Illegal Immigrants in U.S. Number at Least 7 Million

The number of illegal immigrants in the United States has risen to at least 7 million and possibly as high as 8 million, according to new figures from the 2000 census that offer a significantly larger count than previous estimates.

The new number shows that the nation’s total number of undocumented immigrants has at least doubled since 1990, as millions of people--mainly from Mexico and Central America--arrived to fill jobs in a booming economy. The previous census estimate for the undocumented population was 6 million, but experts had long called that number low.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service bumped up its own estimate earlier this year to a potential total of 7.5 million.

The number of illegal immigrants has always been hard to pin down and is subject to partisan interpretation. Some groups that favor restrictions in immigration policy have said the real number tops 10 million.

The new information may reinforce sentiment to seal the nation’s borders more tightly against illegal immigrants or to take steps to prevent people who entered legally from overstaying their visas.

Before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, support had been building for an amnesty program for undocumented workers, but that is now seen as unlikely. Not only is there less political support for regularizing undocumented workers, but a slumping economy has meant there is less employer demand for cheap labor.

The new census figure is another indicator of the demographic changes the country has seen in the last decade.

Jeffrey Passel, an Urban Institute researcher who advised the Census Bureau, argued that even a figure of 8 million could be low.