Guest Column
Immigration Scare Tactics: Exaggerated Estimates of New Immigration Under S.2611
Immigration Policy Center
The debate surrounding the immigration reform proposal approved today by the Senate was impacted by a series of seriously inaccurate estimates of how many new immigrants might enter the U.S. under the bill (S. 2611). According to a Policy Brief issued by the Immigration Policy Center (IPC), the following are some of the flaws of these projections:
--The estimates project absurdly high numbers of new immigrants to the U.S. that are larger than the total population of Mexico and Central America combined
--The estimates double-count several categories of immigrants
--The estimates assume that every new guest worker who comes to the U.S. will stay permanently
--The estimates are wildly at odds with those of the Congressional Budget Office
Armed with these inflated estimates, according to the IPC, critics succeeded in amending the original Senate bill by claiming that if left unchanged it would unleash a veritable flood of anywhere from 66 million to 217 million new immigrants into the United States over the next 20 years.
In contrast to the dire predictions of the bill’s opponents, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the U.S. population would grow by about 7.8 million over the next 10 years under the original Senate bill. This total includes undocumented immigrants who acquire legal status, guest workers, other immigrants who enter the country through family-based or employment-based channels, and any children born to immigrants after they arrive.
The immigration projections released by some opponents of the Senate bill clearly are intended to frighten rather than to inform, says the IPC. Using statistics that are rife with errors and based on unrealistic assumptions, these projections play to the fears of the American public rather contribute to an informed debate on how best to reform the U.S. immigration system. It is fanciful to think that immigration to the U.S. over the next two decades will be twice the total population of Mexico, which is the country from which most immigrants to the U.S. come. “As the Senate begins its effort to reach an agreement with the House, what we need now more than ever is an honest and objective analysis of the many immigration reform proposals currently under discussion,” says Benjamin Johnson, Director of the IPC, “not scare tactics.”
- The Immigration Policy Center's Policy Brief, Immigration Scare Tactics: Exaggerated Estimates of New Immigration Under S. 2611, is available at www.immigrationpolicy.org
- For more information contact Tim Vettel at (202) 742-5608.
- The Immigration Policy Center (IPC) is dedicated exclusively to the analysis of the economic, social, demographic, fiscal, and other impacts of immigration on the United States. The IPC is a division of the American Immigration Law Foundation, a nonprofit, tax-exempt educational foundation under Section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code.
- Tim N. Vettel
- Public Affairs
- Immigration Policy Center
- http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/
- 202-742-5608 (ofc)
- 202-297-5530 (cell)
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