New Report from FAIR Finds More than 13 Million Illegal Aliens

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, D.C.) 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."

How Many Illegal Aliens? is available at: http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecentersb8ca


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