Are 40 Million or 80 Million Foreigners Currently Present in America? Census Chart of America’s Immigration Future, with Correction and Commentary

GRAPH: Number & Share of Immigrants in the U.S., 1900-2010; Projection to 2060 - http://t.co/jRcMfxNrJ7 - pic.twitter.com/MsAH1W4kfg

— CIS.org (@wwwCISorg) April 23, 2015

By Nicholas Stix

The Census numbers in the chart are wildly misleading, because the Census Bureau is in the business of aiding a stealth mass amnesty of illegal aliens. (This is a minority opinion. Roy Beck of NumbersUSA would disagree, as would other immigration watchers, but with all due respect to Roy, I stand by my position.)

First of all, the Census Bureau speaks of “U.S. Population,” but it is legally obligated to count only American citizens, yet it counts all people that it believes to be residing on American soil as if they were citizens. Thus, it eliminates the distinction between citizen and foreigner. Second, it radically undercounts the number of illegal aliens, due in part to the latter’s refusal (for obvious reasons) to cooperate with Census workers, and due in part, I believe, to Census’ desire to suddenly spring racial minority status on American whites as a fait accompli, once it’s too late to stop. And so, Census keeps telling us that there are only 11 million to 12 million illegals in the country, a number that might have been true in the early 1990s.

Ten years ago, open borders financial analysts Robert Justich and Betty Ng, then with the late Bear Stearns, estimated that there were 20 million illegals in the country. Justich and Ng were convinced that Census’ methodology was inadequate, and so they developed a more accurate one, based on border crossings, and more importantly, increases in wire transfers, housing starts, and the building of new schools. Last November, Justich told me the Census Bureau simply has no reliable methodology for determining the numbers of illegal aliens.

For the reasons I gave above, I believe that it is no accident that Census clings bitterly to an outdated methodology.

On November 23, VDARE published my investigative report on the question of how many illegal aliens were then in the country. After reading the credible reports, and interviewing credible immigration watchers (most “experts” are just professional Open Borders Lobby liars)—many more than the final draft had room for, I concluded that as many as 50 million illegals were then in the country. Thus, instead of their being app. 40 million “immigrants” out of 308.7 million, for 12.9% of “residents,” there were more like 79 million out of 348 million, for 22.7%.

Thus, things are much worse than the graph shows, and they are worsening at an accelerating pace.