Pew: more illegal aliens than legal immigrants during 2000-2004

From this:

More immigrants came to the United States illegally from 2000 through 2004 than the number who were granted legal status in those years, according to a study released yesterday that attributed much of the historic shift to visa slowdowns since 2001 and to the nation's strong job market before that.

The study by the Pew Hispanic Center said that immigration to the United States -- legal and illegal, from all regions of the world -- totaled about 1.1 million each year during the 1990s, peaked in 2000 at 1.5 million and declined substantially since 2001 to earlier levels. The number of new arrivals increased in 2004, the study said, though it is too early to say that the rise will last.

Now, let's get even scarier:

A spokesman for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the government agency that oversees the granting of green cards, said he could not comment on the study in detail because officials had not examined it closely. But Bill Strassberger questioned its conclusion that new illegal immigrants outnumber legal ones.

"I don't know that there are any indications that the undocumented population is growing faster than the legal population," the spokesman said.

"Undocumented"? The correct legal term is "illegal alien". One would hope that someone from the federal government wouldn't speak newspeak.

Immigration2005b · Thu, 09/29/2005 - 06:59 · · Importance: 1