa extensions after their deaths. The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States found that the government inadequately tracked those with expired tourist or student visas.
Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think-tank that promotes immigration reduction, testified in a hearing before the House of

Representatives that
"out of the 48 al-Qaeda operatives who committed crimes here between 1993 and 2001, 12 of them were illegal aliens when they committed their crimes, seven of them were visa overstayers, including two of the conspirators in the first World Trade Center attack, one of the figures from the New York subway bomb plot, and four of the 9/11 terrorists. In fact, even a couple other terrorists who were not illegal when they committed their crimes had been visa overstayers earlier and had either applied for asylum or finagled a fake marriage to launder their status."[69]

Vice Chair Lee Hamilton and Commissioner Slade Gorton of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States has stated that of the nineteen hijackers of the September 11, 2001 attacks, "Two hijackers could have been denied admission at the port on entry based on violations of immigration rules governing terms of admission. Three hijackers violated the immigration laws after entry, one by failing to enroll in school as declared, and two by overstays of their terms of admission."[70] Six months after the attack, their flight schools received posthumous visa approval letters from the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) for two of the hijackers, which made it clear that actual approval of the visas took place before the September 11 attacks[71].
Health

"Illegal immigration is the number one reason our healthcare system is on life support. Hospitals and emergency rooms across the United States are closing, but they are shutting in the areas with the highest rate of illegal immigration..if we removed illegal immigrants from the equation, the number of “uninsured Americans” the media keeps touting would plummet, because 76 percent of naturalized citizens and 81 percent of native-born Americans have employment-based health insurance." says Congressman Elton Gallegly (R-CA24)[72]

There are many controversial claims as to the role played by illegal immigration in various health concerns:

In response to one reported charge that made it onto Lou Dobb's television program on CNN, the reportedly increased number of cases of leprosy to 7,000 in the last three years was called into question. Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting reported in their investigation (and available on their website): A Centers for Disease Control report notes (3/30/07), "The number of reported cases of Hansen disease (HD) in the United States peaked at 361 in 1985 and has declined since 1988." The Health Resources and Services Administration reports that "166 new cases were reported in the U.S. in 2005 (the most recent year for which data are available)."

CBS reporter Lesley Stahl questioned Dobbs on these numbers.

Stahl: "Seven thousand is the number of leprosy cases over the last 30 years," not the past three, and nobody knows how many of those cases involved illegal immigrants. Now we went to try and check that number, 7,000. We can't. Just so you know....
Dobbs: Well, I can tell you this. If we reported it, it's a fact.[73]

Other controversial charges often used during the debates include:

Immigration from areas of high incidence is thought to have fueled the resurgence of tuberculosis (TB), chagas, hepatitis, and leprosy in areas of low incidence. To reduce the risk of diseases in low-incidence areas, the main countermeasure has been the screening of immigrants on arrival.[74] According to CDC, TB cases among foreign-born individuals remain disproportionately high, at nearly nine times the rate of U.S.-born persons. In 2003, nearly 26 percent of foreign-born TB patients in the United States were from Mexico. Another third of the foreign-born cases were among those from the Philippines, Vietnam, India and China, the CDC report said.[75][76][77]

"One individual in central California, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, was responsible for infecting at least 56 other people before he was incarcerated for forced treatment earlier this year. In 1996, the John Hopkins Center for Tuberculosis Research estimated it cost $13,000 to treat each case of TB. That means it cost U.S. taxpayers $741,000 in 1996 dollars to stem the epidemic caused by a single illegal immigrant. About 53% of the people diagnosed in the United States each year with tuberculosis are born outside the U.S. In the Los Angeles area, 80% of people infected with TB are foreign-born, with Mexico leading the way, followed by the Philippines, Vietnam, India and China."[13] Dr. Madeleine Cosman concurs, but points out that other diseases are also an issue, "many illegal aliens harbor fatal diseases that American medicine fought and vanquished long ago, such as drug-resistant tuberculosis, malaria, leprosy, plague, polio, dengue fever, and Chagas disease."[78]

