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Immigration Estimates For Region Vary Widely From Source to Source

By Karin Brulliard and Krissah Williams
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, June 11, 2006; A01



Nine years after Haydee Salguero left Guatemala for the United States, she became a U.S. citizen and gave up her Guatemalan passport. But ask her what she is, and Salguero doesn't hesitate.

"Guatemalan, of course," said the 32-year-old legal assistant, who lives in Fairfax County. Salguero said things will be a bit fuzzier for her first child, who is due to be born in the United States in October. The baby will be American on paper, she said, but both Guatemalan and American "in spirit."

For the U.S. Census Bureau, the official scorekeeper of the U.S. public, it's a simpler issue: "Guatemalans" are people born in Guatemala. The census counts of the immigrant population reflect the number of people here who were born outside the United States. Those figures are used to track the flows of immigration and to determine funding for government programs serving immigrants.

But as Salguero illustrates, the notion of nationality can rest on more than birthplace -- and it's a key reason why foreign embassy counts of their compatriots in the United States can greatly differ from census data. When embassies are asked for estimates, many count U.S.-born children as immigrants because they might be entitled to claim citizenship in their parents' homeland as well.

For example, just how many Salvadorans live in the Washington region?

The 2000 Census says 105,000.

The Current Population Survey, conducted monthly by the Census Bureau, says the number averaged about 130,000 over the past three years.

But ask Salvadoran Ambassador René A. León, and the figure skyrockets to nearly 500,000.

"The expansion of services has been so demanded that we opened a consulate in Woodbridge," León said. "If we count the number of passports we issue, we cannot be serving a universe of Salvadorans in this area of less than 400,000 to 500,000. It would be impossible to be serving less than that."

At the height of a national debate about the future of U.S. immigration, estimates of how many illegal immigrants reside in this country vary widely. They range from the commonly cited 11 million -- derived by the nonprofit Pew Hispanic Center from census and immigration data -- to 20 million, which the investment firm Bear Stearns came up with last year after looking at school district figures, remittances and other micro-trends.

Locally, in an area where census figures suggest that one in five residents was born abroad, the estimated number of Peruvians, Mexicans and others also can differ by tens of thousands -- depending on the source.

Embassy officials acknowledge that their population calculations are extrapolations based on the number of passports, visas or identification cards they issue. They say the census vastly undercounts immigrant populations, which have skyrocketed since 2000, when the most accurate and detailed figures were released.

The Census Bureau acknowledges that it missed some people in 2000 -- but not many, it says. The agency says its count fell short by about 0.6 percent for the total population, about 0.8 percent for blacks and 1.2 percent for Hispanics.

But Audrey Singer of the Brookings Institution says the undercount could be especially pronounced for Mexicans and Central Americans, many of whom travel regularly to their homelands and might have missed census surveys while out of the country, or opted out because they do not consider themselves U.S. residents.

There isn't even agreement on who should be counted as an immigrant. The census applies a traditional definition: those who are foreign-born. But many embassies and consulates include the U.S.-born children of immigrants in their population count.

"They use an American passport. . . . They are still Peruvians for us," said Manuel Talavera, general consul for Peru, who estimates that 70,000 of his compatriots live in Virginia, Maryland and the District. The Current Population Survey places the figure in the Washington region at 23,000.

Jeffrey S. Passel, a researcher with the Pew Hispanic Center, said about 80 percent of immigrants' children are born in the United States.

Illegal immigrants' fear of revealing their status may also result in conflicting data.

The 2000 Census, for example, taken in April of that year, counted 1,500 Salvadoran immigrants who lived in the District and attended public school. In the next school year, D.C. public schools data counted 929 students who said they were born in El Salvador. Fairfax and Prince George's counties' counts of Salvadoran students that year also were far lower than census figures.

Passel surmised that, to some degree, those gaps might be attributed to parents who listed their children as U.S.-born out of fear that their immigrant status would exclude them from school; others might have been confused about the difference between public and private schools when filling out the census forms. But the reason for such a significant difference is unclear, he said.

Embassy officials say that no matter the number, their communities' populations have shot up exponentially in recent years. Talavera, for example, said the Peruvian Embassy issues 40 percent more national identity cards than it did in 2001.

Evidence indicates that the rise has been sharp. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, between January 2000 and this March, 7.9 million immigrants moved to the United States, making it the highest five-year period of immigration in the nation's history.

