Yale University professors estimate in PLOS ONE, that between 16 million and 30 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. — as much as three times more than most demographers figure.
The Census Bureau estimates there 11 million.
In July, the Department of Homeland Security cited January 2014 Census Bureau’s number of 12.1 million illegals.
The Yale researchers believe there are tens of millions of people who fall into the category of declining to answer the surveys. They came up with a conservative estimate of 16.7 million unauthorized migrants, up to 29.5 million. They figured 22.1 million was the mean.
Center for Immigration Studies director of research Steven Camarota said you need to take into account birth, death and school records.
He said hospital records would show more births, which if they happen in the US, makes them legal citizens.
“The big problem with these estimates is when you step back and try to compare them to the real world, like school enrollment figures or the number of births in the United States, they don’t line up,” said Camarota. “We have about 50,000 deaths among the illegal population each year. In addition to that, several hundred thousand people go home on their own each year, or get deported and we also legalize some illegal immigrants each year who marry an American or win the Visa lottery.”
Camarota said the margin of error might be an extra one or two million from 11 or 12 million, but not 17 million.
“Look at Census Bureau data and pull out the legal immigrants and the leftover, or generally referred to as the residual population, is how we look at it,” said Camarota.
Many demographers figure out how many illegal immigrants live in the US this way.
Migration Policy Institute analysts said the estimates are wrong.
Center for Migration Studies said the professors’ study didn’t take into account for Mexicans working seasons in the US cyclical.
Bear Stearns analysts reported in 2005 there were 20 million illegal immigrants.