Where have the illegal immigrants gone?

From the Chicago Tribune, via The Week magazine,

Oklahoma’s new law, which cuts off undocumented immigrants from most government programs and mandates felony charges against anyone who transports or shelters them, has emerged as Exhibit A in the struggle.

Three months after the law took effect Nov. 1, anecdotal indications are mounting that many of Oklahoma’s estimated 100,000 illegal immigrants have fled the state. But so are indications that the new law is triggering unforeseen consequences.

Catch that? “Unforseen consequences.” Wonder what they might be?

The splintered trees, downed branches and piles of wood still littering nearly every neighborhood of this sprawling city two months after a devastating ice storm stand as a testament to something more than the ferocity of nature.

The debris is also a sign of the effectiveness of Oklahoma’s new law intended to drive illegal immigrants out of the state — the strictest such statute in the nation.

The branches are still here, many of the law’s critics say, because the undocumented workers who would have cleaned them up are not.

“You really have to work hard at it to destroy our state’s economy, but we found a way,” said state Sen. Harry Coates, the only Republican in the state Legislature to vote against the immigration law. “We ran off the workforce.”

Rut roh.

Construction companies that relied on undocumented laborers are having trouble completing jobs. Thousands of undocumented children have been dropped from the state’s Medicaid program. And business is down sharply at the stores, groceries and restaurants that serve a Hispanic clientele.

More rut roh. Or is it?

“The state of Oklahoma ought not be in the business of subsidizing the presence of people who are here illegally,” said Republican state Rep. Randy Terrill, sponsor of the Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act of 2007, also known as House Bill 1804.

He’s got a point.

But is this what we want?

Immigration - the next 50 years

The title on the email I received from Pew Hispanic Center made me say, “D’uh”

Immigration to Play Lead Role in U.S Population Growth from 2005 to 2050, Pew Research Study Finds.

If current trends continue, the population of the United States will rise to 438 million in 2050, from 296 million in 2005, and 82% of the increase will be due to immigrants arriving from 2005 to 2050 and their U.S.-born descendants, according to new projections developed by the Pew Research Center.

Of the 117 million people added to the population during this period due to the effect of new immigration, 67 million will be the immigrants themselves and 50 million will be their U.S.-born children or grandchildren.

Now if they told us how many would be illegal immigrants that might really help, but, alas they don’t. Although they do say,

Births in the United States will play a growing role in Hispanic and Asian population growth; as a result, a smaller proportion of both groups will be foreign-born in 2050 than is the case now.

Doesn’t help much, does it? With my interest in finding out how much of this projection will be illegal immigration. So I tried here, specifically this article. It was still hard to find (Try pressing Ctrl-F and Typing “Legal vs. Illegal Immigration”).

[A]ssuming net illegal immigration continues at 450,000 a year, Table 1 [Scroll up the page for this] indicates that it would add 13.4 million to the population by 2030 and 37.9 million by 2060. For legal immigration, one can use the net figure of 800,000 found in the table. Legal immigration of 800,000 a year will add 23.9 and 67.4 million to the population by 2030 and 2060, respectively. Of course, the racial composition of legal and illegal immigration differs somewhat and this matters because birth and death rates vary by race. Thus, dividing up legal and illegal immigration in this way can provide only a rough indication of the impact of the two types of immigration.

Table 4 in the report (Scroll down a bit) gives details for all illegal immigrants remaining, half departing and not returning and all departing and not returning.

One thing you rarely, if ever, see discussed on blogs like The Political Environment and Sprawled Out is the discussion of how immigration enters into urban sprawl. Does it have any effect? Who knows, but these people are going to have to live somewhere.

The other interesting factoid, which doesn’t have any bearing on this post,

The Center’s report includes an analysis of the nation’s future “dependency ratio”–the number of children and elderly compared with the number of working age Americans. There were 59 children and elderly people per 100 adults of working age in 2005. That will rise to 72 dependents per 100 adults of working age in 2050.

So 28% of the population will be working for the other 72% by 2050.

Immigration and the GOP

Victor Davis Hanson has an excellent piece on the dangers of their immigration stances to GOP candidates.

Bottom line: Republicans have to be careful that they don’t turn a windfall issue (the Democrats are mostly open-borders and captive to the identity-politics wing of the party) into a mass deportation albatross.

Mona Charen on immigration

Ms. Charen says lots of good things in her most recent op-ed.

I’ve been quiet on this debate because I find myself in the unfamiliar position of moderate. I cannot rejoice with so many of my conservative friends over the defeat of immigration reform, yet neither would I have been happy to see the legislation passed in the form it was offered.

Same here.

I persist in feeling well disposed toward those who wish to become Americans (particularly Catholics from Latin America, as I believe these are eminently assimilable populations), and I do fret that the Republican Party may have inflicted serious political damage on itself by appearing to be anti-immigrant.

Ditto.

I have heard nothing to convince me that the illegal immigration problem is not a reflection of legal immigration quotas that are too low. We have a full employment economy and a poor neighbor to the south. Is it any shock that employers are loath to turn away willing workers or that impoverished people are streaming across the Rio Grande? Are these low-skilled workers? You bet. Do we need them? Arguably yes.

Quotas are too low. The bill tried to deal with it by allowing temporary workers, but did nothing about quotas.

The greatest benefit of immigration by far is not what it does for the immigrant (though that is huge) but what it does for America — assuring a steady stream of newcomers who do not take the blessings of liberty for granted but cherish them. Many opponents of immigration are worried about diluting our culture. I’m far more worried about the hollowing out from within. We scarcely teach our own children to love America, far less inculcate patriotism in immigrants.

Again spot on.

If I were writing the law all by myself, I’d increase the legal immigration levels, beef up border enforcement, establish a national ID card so that we could really know who is here, and reform welfare so that only those who truly want to work would be tempted to immigrate. I’d also reform education to convey the greatness of this nation (warts and all). So here I am, in the awkward middle.

Well, except for the national ID card (how is this different from RealID?), not much to really argue with. So why don’t the politicians get it?

Here we go again

Immigration bill clears Senate test vote

Supporters needed 60 votes to scale procedural hurdles and return to the bill. A similar test-vote earlier this month found just 45 supporters, only seven of them Republicans. This time, 24 Republicans joined 39 Democrats and independent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, to back moving ahead with the bill. Opposing the move were 25 Republicans, nine Democrats and independent Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont.

Unlike most of my fellow conservatives, I’m not worried whether this bill goes through or not, whether amendments are made that “toughen” it up or not.

Why? There won’t be any enforcement in the future than there is now. Who cares how many bills are put up? Unless we are renewed to enforce whatever law (third letter) we decide on, it means nothing. And I don’t think we will.

Amnesty? We have de facto amnesty now.

Evidently President Bush used “amnesty” in talking about the bill.  Tony Snow says he misspoke. Looking at it, it appears he did. But so what?