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.

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