Chronic Chagas disease remains a major health problem in many Latin American countries. With increased population movements the possibility of transmission by blood transfusion has become more substantial in the United States.[79] Approximately 500,000 infected people live in the USA, virtually
all of them immigrants.[80]

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)], tuberculosis (TB) cases among foreign-born individuals remain disproportionately high, at nearly nine times the rate of U.S.-born persons. Prior to being awarded a green card, legal immigrants over the age of 15 must have a chest x-ray or skin test to check for tuberculosis.[81][82] Illegal aliens are not screened in this manner. According to Dr. Lee Reichman, "Unless Americans are willing to adopt suffocatingly draconian immigration policies, the likelihood is that with globalization TB will again become epidemic here, in the same way that HIV moved from Africa to take root throughout the world. Suffering does not localize. When we engage with the world, we engage, inescapably and absolutely, with the world's infections. And the most devastating infection in the world is not Ebola or Lyme disease, West Nile virus or even HIV, but tuberculosis."[83]

In 1996, the Johns Hopkins Center for Tuberculosis Research estimated it cost $13,000 to treat each case of TB. About 53 percent of the people diagnosed in the United States each year with tuberculosis are born outside the U.S. In the Los Angeles area, 80 percent of people infected with TB are foreign-born, with Mexico leading the way, followed by the Philippines, Vietnam, India and China." says Congressman Elton Gallegly (R-CA24)[84]

A California study, "California’s Undocumented Latino Immigrants: A Report on Access to Health Care Services", page 38,[85] found about 90% of illegal immigrants in California do not have non-government medical insurance.

An article by medical lawyer Madeleine Cosman in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons concluded that the burden of illegal immigrants on the health care system in the US has forced many hospitals to close due to unpaid bills and the unfunded mandate of Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA). Between 1993 and 2003, 60 hospitals in California alone were forced to close, and many others had to reduce staff or implement other procedures which reduced the level of service they could provide. The article attributes these closings mainly to illegal immigration. [14] "In Fiscal Year 2001, the total cost for emergency medical care for illegal immigrants in California was more than $648 million. At the same time, the California Association of Public Hospitals notes that California’s public hospitals face a $600 million a year budget deficit. It doesn’t take a mathematician to see how eliminating illegal immigration would turn a deficit into a surplus."[15]

Environmental

Illegal immigrants trying to get to the United States via the Mexican border with southern Arizona are suspected of having caused eight major wildfires this year, this report says. The fires destroyed 68,413 acres (about 108 square miles) and cost taxpayers $5.1 million to fight.[86]

Waves of illegal immigrants are taking a heavy toll on U.S. public lands along the Mexican border, federal officials say.[87] Mike Coffeen, a biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service in Tucson, Arizona, is quoted as saying, while surveying the area by airplane: "the level of impact is just shocking."[88] "Environmental degradation has become among the migration trend's most visible consequences, a few years ago, there were 45 abandoned cars on the Buenos Aires refuge near Sasabe, and enough trash that a volunteer couple filled 723 large bags with 18,000 pounds of garbage over two months in 2002." [89]

"It has been estimated that the average desert-walking immigrant leaves behind 8 pounds of trash during a journey that lasts one to three days if no major glitches occur, Assuming half a million people cross the border illegally into Arizona annually, that translates to 2,000 tons of trash that migrants dump each year." [90] Fred Patton, chief ranger at Organ Pipe, is quoted as saying: "We've now got 300 miles of illegal roads these people have cut through the desert, and thousands of miles of illegal trails they've created. We collect over 30 vehicles a year, and we measure the trash they leave behind, everything from cans and bottles to clothes, by the ton. And they've fouled the few water sources to the point they are too filthy now even for the animals to drink."[91]

Each year, an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 illegal immigrants try to make the 15 to 30 mile hike through the wilderness to reach cities in the United States. "That works out to a city the size of Baton Rouge, La., living in the park without a sewage system, without garbage collection, without a grid of dedicated roads or sidewalks. They move where they want in four-wheel-drive cars, ATVs, motorcycles, bicycles and their own feet."[92]

