Report: Illegal immigration drops markedly this summer

Center for Immigration Studies analysis

SHERYL KORNMAN

Published: 07.31.2008

A report by the nonprofit Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., indicates that illegal immigration is down in the United States this summer by 11 percent compared with the same time last summer.

If the trend continues and the decline is sustained, "it would reduce the illegal population by one half in five years," the report concluded.

The report is based on an analysis of census and other data. It was released Wednesday.

Steven Camarota, the author of the study, said in an interview with the Tucson Citizen on Monday that although Arizona figures are not explicitly discussed in the study, he found the rate of illegal immigrant population in Arizona declined 18 percent in the last year. He compared data from April with data from the previous summer.

The study looked at U.S. census figures for foreign-born people ages 18 to 40 who had not graduated from high school or who did graduate from high school but had no additional education.

"Those are the attributes" of individuals counted by the census or by the Census Bureau's American Community Surveys that indicate illegal citizen status, Camarota said.

The CIS study concluded that increased federal enforcement efforts, immigration reform efforts and the declining economy are the key reasons illegal immigration is falling in the United States.