Thread: New Report from FAIR Finds More than 13 Million Illegal Alie

New Report from FAIR Finds More than 13 Million Illegal Aliens Reside in the U.S.

2007 Figures Represent an 88 Percent Increase Since 2000

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- According to a new
report from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), How Many
Illegal Aliens?, the illegal immigrant population of the United States now
exceeds 13 million. In 2000, the now defunct Immigration and Naturalization
Service estimated that there were a little more than 7 million people
residing illegally in the U.S.

The burden and costs of illegal immigration are still distributed
unevenly across the country, but states and regions that were virtually
immune to the impact of large-scale illegal immigration just a decade ago
are now feeling the effects, finds the study. About 60 percent of all
illegal immigrants -- nearly 8.4 million people -- are settled in just six
states, California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois and New Jersey.
Other recent reports by FAIR indicate that the combined costs of K-12
education, health care and incarceration of criminals to those six states
exceeds $27 billion annually.

"These new estimates, showing explosive growth in illegal immigration
in recent years, indicate why Americans all across the country are
demanding that the government control our borders and block illegal
immigrants from working or receiving benefits in this country," said Dan
Stein, president of FAIR. "Almost from the day the Bush Administration took
office, they made it clear that their aim was to reward illegal immigration
with amnesty and assorted other benefits. As a result, we have seen record
increases in illegal immigration, mounting burdens on taxpayers, and
unprecedented public concern about this issue."

At 13,175,000 people, the illegal population of the United States is
now larger than the entire population of Illinois, the nation's fifth most
populous state. The phenomenon has also become a national one in the past
decade, finds How Many Illegal Aliens? More than three-fifths of the states
have seen their illegal alien population more than double since 2000. In
all, 24 states now have illegal populations that exceed 100,000.

"There are no overnight fixes to a problem that has been growing for
years," commented Stein. "But the American public strongly supports an
enforcement-first approach that discourages new people from coming
illegally and encourages millions who are here to return home. What is
clear is that lack of enforcement and proposed amnesties have only
exacerbated the problem."