Dale Allen Pfeiffer claims that to achieve a sustainable economy and avert disaster, the United States must reduce its population by at least one-third, and world population will have to be reduced by two-thirds.[93] Current U.S. population of more than 300 million and world population exceeding 6.6 billion is, according to Pfeiffer, unsustainable. Fast-shrinking supplies of oil and gas are essential to modern agriculture,[94] so coming decades could see spiraling food prices without relief and massive starvation on a global level such as never experienced before by the humans.[95][96]

Americans constitute approximately 5% of the world's population, but they produce roughly 25% of the world’s CO2,[97] consume about 25% of world’s resources,[98] including approximately 26% of the world's energy,[99] although having only around 3% of the world’s known oil reserves,[100] and generate approximately 30% of world’s waste.[101] [102] The average American's impact on the environment is approximately 250 times greater than the average Sub-Saharan African's.[103] [104] In other words, with current consumption patterns, population growth in the [[United States] is more of a threat to the Earth's environment than population growth in any other part of the world (currently, at least 1.8 million legal and illegal immigrants settle in the United States each year; with the average Hispanic woman giving birth to 3 children in her lifetime).[105][106]

California population continues to grow by more than a half million a year and is expected to reach 48 million in 2030. According to the California Department of Water Resources, if more supplies aren’t found by 2020, residents will face a water shortfall nearly as great as the amount consumed today.[107] Los Angeles is a coastal desert able to support at most 1 million people on its own water; the Los Angeles basin now is the core of a megacity that spans 220 miles from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border. The region’s population is expected to reach 22 million by 2020, and 28 million in 2035. The population of California continues to grow by more than a half million a year and is expected to reach 48 million in 2030. Water shortage issues are likely to arise well before then.[108] California is considering using energy-expensive desalination to solve this problem.[109]

U.S. Census Bureau figures show the U.S. population grew by 2.8 million between July 1, 2004, and July 1, 2005. If current birth rate and immigration|immigration rates were to remain unchanged for another 60 to 70 years, US population would double to approximately 600 million people.[110] The Census Bureau's latest estimates actually go as high as predicting that there will be 1 billion Americans in 2100.[111] United States had approximately one million people in 1700, and approximately five million in 1800.[112]

Paul Ehrlich made the point that a state or nation may have a large land area or considerable wealth (which implies, by conventional wisdom, that overpopulation should not be at play), and yet be overpopulated.[113] The U.S. state of Arizona, for example, has enormous land area, but has neither the carrying capacity of arable land or potable water[114][115] to support its population. While it imports food, using its wealth to offset this shortfall, that only serves to illustrate that it has insufficient carrying capacity. The only way that Arizona (and Southern California) obtains sufficient water is by extraction of water[116] from the Colorado River beyond its fair share[117] (and beyond its own carrying capacity of innate water resources), based on international standards of fair use per lineal mile of river.[118][119][120]

Corruption

Incidences of corruption in the U.S. Border Patrol include:
· Pablo Sergio Barry, an agent charged with one count of harboring an illegal alien, three counts of false statements, and two counts of making a false document[121]. He pled guilty[122].
· Christopher E. Bernis, an agent indicted on a charge of harboring an illegal immigrant for nine months while employed as a U.S. Border Patrol agent[123]
· Jose De Jesus Ruiz, an agent whose girlfriend was an illegal immigrant, he was put on administrative leave pending an investigation[124]
· Oscar Antonio Ortiz, an illegal immigrant[125] who used a fake birth certificate to get into the Border Patrol admitted to smuggling more than 100 illegal immigrants into the U.S., some of them in his government truck[126], and was helping to smuggle illegal immigrants and charged with conspiring with another Border patrol agent to smuggle immigrants
· An unidentified patrol agent who was recorded on a wire tap stating that he helped to smuggle 30 to 50 immigrants at a time[127]
· Michael Anthony Gilliland, an agent for 16 years, who pled guilty to guiding hundreds of illegal immigrants through his checkpoint booth in exchange for cash payment[128]
· Richard Elizalda, a veteran border inspector, who admitted to one count of accepting bribes as a public official and two counts of bringing illegal aliens into the ountry for financial gain[129]