Still, experts reject claims that immigrant population figures could be several times higher than the census numbers or than the data derived from the less comprehensive Current Population Survey, which polls 50,000 U.S. households each month.

"It's unlikely that if the survey is showing 50 or 60,000 [people in a particular immigrant group] that there are 200,000," Passel said. "Let's put it that way."

León said the numbers he sees say otherwise, although he acknowledges having no official count. In addition to passports issued, he bases his calculations on the number of Salvadorans who registered with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for temporary permission to live in the United States after earthquakes rocked El Salvador in 2001. Nationwide, the number of registrants is 244,000. But, León surmises that only half of the people eligible for the temporary residence program after the disaster signed up for it.

Then the ambassador points to a study showing that $1.2 billion flowed into Latin America from immigrants living in the District, Maryland and Virginia in 2004. Most of that went to El Salvador, León said, noting that Salvadorans living in Virginia send home more money annually than those in any state except California. The number of Salvadorans in the Washington region must be far higher then census-based estimates to have sent such a large sum in just one year, the ambassador said.

And he has more anecdotal evidence: Business strips in Woodbridge and other parts of suburban Washington are crowded with small companies owned by Salvadorans.

"The core economic data [prove] that fact. Look not only at the number of companies owned by Salvadorans but the payrolls of most of the construction companies, hotels, restaurants and landscaping companies. They are filled with Salvadorans," he said.

The Salvadoran Embassy will begin issuing country identification cards to its nationals in the Washington region this year, and León said he hopes a tally based on the number of identification cards issued will provide more definitive data.

Of course, there is power in numbers. León said his higher count indicates the Salvadoran community's "high value" and vitality to the Washington region.

"The more numbers you have, the more visibility you have, the more power and clout you potentially have," said Peter Skerry, a Boston College professor of political science who studied the census undercount.

But in today's highly charged climate about immigration, that notion is open to debate. A Guatemalan official said he would more likely play down the Guatemalan population's size in the United States when talking to politicians who favor strict immigration controls, figuring they might be more friendly to a smaller group.

Enrique Escorza, the Mexican general consul in Washington, oversees a region that includes the District and all of Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia. He puts the Mexican community in that region at 250,000, more than twice the 2000 Census count for the same area.

Guatemalan and Bolivian officials, whose regional populations were 20,000 each in the 2000 Census, offer estimates of about 70,000 each -- albeit cautiously.

"Don't take me seriously," said Oswaldo Cuevas, general consul for Bolivia in Washington. "Talking about numbers -- it's our vulnerability."

The population puzzles are faced not only by Latin American immigrants. The embassies of India and the Philippines are among those that refuse to guess, referring only to the 2000 Census figures, which put the region's Indian-born population at 46,000 and Philippines-born population at 32,000.

"It is an incredibly complicated exercise," said Venu Rajamony, spokesman for the Indian Embassy.

Staff writer Dan Keating contributed to this report.

Salguero said things will be a bit fuzzier for her first child, who is due to be born in the United States in October. The baby will be American on paper, she said, but both Guatemalan and American "in spirit."

In a 1919 letter to the American Defense Society, former president Teddy Roosevelt wrote:

In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American.

There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile ... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language ... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.

When he said that we still were a nation for the people, by the people and of the people. That is no longer the case. This nation is no longer a nation but a state within a continent that contians states that were once nations. We let this happen with our complacency and (blank blank) lazy blind trust in our representatives.

Still, experts reject claims that immigrant population figures could be several times higher than the census numbers or than the data derived from the less comprehensive Current Population Survey, which polls 50,000 U.S. households each month.

"It's unlikely that if the survey is showing 50 or 60,000 [people in a particular immigrant group] that there are 200,000," Passel said. "Let's put it that way."

But in today's highly charged climate about immigration, that notion is open to debate. A Guatemalan official said he would more likely play down the Guatemalan population's size in the United States when talking to politicians who favor strict immigration controls, figuring they might be more friendly to a smaller group.

ya think

As far as these anchor babies go, if an American went to Mexico and had a baby, America would consider the child an American and not a Mexican citizen. Why is it then, that when a Illegal comes to America and has a child it is considered an American. This just does not sound right!!! I don't get how the scum in Washington could have misunderstood the 14th Amendment. I think they need to go back to school or back to the books for some more clarification.