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Illegal aliens are also known as illegal immigrants, illegal migrants, unauthorized migrants, undocumented immigrants, undocumented residents, and undocumented aliens. People often assume that the term illegal aliens refers specifically to Mexicans who have crossed the U.S.–Mexico border to work illegally in the United States. Although Mexicans may account for a number of the unauthorized e…
Because illegal aliens do not readily identify themselves for fear of deportation, it is almost impossible to determine how many illegal aliens are in the United States. Various sources have estimated between two and twelve million, but most estimates are little more than educated guesses and are often politically influenced. (The wide variance among the estimates is an indication of their unrelia…
Exactly one year after the terrorist attacks it was intended to prevent, the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) was launched. It consisted of three components: point-of-entry registration, special registration, and exit/departure controls. Special registration established a national registry for temporary foreign visitors (nonimmigrant aliens) coming from twenty-five designa…
An April 2002 report from the U.S. Department of Justice (Follow-Up Report on INS Efforts to Improve the Control of Nonimmigrant Overstays, Report no. I-2002-006, Washington, DC, April 2002) stated: Data from the 2000 Census suggests the number [of overstays] may be at least 8 million. Scholars at Boston's Northeastern University estimated the number as close to 13 million in a February 200…
Post–September 11 investigations identified "thousands of overstays and other illegal immigrant workers who (despite background checks) had obtained critical infrastructure jobs and security badges with access to, for example, airport tarmacs and U.S. military bases" (Overstay Tracking: A Key Component of Homeland Security and A Layered Defense, U.S. Government Accountability …
The 2000 census data was used by the INS to estimate that a total of seven million unauthorized residents were in the United States, double the 3.5 million estimated for 1990. That analysis identified Mexico as the leading country of origin of illegal aliens to the United States, accounting for 68.7% (4.8 million) of the estimated undocumented population in 2000. Fourteen countries were each estim…
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, it became apparent that some or all of the perpetrators had entered the United States legally and many had overstayed their allotted time with no notice taken by the INS or any other enforcement agency. On March 1, 2003, INS functions and those of the U.S. Customs Service were folded into the newly created Department of Homeland Security (DHS)…
In FY 2003 the Border Patrol located 931,557 deportable aliens, down from 955,310 in 2002, and from more than one million in each of the previous five years. The majority (882,012, or 94.7%) of the deportable aliens were from Mexico. Most of the Mexican aliens located (810,671) were identified as "seeking employment." (See Table 5.3.) More than one million aliens were expelled from C…
Charlie LeDuff reported for the New York Times ("100 Members of Immigrant Gang Held," March 15, 2005) that federal immigration authorities had arrested more than one hundred members of a violent Central American street gang in a nationwide crackdown. The gang, known as "Mara Salvatrucha" or MS-13, originated in Los Angeles and spread across the continent. Gang members w…
Aliens often pay smugglers to help them enter the United States illegally. In cases of trafficking the smugglers then use the aliens for forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation. ICE makes a distinction between alien smuggling and human trafficking. Alien smuggling produces short-term profits, while trafficking garners profits over both the long and short term. According to an ICE press rele…
In no other place in the world does a nation as wealthy as the United States share a border with a nation as poor as Mexico. Huge disparities exist between the rich and poor people of Mexico, so it is understandable that Mexico's poor are attracted to the United States. Before the twentieth century, Mexicans moved easily back and forth across completely open borders to work in the mines, on…
For its Survey of Mexican Migrants: Attitudes about Immigration and Major Demographic Characteristics (Washington, DC, 2005), the Pew Hispanic Center interviewed nearly 5,000 Mexican migrants who were applying for a matrícula consular, an identity document issued by Mexican consulates in the United States. The surveys were conducted at the consulates in Los Angeles and Fresno, California; New…
An estimated five hundred people from ninety-one foreign countries were among the approximately three thousand people who died in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In New York City, some of these were undocumented workers employed in the World Trade Center. From the more than 7,000 claims filed with the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, which was administered by the Department of…
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