12 to 20 million illegal immigrants---question about that number if you would.

[AlCzervik]

how do they arrive at that figure? Who does the head count?

[wildhorses]

1. same way they figure out how many showup at the protests

they pull it out of their ass

[AlCzervik]

3. thanks, i kind of figured it for an ass number.

[Wcross]

5. The correct term is "Ass-pulled". n/t

[Lobster Martini]

2. Beats me. It isn't the Census Bureau

The Census Bureau lumps illegal immigrants--I'll just use their words:

We use the term foreign born to refer to anyone who is not a U.S. citizen at birth. This includes naturalized U.S. citizens, Lawful Permanent Residents (immigrants), temporary migrants (such as students), humanitarian migrants (such as refugees), and persons illegally present in the United States.

So if the census, which is theoretically confidential, doesn't have the data, I can't see why any other department would have an accurate count.

[TahitiNut]

8. A reasonable estimate can be obtained by subtracting immigration statistics ...

... from the BoC counts. Since the Census tallies 'foreign born' every ten years (and monitors trends in its surveys) and the Immigration and Naturalization statistics would account for those with legitimate documentation, it'd be a farily simple matter of tracking the differnece. Since the numbers are large, it's understandable that the imprecision exists. Because various orgnaizatinos, both governmental and NGO, have a critical vested interest in actual population numbers for their funding, there've been several assessments of the degree to which the Census undercounts 'foreign born' due to the reticence of those counted.

[dave_p]

9. It's the foreign-born, less legal residents

The figure of 12 million seems to be the number for “unauthorized residents” calculated from the foreign-born population less those legally resident: it’s thus a residual including not just classic illegal immigrants but also those waiting for legal authorization and those not necessarily intending to stay long-term.

It's based on the corrected Census figure as updated by the Current Population Survey (preferred by the Bureau) or the American Community Survey (preferred by the DHS for its larger sample size than the CPS). Some studies have suggested lower figures. Estimates of 20 million don’t seem to be supported by anything.

[Jim Warren]

4. There is a site

Disclaimer:
I won't make any claims for it, it is obviously an anti-immigration site. There is a link in the first paragraph on data sources.
You are an adult, you can draw your own conclusions.

http://immigrationcounters.com/index.html

[Lobster Martini]

6. There are a few reasons to be skeptical of that site

The most obvious is that claiming that the statistics are updated in real-time is just plain silly.

Here's another tip-off: "Love your site. I was directed to your site from a blog on Bill O'reilly's website." Susan

[Jim Warren]

7. blah, blah, etc.

See disclaimer.