Garnering significant media attention, the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) released a new study yesterday that credits immigration enforcement with a decline in illegal immigration. It found that since last August the "less-educated, working-age Hispanic immigrant population" has dropped by more than 10 percent. CIS research director Steven Camarota acknowledges that, while the lack of available jobs has played a role, "several factors pointed to enforcement as a major reason":
Camarota and Jensenius said they take this as possible evidence that tougher enforcement can have a multiplier effect, scaring many more illegal immigrants into leaving of their own accord than authorities can pick up. And the authors suggest that if the trends they identify are sustained, "it would cut the illegal population in half within just five years."
But when analyzing a report, it's important to look at who authored it. Calling themselves a "pro-immigrant, low-immigration think tank," CIS is an off-shoot of FAIR, an organization headed by John Tanton that advocates for significant reductions in immigration -- illegal or otherwise. The Southern Poverty Law Center calls CIS a "thinly disguised anti-immigration organization." Not surprisingly, the details and methodology of the study are questionable at best. From the Tribune:
But some questioned the study's methodology, its findings and its underlying assumptions.
"Our data aren't inconsistent with the idea that people are leaving," said Jeffrey Passel, demographer with the Pew Hispanic Center, a non-partisan Washington think tank. But Passel added, "I don't see in my numbers anywhere near the decline he's talking about."
Frank Sharry, the executive director of America's Voice agrees with Passel:
"As is their habit, the Center for Immigration Studies starts with a conclusion and then shamelessly tortures data to conform to their conclusion. The truth is immigration enforcement has increased dramatically over the last twenty years, yet the population of undocumented immigrants has also increased dramatically during that time. Immigration ebbs and flows according to economic push and pull factors, and every credible researcher who has evaluated the issue has come to this same conclusion.
"This latest report from CIS is just the next chapter of their campaign to convince policy-makers that 'attrition through enforcement'—or tightening the screws on undocumented workers and hoping they will self-deport—is a 'humane' alternative to the mass deportation of 12 million people. But there is nothing humane nor practical about creating a state of terror in immigrant communities aimed at driving millions of humble, hardworking people from our midst."
Thankfully, some of our representatives are refusing to take their eyes off of the inhumane treatment of immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement:
"I'm going to be talking to my colleagues to put an end — an end — to these raids," said Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.). "America is better, greater than these conditions which we have created in Postville." He said Immigration reforms must include a way for illegal immigrants to legally remain in the country but offered no further details on how lawmakers would stop the raids.
"The president knows that we resolve nothing by taking these kinds of punitive actions," he said.
