Entry Into The US By Illegal Immigrants At 40 Year Low: Need Better Legal Immigrant Guest Worker Program, Not More Border Security

Posted by Milton Recht:

From The Wall Street Journal, "Border Security Reality Check: Illegal entries are already down to 40-year lows."

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Even more dramatic is GAO's analysis of illegals who escape through the enforcement net, a statistic called "got aways." In nine major Southern border crossing areas, including the main gateways of Tucson, San Diego and the Rio Grande, got aways fell to an estimated 86,000 in 2011 from 615,000 in 2006. That's an 86% decline in foreigners who successfully snuck into the country from Mexico.

So much for the "porous border" argument. The Pew Hispanic Center found that in 2011 more Mexicans left the U.S. than entered—the first time that has happened since the Great Depression.

Even those who do come illegally are more likely to be deported. Contrary to Republican claims that President Obama has turned a blind eye to illegal aliens, the official data indicate the opposite. The number of deportations of illegal immigrants and criminals reached 1.5 million in Mr. Obama's first term, which was roughly one-third higher than the Bush years, according to ICE data. Criminal deportations were nearly twice as high in Mr. Obama's first term as in 2007.***Republicans who truly want to improve enforcement in the Senate bill would do better to focus on increasing pathways to legal immigration, especially the number of W visas in the new guest-worker program. The border apprehension data show that the only time since 1925 that illegal entries fell more than they have in the last decade was in the mid-1950s through the mid-1960s when Congress authorized the Bracero guest-worker program. Illegal entries climbed again after the AFL-CIO lobbied Congress to kill Bracero in 1964.

Give people more legal ways to enter and exit America, and fewer will come illegally.