I’m hoping someone can simplify the numbers and stats on illegal immigration.
In my research, I’m finding really conflicting data. For one, the majority of illegal immigrants are coming from Mexico. However, the majority of illegal immigrants are due to work visa overstays or vacation overstays, the majority of those coming from Canada.
How does all this work out?
If anyone can just post a quick run-down of the ins and outs of illegal immigration, I’d love to understand it better.
Your post doesn’t reference what sources you are getting information from but I found these in thirty seconds. Cato is a libertarian political think tank which is heavily focused on fiscal conservatism. Pew is a non-partisan public research and polling institution which is highly rated by political data analysis site FiveThirtyEight.com for the post-hoc accuracy of its polls; FactCheck.org is a non-profit corporation of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania which provides not-partisan fact checking against publically available information for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics.
I think you are running into conflicts based on time. The majority of illegal immigrant used to come from Mexico but not anymore. If you look at total numbers in the US that’s the sum total of everybody who’s come in for a couple of decades that hasn’t died, left, or been deported. Mexican illegal immigrants are more heavily weighted in those totals than if you are just looking at recent years. It’s important to look at whether we’re talkinng about totals or relatively recent flows.