itialhttps://mailchi.mp/cmsny/2017-undocumented-decline?e=2d6959cb73
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Data from the Center for Migration Studies
Shows Sharp Multiyear Decline
in Undocumented Immigration
New York, NY – In a paper released today, the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) reports that the US undocumented population has declined by one million since 2010; illegal entries have plummeted to historic lows; and, in recent years, only one third of newly undocumented residents entered this population by crossing the US-Mexico border. The paper, authored by CMS’s senior visiting fellow Robert Warren, includes four graphs that illustrate major demographic trends in the undocumented population since 2000 and a table that provides detailed information about the size and components of undocumented population change annually since 1990. This paper combines CMS data and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) statistics on apprehensions, adjustment of status, and removals, to illustrate major trends in undocumented immigration to the United States since 1990. Major findings include:
- Undocumented population growth peaked in 2000, then dropped rapidly from 2000 to 2010; the total population has declined by one million since 2010.
- The drop in DHS apprehensions at the border mirrored the decline in undocumented population growth, falling from 1.6 million in 2000 to about 300,000 in 2017.
- Undocumented population growth stopped because undocumented arrivals fell from 1.4 million in 2000 to about 550,000 in 2007 and have since continued at about that level, while the number leaving the undocumented population increased steadily, from 370,000 in 2000 to 770,000 in 2016.
- From 2010 to 2016, about two-thirds of undocumented arrivals overstayed temporary visas; only one-third entered across the US-Mexico border. Overstays exceeded those who entered without inspection (EWIs) after 2008, not because the overall number of overstays increased (these numbers remained stable), but because EWIs continued to decline.
“Multiyear trends show a dramatic decline in both the undocumented population and undocumented migration to the United States. While there is a need to address the conditions driving asylum-seekers and other migrants to our borders and to make US ports-of-entry more secure, our findings show significant progress at the US-Mexico border, not a national emergency,” said Donald Kerwin, CMS’s executive director.
The report is now available at http://bit.ly/2XqsQMO.
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There is no “Southern Border Crisis” going all the way back into the Obama Administration’s unnecessary “panic approach” starting in the Summer of 2014. There is, however, gross maladministration of the asylum system, the process at legal ports of entry, and the U.S. Immigration Courts.
Not only is “Trump’s Wall” a wasteful and unnecessary piece of restrictionist diversion, it actually fails to address the major source of undocumented migration these days — nonimmigrant visa overstays and other issues at legal ports of entry.
Yet, Trump gets way with spreading false narratives and making up fake statistics to advance his factually unsupportable and dishonest “White Nationalist Agenda.” Here’s a link to a Newsweek article on Trump’s latest “litany of lies” about Immigration Court including the “Super Whopper” that “only 3% show up for hearings.” https://apple.news/Ak5yRHdLeSc-Qnq-jDR-
Wow, how does he get away with these total fabrications; the Government’s own statistics actually show that represented asylum applicants show up for hearings at a rate that’s much closer to 100% than 3%! Obviously, the real answer to asylum arrivals at the Southern Border is to get them pro bono lawyers, apply asylum law honestly and without bias, have hearings in a reasonable and timely manner, and let the chips fall where they may.
Most experts believe that under such a system the majority of arrivals from the “Northern Triangle” will qualify for asylum. That’s certainly my experience.
But, since we are not allowing the system work in the fair, impartial, and independent way it was intended, nobody actually knows the answer. Except that we do know that systemic fairness and efficiency could be achieved for less than the billions of dollars that Trump and his supporters are willing to waste on an unnecessary and ineffective “Wall.”
Worse yet, neither GOP legislators nor Trump’s rabid supporters and enablers are willing to “call him out” on his lies. Facts do matter; as long as they are buried beneath Trump’s lies, and as long as a significant portions of the electorate and the legislature remain uninterested in truth and an honest dialogue, we’re going to have difficulty moving forward as a nation.
That’s why we need the energy and dedication of the “New Due Process Army” to keep advancing a vision of a kinder, more decent, more humane, more inclusive America for as long as it takes to realize America’s noble, yet unfulfilled, promise of “liberty and justice for all.”
PWS
03-03-19