Demographic transition

In 1900, when the US population was 76 million, there were about 500,000 Hispanics.[130] Of those who immigrated between 2000 and 2005, 58% were from Latin America. The Bureau of the Census projects that by 2050 one-quarter of the population, or 102 million, will be Hispanic.[131] Census statistics also show that 45% of children under age 5 are from a racial or ethnic minority. In 35 of the country's 50 largest cities, non-Hispanic whites are or soon will be in the minority.[132] In California, non-Hispanic whites slipped from 80% of the state's population in 1970 to 43% in 2006.[133]

Apprehension & Deportation Expenses

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants cross the United States Mexico Border illegaly every year. Border control uses the latest technological advances to help capture these immigrants, sometimes detain/prosecute, and sent back over the border. According to the US Department of Homeland Security and the Border Patrol Enforcement Integrated Database, apprehensions have increased from 955,310 in 2002 to 1,159,802 in the year of 2004. "But fewer than 4 per cent of apprehended migrants were actually detained and prosecuted for illegal entry, partly because it costs $90 a day to keep them in detention facilities and bed space is very limited. For the remainder of the apprehended migrants, if they are willing to sign a form attesting that they are volutarily repatriating themselves, they are simply bused to a gate on the border, where they re-enter Mexico." [134] After many are sent back to Mexico, many attempt to cross again the next day. In 2003 the United States adapated "Long-distance repatriation" as an option to help discourage immediate re-entry.

This cost the taxpayers much more money in that there were to be flown to central and southern Mexico. "During the summer of 2004, the U.S. government pressured the Mexican government into accepting 'deep repatriation' of as many as 300 apprehended migrants per day to six cities in central and southern Mexico. Each of these 151 chartered flights cost U.S. taxpayers $50,000." [135] Although this may seem to be working, nine out of ten of the immigrants interviewed by jornalists after they landed stated that they "planned to re-enter the United States very soon". This is due to the fact that bus tickets are cheap and that it would only take two to three days to get back to the border.

Immigration enforcement

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection is responsible for apprehending individuals attempting to enter the United States illegally. The United States Border Patrol is its mobile uniformed law enforcement arm, responsible for deterrence, detection and apprehension of immigrants who enter the United States without authorization from the government and outside the designated ports of entry.

Activity on the United States-Mexico border is concentrated around big border cities such as San Diego and El Paso, which have extensive border fencing and enhanced border patrols. Stricter enforcement of the border in cities has failed to significantly curb illegal immigration, instead pushing the flow into more remote regions and increasing the cost to taxpayers of each arrest from $300 in 1992 to $1700 in 2002. The cost to illegal immigrants has also increased: they now routinely hire coyotes, or smugglers, to help them get across.[136]

In December 2005, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to build a separation barrier along parts of the border not already protected by a separation barriers. A later vote in the United States Senate on May 17, 2006, included a plan to blockade 860 miles of the border with vehicle barriers and triple-layer fencing along with granting an "earned path to citizenship" to the 12 million illegal aliens in the U.S. and roughly doubling legal immigration (from their 1970s levels). In 2006 the Senate approved 370 miles of new double- and triple-layered fencing and 500 miles of vehicle barriers and then refused to fund them. In December, the House voted for 700 miles of new barriers. Neither was able to reach a compromise bill. There is no assurance that if built, these new layers of protection will reduce the flow of illegal aliens from Mexico.
Please see main article, United States–Mexico barrier.

Police and military involvement

There have been extensive efforts on the part of local law enforcement to increase police presence at the border.[137][138][139] However, federal judges have ruled that control of illegal immigration is the exclusive domain of the federal government and have prohibited local communities and states from attempting to enforce ordinances intended to control illegal immigration[140].

In 1995, the United States Congress considered an exemption from the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally prohibits direct participation of Department of Defense personnel in civilian law enforcement activities, such as search, seizure, and arrests.[141]—authorizing the United States Secretary of Defense to detail members of the Armed Forces to enforce the immigration and customs laws in border areas.[142] U.S. Army personnel were stationed along the U.S.-Mexico border to help stem the flow of illegal aliens and drug smugglers. These military units brought their specialized equipment such as FLIR infrared devices, and helicopters. In conjunction with the U.S. Border Patrol, they would deploy along the border and, for a brief time, there would be no traffic across that border which was actively watched by "coyotes" paid to assist border crossers. The smugglers and the alien traffickers ceased operations over the one hundred mile sections of the border sealed at a time.

