The New York Times on March 1 published a story titled “Many Undocumented Immigrants Are Departing After Decades in the U.S.” The article was credited to one Miriam Jordan, the paper’s “National Immigration Correspondent.” Ms. Jordan was raised in Brazil (it’s not clear where she was born) and speaks, in addition to English, “Portuguese, Spanish, French and Hebrew.”
In her March 1 piece, Jordan makes the claim, repeatedly, that “many” non-citizens, after sometimes having spent years living illegally in the U.S., are returning to their homelands. She doesn’t document her sources very well but makes the following claims:
- “The number of undocumented people from about a dozen countries, including Poland, the Philippines, Peru, South Korea and Uruguay, declined 30 percent or more from 2010 to 2020.”
- “The undocumented population from Mexico, the principal source of immigrants to the United States, dropped to 4.4 million from 6.6 million during that period.”
- “Declines were recorded in all but two states during the decade, plunging 49 percent in New York; 40 percent in California, which lost 815,000 Mexicans; 36 percent in Illinois; and 20 percent, or 267,000, in Texas.”
These “reverse migrations,” she says, explain why, year after year, the estimated number of illegal U.S. residents remains stuck at 11 million, “despite a flood of migrant apprehensions at the southern border that reached two million last year.”
But what is the real question: why does the number stay constant or does the number stay constant?
It is certainly a popular number:
- Barack Obama stated in 2010 that “11 million undocumented immigrants” were in the U.S.
- In 2016, Donald Trump referred to “11 million illegal immigrants.”
- Last year, Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called for “a path to citizenship for all 11 million, or however many undocumented, there are here.” [emphasis added]
Schumer wisely hedged his bet, because not everyone believes the number correct. A joint Yale/MIT study released in 2018 found that the oft-repeated 11-million figure could be off by 50% or more. That study found that the actual number of illegals could be “as low as 16.5 million, or as high as 29.1 million.” Even at the low end of 16.5 million, their estimate was well above the commonly accepted number.
The fact is no one knows how many come, how many go, or how many stay. It is all guesswork, and it is best not to put your money on the guess that the NYT wants you to believe.
Ms. Jordan herself, back in January, somewhat belied the truth of her “they’re going home” theory when she gushed over a huge uptick in citizenship naturalization in an article titled “This Land Becomes Their Land: New U.S. Citizens Hit a 15-Year High.” While she thinks the illegals are departing, the “legals” are staying in droves.