Illegal Immigration Statistics

Illegal immigration is one of the most prominent problems which several developed as well as developing countries face today, and the United States is no exception. Some of the most obvious causes of illegal immigration in the United States include job opportunities, inefficiency on the part of administration etc. In order to asses the severity of this problem, one has to go through the illegal immigration statistics compiled by various organizations. Even though illegal immigration pros and cons are justifiable, one has to take into consideration the other factors associated with this phenomenon, especially when it's the question of millions of lives.

Illegal Immigration Statistics in the United States
The inaccuracy in counting illegal immigrant individuals in the population of the United States of America makes it virtually impossible to determine the size of the immigrant population in the country. This makes the task of compilation of the statistical data all the more difficult, owing to which the statistics on illegal immigrants in the United States are by and large dependent on estimates and sample studies. Given below is a compilation of these statistics which gives a grim picture of the issue of illegal immigration in US.

• Statistical estimates suggest that there were 11 million illegal migrants residing in the United States as of 2008. This meant that there was a significant decline in the immigrant population which was estimated to be 12 million for 2007.
• According to the U.S. Census Bureau the overall immigrant population (legal as well as illegal) in the United States reached the 38 million mark in March 2007, one-third of which were illegal immigrants.
• The data compiled by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security revealed that 57 percent of the total illegal migrant population came from Mexico alone, while around 25 percent was attributed to the other Latin American nations.
• As far as the illegal migrant population concentration was concerned, the largest concentration was observed in the state of California (25 percent), which was followed by Texas (14 percent) and Florida (8 percent).
• A study by the Center for American Progress revealed that the cost incurred on forcible evacuation of illegal migrants from the country accounted to a whopping $41 billion a year.
• A study carried out by NumberUSA - an organization working to curb illegal migration in the United States, revealed that there were around 7.7 million illegal migrants employed in the country in 2008.
• Implementing strategies which would make workplace verification mandatory, and introducing measures to curb misuse of Social Security numbers can reduce the illegal population in the country by 1.5 million every year.
• Those who violate the immigration norms are also known to have significant share in criminal activities in the country. A recent survey revealed that 40 percent of the illegal migrants in the United States had a history of violent crime.
• There have been cases of the U.S. federal immigration authorities raiding some of the bigwigs in the industrial sector for employing illegal migrants. One of the famous case was the raid on the chain of Swift & Co. meat processing plants in which as many as 1,300 illegal immigrants were arrested.

According to the illegal immigration statistics compiled by the Center for Immigration Studies, the population of the United States is expected to increase by 167 million - a rise of 56 percent, by 2060, if the ongoing trend of illegal immigration continues. The very fact that millions of people are migrating illegally with ease highlights that there is some problem with the state machinery, and therefore, the onus is on the administration to come up with solutions which will curb this illegal practice.