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Illegal immigration, or unauthorized immigration, occurs when foreign nationals, known as aliens, violate US immigration laws by entering the United States unlawfully, [1] [2] or by lawfully entering but then remaining after the expiration of their visas, parole or temporary protected status.
Approximately 11 million illegal immigrants were estimated to be living in the United States in 2006. [156] The Pew Hispanic Center estimated that this peaked at 12 million in March 2007 and declined to 11 million again in March 2009. [157] The majority of the illegal immigrants are from Mexico. [158]
Recently the trend of illegal immigrants has gone down since then. According to an article the Pew Research Center published on July 22, 2024, the population of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. has gone down to 11 million. The number peaked at 12.2 million in 2007, following a steady increase that began in 1990.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform, which seeks to reduce overall immigration, estimated that 16.8 million “illegal aliens” were living in the U.S. as of June 2023.
President Joe Biden’s open border policies resulted in an all-too-predictable wave of illegal immigration, with likely more than 16 million illegal aliens now residing in the U.S.
“Many will end up considering illegal options. Either they’re staying undocumented in Canada or they’re crossing the border illegally into the U.S.,” Barutciski noted.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act legalized most illegal immigrants who had arrived in the country prior to January 1, 1984. The act altered U.S. immigration law by making it illegal to knowingly hire illegal immigrants, and establishing financial and other penalties for companies that employed illegal immigrants.
Discussion has been particularly intense when an illegal alien has been arrested for a minor offense and is known to be in the country illegally is released because the jurisdiction where he was arrested is a sanctuary city that limits police cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE,) and goes on to commit a new crime.