In 1997, Marines shot and killed 18 year old U.S. citizen Esequiel Hernandez Jr[143] while on a mission to interdict smuggling and illegal immigration in the remote Southwest. The soldiers observed the goat herder from concealment for 20 minutes maintaining radio contact with their unit. But at one point, this young man (who the Pentagon says previously had fired shots in the vicinity of Border Patrol agents) raised his rifle and fired shots in the direction of the concealed soldiers. After firing two shots, this young man was, in turn, shot and killed. In reference to the incident, military lawyer Craig T. Trebilock argues that "the fact that armed military troops were placed in a position with the mere possibility that they would have to use force to subdue civilian criminal activity reflects a significant policy shift by the executive branch away from the posse comitatus doctrine."[144] The killing of Hernandez led to a congressional review[145] and an end to a nine-year old policy of the military aiding the Border Patrol[146].

After the September 11, 2001 attacks the United States again considered placing soldiers along the U.S.-Mexico border as a security measure. [147] In May 2006, President George W. Bush announced plans to use the National Guard to strengthen enforcement of the US-Mexico Border from illegal immigrants[148], emphasizing that Guard units "will not be involved in direct law enforcement activities."[149] Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez said in an interview with a Mexico City radio station, "If we see the National Guard starting to directly participate in detaining people ... we would immediately start filing lawsuits through our consulates,"[150] American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called on the President not to deploy military troops to deter aliens, and stated that a "deployment of National Guard troops violates the spirit of the Posse Comitatus Act"[151]. According to the State of the Union Address in January 2007[152], more than 6000 National Guard members have been sent to the US-Mexico border to supplement the Border Patrol[153], costing in excess of $750 million[154].

Sanctuary cities

Many cities, including Washington, D.C., New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, Detroit, Jersey City, Minneapolis, Miami, Denver, Aurora, Colorado, Baltimore, Seattle, Portland, Oregon and Portland, Maine, have become "sanctuary cities", having adopted ordinances banning police from asking people about their immigration status.[155] However, if ICE (formerly the INS) finds an undocumented immigrant in violation of local sanctuary laws, this will not keep them from being deported.[citation needed] Critics of these cities charge that their leadership is committing treason, other crimes by harboring illegal aliens.

Critics

The Cato Institute is among the critics who argue that increasing border security is counterproductive. The institute argues that increasing border security reduces the proportion of illegal immigrants caught at the border and increases the length of time illegal immigrants remain in the country. Cato claims that the only significant change on illegal immigrants has been in length of stay due to the cost of returning. The probability of returning within twelve months has gone from around 45% in 1980 to between 25 and 30% from 1998-2002. Also, the average trip duration has gone from 1.7 years to 3.5 years. According to the Cato Institute, the only important change in security has been one of cost. The Border Patrol's budget has gone from $151 million in 1986 to $1.6 billion in 2002. This has caused the cost of apprehending an illegal immigrant to go from around $100 per arrest before 1986 to around $1700 in 2002.[156].

Tamar Jacoby, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, argues that "[illegal immigrants] are going to get here as long as they have economic incentives to come." Jacoby further asserts that politicians and others use construction of a massive fence as a proxy to avoid addressing real issues.[157]

Legal issues

Birthright citizenship

Main article: Birthright citizenship in the United States of America

The Fourteenth Amendment has been interpreted by the United States Supreme Court, in precedent set by United States v. Wong Kim Ark, to grant citizenship to every child born in the U.S. regardless of the citizenship of the parents, with the exception of the children of diplomats and children born to enemy forces in hostile occupation of the United States.

The Court in Wong Kim Ark did not explicitly decide whether U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants are "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" (because Wong Kim Ark's parents were legally present in the United States at the time of his birth). However, the Supreme Court's later ruling in Plyler v. Doe[158] stated that illegal immigrants are "within the jurisdiction" of the states in which they reside, and added in a footnote that "no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment "jurisdiction" can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful."

