Thread: Legal and illegal immigration hits all-time high

Legal and illegal immigration hits all-time high

examiner.com
October 14, 2012
By: Dwight L. Schwab Jr.


ICE Director John Morton: Agency is overwhelmed

One of the missing topics from the October 3rd presidential debate was immigration policy. Although both candidates are working hard for the Hispanic vote, there are new statistics that are well worth looking at.

The number of legal and illegal immigrants within the country has hit a new record of 40 million in 2010, a 28 percent increase from 2000, according to a new report.

The number of immigrants and their children born in this country now stands at around 50 million. This according to Steven A. Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies. That accounts for more than one-sixth of the U.S. population.

Immigration has dramatically increased the size of the U.S.'s low-income population adding even those immigrants living in the country for 20 years. Poverty, lack health insurance and abuse of welfare benefits far above the native-born American average.

The new statistics is a sharp rise from 9.6 million in 1970, although the immigrant share of the population, 12.9 percent, is lower than it was in 1910 — 14.7 percent. In the last decade alone, legal and illegal plus births to immigrants added 22.5 million residents, or 80 percent of the total U.S. population growth.

It is estimated there are 28 percent of immigrants in this country illegally. Within the next 20 years, it is estimated that between 12 million and 15 million new immigrants, legal and illegal, will settle in the United States.

Worthy of a debate discussion on Tuesday night?

Here are some other shocking statistics:

- In 2010, 23 percent of immigrants and their native born offspring under age 18 lived in poverty – that in comparison to 13.5 percent of natives and their children.

- Countries providing the most poverty-stricken immigrants is highest for Mexico (35 percent), Honduras (34 percent) and Guatemala (31 percent). The lowest is Germany (7 percent) and India (6 percent).

- Immigrant households (36 percent) utilized at least one major welfare program in 2010. It was primarily a program for food and/or Medicaid. That compared to 23 percent of native households.

- Twenty-nine percent of immigrants lack health insurance (2010) compared to 13.8 percent for natives.

- Over 10.4 million immigrant students attend public schools while 78 percent of them speak a language other than English in their at homes.

- Twenty-eight percent of adult immigrants from 25-65 have not completed high school compared to 7 percent of natives.

- Immigrants account for 27.2 percent of the population in California, 22.2 percent in New York, and 21 percent in New Jersey, but just 1.2 percent in West Virginia.

- The largest increases in immigrant population from in the last decade (2000 to 2010) was Alabama, up 92.1 percent, followed by South Carolina (88.4 percent), and Tennessee (81.8 percent). New York was lowest (11.1 percent).

- The immigrant population in North Carolina alone rose an incredible 524 percent from 1990 to 2010.

- The greatest number of immigrants I the U.S. come from Mexico, 11.7 million, China/Hong Kong/Taiwan (2.1 million), India (1.78 million), Philippines (1.77 million) and Vietnam (1.2 million).

- The one category that immigrants dominate is “Farm Workers Non-Supervisors,” at 53.5 percent.

The two candidates need to drop the politically correct language of this issue from the debate and seriously discuss what this country must do to improve and enforce legal and illegal immigration before the country is overrun in its zeal to be “compassionate.”

Legal and illegal immigration hits all-time high - San Francisco Bay Area Moderate Conservative | Examiner.com

Romney is for using E-Verify, to keep illegals from taking jobs from Americans. IMO that's a very good idea.