Thread: Estimates shore up Marco Rubio's claim about illegal immigra

Estimates shore up Rubio's illegal immigrants' claim

Times staff

Published Monday, January 18, 2010

The statement

"Close to half of the folks in this country illegally, entered legally (but) overstayed (their ) visas."

Marco Rubio on Thursday, in interview with Glenn Beck

The ruling

Florida U.S. Senate hopeful Marco Rubio has hit the big time — Glenn Beck's radio program.

During a wide-ranging interview Thursday, Rubio said that he thinks Republicans need to be the party that supports and promotes legal immigration. Then, he added: "Close to half of the folks in this country illegally, entered legally (but) overstayed (their) visas," Rubio said.

Rubio claims people remaining in the United States on expired visas are nearly as big a problem as people illegally crossing the U.S. border. Is he right?

To back Rubio's claim, spokesman Alex Burgos directed us to a 2006 National Public Radio report about illegal immigration. The report said that "nearly half the 12 million people illegally in the country didn't cross the desert or pay a smuggler … they crossed legally at a point of entry." The NPR story then points to a study conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center.

The Pew report, published in May 2006, indeed concludes that 40 to 50 percent of people living in the United States illegally entered the country legally through ports of entry. The percentages are right in line with what Rubio suggested.

Pew relied on a 1997 Immigration and Naturalization Service report. It concluded that in 1996, 41 percent of illegal immigrants had entered the country legally.

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security released a report in January 2003 that found 33 percent of the illegal immigrant population in 2000 had entered the country legally.

Trying to make the same estimate, the General Accounting Office produced three percentages using different methodology: 31, 27 and 57 percent.

"The government has a pretty good idea of how many people come into the country if they fill out one of the forms, but it does not have a full count of how many leave," the Pew report said.

What we're left with then is a series of numbers — all different, all educated guesses.

The difference between the estimates represents about 2 million people, not an insignificant number. We can't fault Rubio for using the numbers he did. But it seems like adding a little context would be appropriate. We rate Rubio's claim Mostly True.

www.tampabay.com

That's hilarious. Why don't these morons just shut up and start deporting? Any outfit who thinks there are only 12 million illegals in the United States to begin has already proven their ineptness and incompetency at counting illegal aliens, because there are 12 million illegal aliens in California.

Furthermore, I don't care if an illegal alien rode in behind the dashboard of a smuggler's van, in the back of the tractor trailer under a ton of marijuana or waltzed in on a student, tourist or work visa. They're all illegal aliens and need to be deported.

And Republicans in Florida. Please try to find a candidate for the US Senate who does NOT say that Republicans need to promote legal immigration and THEN tries to make half of the illegal aliens in the country legal immigrants because they may have entered legally at some point in their lives and overstayed their visas. Overstaying a visa is just as much of a crime as crossing the border without one.

I still want an explanation as to WHY there are so many visa overstays and I don't want to hear anymore crap about "cost and inconvenience".......not when I know any number of people who are here legally and take care of their documentation faithfully, never complaining about cost or inconvenience.

That leaves me with one conclusion.....that those who came and then overstayed their visas had planned to do exactly that right from the start.

Originally Posted by azwreath

I still want an explanation as to WHY there are so many visa overstays and I don't want to hear anymore crap about "cost and inconvenience".......not when I know any number of people who are here legally and take care of their documentation faithfully, never complaining about cost or inconvenience.

That leaves me with one conclusion.....that those who came and then overstayed their visas had planned to do exactly that right from the start.

Which then leads to the next question of why our State Department is handing out that many visas to people who can't be trusted to leave our country when they're supposed to. How can any responsible government not know when visa holders leave their country?