Deportation complications

Complications in deportation efforts ensue when parents are illegal immigrants and children are birthright citizens. Such was the case of Elvira Arellano, who was a refugee in a church. This is also the case in the instance of Sadia Umanzor, an illegal immigrant from Honduras, a central feature of a November 17, 2007 New York Times story. Umanzor is a fugitive from a 2006 deportation order. She was recently arrested, in anticipation of deportation. However, a judge postponed that deportation proceeding. The judge placed her in house arrest, citing the factor of a six-month old U.S.-born baby of Umanzor. [159]

Equal protection under US law

Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States struck down a state statute denying funding for education to children who were illegal immigrants. It established that regardless of legal status, illegal immigrants are still “persons” and thus protected as such under some provisions the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the US Constitution, notably the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
"Whatever his status under the immigration laws, an alien is surely a "person" in any ordinary sense of that term. Aliens, even aliens whose presence in this country is unlawful, have long been recognized as "persons" guaranteed due process of law by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments…The Equal Protection Clause was intended to work nothing less than the abolition of all caste-based and invidious class-based legislation. That objective is fundamentally at odds with the power the State asserts …to classify persons subject to its laws as nonetheless excepted from its protection."[160]

Locally mandated immigration policy

The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 was the last major overhaul of immigration law passed by the US Congress; attempts to pass “comprehensive immigration reform” in 2005 and Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 (S. 1348) faltered. State and local governments have responded by passing local laws and ordinances to control illegal immigration within their own jurisdictions[161]. These laws are primarily aimed at (a) limiting an illegal immigrants' ability to obtain jobs, housing, or a legally acceptable form of identification. (b) To empower local law enforcement agencies to inquire into an immigrant's legal status. However, the 1986 law pre-empted most existing state immigration policies and forbids states from enacting tougher criminal or civil penalties for illegal immigration than those set by Congress. Further, the US Supreme Court in De Canas v. Bica, 424 U.S. 351 (1976) stated “[The] power to regulate immigration is unquestionably exclusively a federal power.” The supremacy clause (Article VI, Clause 2) of the United States Constitution makes laws passed by Congress “the supreme law of the land”, thus placing the constitutionality of locally passed laws and ordinances in question.

Several lawsuits have been filed challenging the constitutionality of locally imposed measures, on the grounds that it is not the place of local government to assume the responsibilities of the Federal government. Two of the most closely watched cases involve ordinances passed in Hazleton, Pennsylvania and Farmers Branch, Texas that include fining landlords that rent to illegal immigrants, and allowing local authorities to screen illegal immigrants in police custody. On July 26, 2007, a federal court struck down the Hazleton ordinance as unconstitutional[162]. The ruling is regarded by many to set a legal precedent that can be used to strike down local immigration ordinances nationwide. Hazleton's mayor has promised to appeal the decision. The Farmer's Branch ordinance remains under temporary restraining order enjoining enforcement of the ordinance pending a final ruling.

Several US cities have taken the opposite approach and have instructed their own law enforcement personnel and other city employees not to notify or cooperate with the federal government when they become aware of illegal immigrants living within their jurisdiction. These cities are often referred to as “sanctuary cities” and include Washington D.C., New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and other mostly large urban cities. Most of these cities claim that the benefit illegal immigrants bring to their city outweigh the costs. Opponents say the measures violate federal law as the cities are in effect creating their own immigration policy, an area of law which only Congress has authority to alter[163].

Immigration Reform and Control Act

The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) made the hiring of an individual without documents an offense for the first time. The act is somewhat redundant since the forging of government documents (fake immigration documents or providing falsified social security numbers) is already a felony, and for most companies such documents must be provided to the government in its tax filings. However, the government does not notify those whose identities have been stolen for the falsified social security numbers, thus making it difficult to estimate the extent of the problem.[164]

Immigration with and without quotas

The immigration quota system was first expanded with the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 which was used to reduce the influx of East and Southern European immigrants who were coming to the country in large numbers from the turn of the century. This immigration was further reduced by the Immigration Act of 1924 which was structured to maintain the cultural and ethnic traditions of the United States.

