Alien Invasion
Illegal immigration skyrocketed in the 1990s.

By John J. Miller & Ramesh Ponnuru
October 24, 2001 12:00 p.m.

onservatives welcomed the Census Bureau announcement last week that it would not "adjust" its statistical figures for the purposes of federal funding. What they failed to notice — and what the Center for Immigration Studies now has pointed out — is that the Census Bureau also said an unprecedented 8 million illegal aliens live in the United States.

In a slower news cycle, this might have been front-page news. Ten years ago, the illegal-alien population was estimated at 3.5 million — meaning that it grew by about half a million per year through the 1990s. (The actual annual inflow was probably even larger; CIS estimates that perhaps 700,000 illegal aliens enter each year but that 200,000 of them either return home or legalize their status.)

At least three of the September 11 terrorists were illegal aliens, according to INS commissioner James Ziglar — and authorities still lack complete information about several others. "If a Mexican day laborer can sneak across the border, so can an al Qaeda terrorist," says Steven A. Camarota of CIS. "While the vast majority of illegals are not terrorists, the fact that hundreds of thousands of people are able to settle in the United States illegally each year indicates that terrorists who wish to do so face few obstacles."

The new Census Bureau report also shows that the U.S. foreign-born population, comprised mainly of legal immigrants, grew from slightly less than 20 million in 1990 to more than 31 million in 2000 — an increase of 57 percent. During the height of the Ellis Island years, from 1900 to 1910, the foreign-born population grew by only 31 percent.

"No nation in history has every attempted to incorporate and assimilate 31 million newcomers into its society," says Camarota. "The experiment is by no means over. If policy remains unchanged, at least 13 million legal and illegal immigrants will likely settle in the United States over the next ten years."

Changing that will require strong public support. In June, it simply wasn't there: 42 percent of Americans believed immigration levels should remain as they are, and 41 percent thought they should be decreased, according to a CNN/USA Today poll. The latest survey, however, shows a dramatic shift: 58 percent now say immigration levels should be decreased and only 30 percent say they should go unchanged.

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Did you know that 87 percent of the baggage screeners at Dulles International Airport aren't citizens? Writes Linda Chavez: "As a frequent Dulles passenger, I've often wondered why none of the people screening my bags were American. And, even before Sept. 11, I worried that nearly all of them appeared to hail from countries that support terrorism."