Undocumented Immigrants

June, 2020

Immigrant is defined as, “a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country.” Undocumented immigrants are people who do not have legal immigration status in the country in which they reside. The term “illegal alien” has been used to describe undocumented immigrants. There is a political argument about what the correct term should be, with “illegal alien” considered the more pejorative description.

Facts You Should Know

  • According to the Center for Migration Studies, the undocumented population in the U.S. dropped from 11.7 million in 2010 to 10.7 million in 2017, and according to the US Customs and Border Patrol, illegal entry by individuals from Mexico has fallen by more than 90% since FY2000.
  • There are approximately 1.3 million young adults and millennials who were brought into the U.S. by their parents, but only 652,880 individuals had active DACA status at the end of FY2019, according to the US Customs and Immigration Service. Their status remains tenuous without Congressional action offering them a path to citizenship.
  • In the period from 2010 to 2019, people arriving with temporary visas and overstaying them has been the primary source of undocumented immigrants.

  • Apprehensions at the Southwest border grew significantly in FY 2019, mostly due to the increase in families seeking asylum. The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol apprehended more than 474,000 minor children and adults traveling as families and about 76,000 unaccompanied children along that border.

    These children and families are primarily from Guatemala and Honduras.

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June, 2020

The border between the United States and Mexico totals 1,989 miles. Currently, border walls of different types of fences span about 670 miles, which cost over $2.4 billion to construct. The construction was approved and funded through the Secure Fence Act of 2006. Most of this fence was built between 2006 and 2009, but Congress failed to allocate additional funding.

After the failure to procure funding, The White House decided to use last year’s national emergency declaration to pull $3.5 billion from military counter-drug enforcement. An additional $3.2 billion will be taken from Department of Defense construction projects for additional fencing projects. The number is more than five times the amount allocated to barrier construction by Congress for 2020. The funds transfer would bring the total amount devoted to border wall construction under Trump to $18.4 billion. These actions by the Administration are being challenged in the court system.

So far, the administration has only completed about 101 miles of barrier construction.

Facts You Should Know

  • Every year, no fewer than 350 million people cross our border with Mexico—legally! There are 35 border cities, with 48 crossing points and 330 ports of entry.
  • The border, largely designed to process single Mexican males, has not adjusted to the demographic shift to Central American families and unaccompanied children. Unlike Mexicans, they cannot be swiftly deported to their home country, and families also cannot be indefinitely detained because of rules limiting the incarceration of children to 20 days.
  • Various policies have been introduced to discourage migration rather than prepare for the high influx and demographic change: separating families; requiring asylum applicants to wait in Mexico while their applications are processed; metering and then closing the border.
  • The U.S. has sent more than 56,000 migrants to Mexico under the program, known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). The majority have been Central Americans applying for U.S. asylum. Mexico’s asylum agency, known as COMAR, reported in late 2019 that it had received 66,915 applications for asylum in 2019, up nearly 126% from the previous year.
  • Metering, which limits both the entry points and the number of entrants per day, has dramatically limited the number of people that can seek asylum.
  • Construction costs to expand the current wall to cover the entire border with Mexico continues to climb. It is estimated that the actual cost to construct a wall along the remaining 1,300 miles of the border could be as high as $20 million per mile. The cost of private land acquisitions and fence maintenance are pushing up the total cost to an estimated to $45 billion.

Be Informed. Vote Informed.

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