The Franklin D. Roosevelt administration had nearly shut down immigration during the decade of the Great Depression of 1929. In 1929 there were 279,678 immigrants recorded and in 1933 there were only 23,068[165]. By 1939 recorded immigrants had crept back up to 82,998 but then the advent of World War II drove it back down to 23,725 in 1943 increasing slowly to 38,119 by 1945[166]. After 1946 about 600,000 of Europe's Displaced Person (DP's) refugees were admitted under special laws outside the country quotas, and in the 1960s and 1970s large numbers of Cuban and Vietnamese refugees[167] were admitted under special laws outside all quotas.

Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965 which essentially removed all nation-specific quotas, while retaining an overall quota, and included immigrants from Mexico and the Western Hemisphere for the first time with their own quotas. It also put a large part of immigration, so-called family reunification, outside the quota system. This dramatically changed the number, type and composition of the new arrivals from mostly European, to predominantly poor Latino and Asian. It also dramatically increased the number of illegal aliens as many poorer people now had family or friends in the U.S. that attracted them there.[168] In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) was passed, creating amnesty for about 3,000,000 illegal aliens already in the United States. Critics believe IRCA just intensified the illegal immigration flow as those granted amnesty illegally brought more of their friends and family into the U.S.[168]

Without quotas on large segments of the immigration flow, legal immigration to the U.S. surged and soon became largely family based "Chain immigration" where families brought in a chain of off quota new immigrant family members. The number of legal immigrants rose from about 2.5 million in the 1950s to 4.5 million in the 1970s to 7.3 million in the 1980s to about 10 million in the 1990s. In 2006 legal immigrants to the United States now number approximately 1,000,000 legal immigrants per year of which about 600,000 are Change of Status immigrants who already are in the U.S.[169][168]

Matrícula Consular identification cards

The Matrícula Consular ("Consular Registration") is an identification card issued by the Government of Mexico through its consulate offices. The official purpose of the card is to demonstrate that the bearer is a Mexican national living outside of Mexico. Similar consulate identification cards are issued to citizens of Argentina, Colombia, El Salvador, and Honduras[170]. This document is accepted at financial institutions in many states and, with an IRS Taxpayer Identification Number, allows illegal immigrants to open checking and saving accounts.

REAL ID Act

The REAL ID Act of 2005 prohibits States from issuing identification or driver's permit cards to anyone who cannot demonstrate that they are legally in the USA, taking full effect on December 31, 2009. Citizenship and/or immigration status is to be clearly denoted on these ID cards and they automatically expire on the expiration date of non-citizens' visas or other authorizing documentation.

Historical context

Every wave of immigration into the United States has faced fear and hostility, especially during times of economic hardship, political turmoil, or war: in 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, one of the nation's first immigration laws, to keep out all people of Chinese origin; during the "Red Scare" of the 1920s, thousands of foreign-born people suspected of political radicalism were arrested and brutalized; many were deported without a hearing. In 1942, 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent were interned in camps until the end of World War II, of which about one-third were naturalized or native-born citizens.

Chinese experience

This article does not cite any references or sources. (August 2006)Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Main article: Chinese Exclusion Act (United States)

In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which was passed due to the belief that Chinese laborers were unfair competition and lowered wages of native born Americans. Anti-Chinese sentiment was also present for fear that Chinese immigrants were unable to assimilate. In 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act had cut off nearly all Chinese immigration. The first laws creating a quota for immigrants were passed in the 1920s, in response to a sense that the country could no longer absorb large numbers of unskilled workers, despite pleas by big business that it wanted the new workers. Ngai (2003) shows that the new laws were the beginning of mass illegal immigration, because they created a new class of persons — illegal aliens — whose inclusion in the nation was at once a social reality and a legal impossibility. This contradiction challenged received notions of sovereignty and democracy in several ways. First, the increase in the number of illegal entries created a new emphasis on control of the nation's borders — especially the long Canadian border. Second, the application of the deportation laws gave rise to an oppositional political and legal discourse, which imagined "deserving" and "undeserving" illegal aliens and, therefore, just and unjust deportations. These categories were constructed out of modern ideas about crime, sexual morality, the family, and race. In the 1930s federal deportation policy became the object of legal reform to allow for administrative discretion in deportation cases. Just as restriction and deportation "made" illegal aliens, administrative discretion "unmade" illegal aliens. Administrative law reform became an unlikely site where problems of national belonging and inclusion played out.

Current immigration issues

Defining the issue

A fundamental controversy in the debate stems from lack of consensus on what challenges or problems illegal immigration actually poses to the United States, and on what a successful immigration policy would look like--for example, whether this policy would treat immigration primarily as a humanitarian issue, a law-enforcement issue, or an economic issue.[171] Many critics on the left argue that the debate as it is presently conducted has failed to achieve progress primarily because it defines the problem in a short-sighted and counterproductive way, criminalizing the "illegal immigrant" and overemphasizing domestic policy such as border security. As Paul Rubin has written for the Washington Post,

· "Economists have... long argued that the economics of immigration—immigrants coming here to exchange their labor for money that they then exchange for the products of other people's labor—is positive sum. Yet our evolutionary intuition is that, because foreign workers gain from trade and immigrant workers gain from joining the U.S. economy, native-born workers must lose. This zero-sum thinking leads us to see trade and immigration as conflict ("trade wars," "immigrant invaders") when trade and immigration actually produce cooperation and mutual benefit, the exact opposite of conflict.

These critics argue that "immigration reform" fundamentally entails foreign policy, labor, and civil rights reform, and that U.S. preoccupation with "illegals," citizenship law, and policing its borders is a politically expedient way of skirting deeper challenges. These include:

· Globalization and U.S. foreign policy. For example, the progressive think tank the Rockridge Institute has argued, "What role have international trade agreements had in creating or exacerbating people's urge to flee their homelands? If capital is going to freely cross borders, should people and labor be able to do so as well, going where globalization takes the jobs?... Such a framing of the problem would lead to a solution involving the Secretary of State, conversations with Mexico and other Central American countries, and a close examination of the promises of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to raise standards of living around the globe.[173]

Proponents of this wider strategy are generally critical of the current administration's approach to the issue:

· "Bush's 'comprehensive solution' entirely concerns the immigrants, citizenship laws, and the border patrol. And, from the narrow problem identified by framing it as an 'immigration problem,' Bush's solution is comprehensive. He has at least addressed everything that counts as a problem in the immigration frame.... But the real problem with the current situation runs broader and deeper."[174]

Terminology

The Immigration and Nationality Act is the primary body of federal immigration law in the United States. It defines the term "alien" as “any person not a citizen or national of the United States.” It defines the term “immigrant” to mean every alien not falling within a set of “classes of nonimmigrant aliens” spelled out in detail by the act, for example: diplomatic personnel, students residing within the US to attend school, athletes attending athletic events, ship and aircraft crew members; and others residing or staying within the United States on a temporary basis. The act classifies aliens remaining within the US on a permanent basis as immigrants without regards to an individual’s legal status.[175]

There are a variety of terms which can be found in government agency news releases, photo captions, and reports. These terms include undocumented immigrant, unauthorized immigrant, illegal immigrant, undocumented migrant, unauthorized migrant, migrant, unauthorized immigrant worker, illegal migrant, illegal alien, undocumented alien, unauthorized worker and unauthorized resident.

The Associated Press Stylebook, the primary style and usage guide for most newspapers and newsmagazines in the United States, recommends using "illegal immigrant" rather than "illegal alien" or "undocumented worker"[176]. According to Voice of America's[177], a weekly analysis of American English from the official international radio and television broadcasting service of the United States federal government, "The most common term by far, though, at least as reflected in the news media, is illegal immigrants" in reference to people who are in the United States without following immigration laws.[178]

At the 1994 Unity convention, the four minority journalism groups – the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists , the Asian American Journalists Association and the Native American Journalists Association – [National Association of Black Journalists|the National Association of Black Journalists]], the National Association of Hispanic Journalists , the Asian American Journalists Association and the Native American Journalists Association – issued a joint statement on the term illegal aliens: "Except in direct quotations, do not use the phrase illegal alien or the word alien, in copy or in headlines, to refer to citizens of a foreign coun