Immigration

SUBJECT OF

FACTS (23)
EVENTS (25)

Sep 2006	Percentage change since 1991 in the average fee charged by smugglers of illegal Chinese immigrants into the U.S.: +100	Harper's Index Source: Ko-lin Chin, Rutgers University (Newark)
Sep 2006	Number of Chinese illegals who have been caught by the United States but China has so far refused to take back: 39,000	Harper's Index Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Jun 2006	Estimated number of illegal Irish immigrants in the United States: 25,000	Harper's Index Source: Consulate General of Ireland (N.Y.C.)
Jun 2006	Length, in miles, of a barrier that Saudi Arabia has proposed to build in order to seal its border with Iraq: 560 Number of electronically controlled gates that would be placed along its length: 135	Harper's Index Source: Middle East Economic Digest (London)
May 2006	Average number of Africans who have legally emigrated to the United States each year since 2000: 55,000	Harper's Index Source: Office of Immigration Statistics (Washington)
Jan 2006	Number of workplace arrests made by U.S. immigration authorities in 1997: 17,554	Harper's Index Source: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Jul 2005	Estimated amount that illegal immigrants pay into Social Security each year: $6,400,000,000	Harper's Index Source: Center for Immigration Studies (Washington)
Jul 2005	Average percentage of the U.K. population that Britons believe to be immigrants: 21	Harper's Index Source: Market & Opinion Research International (London)
Jul 2005	Actual percentageof the U.K. population that are immigrants: 8	Harper's Index Source: Office for National Statistics (London)
Feb 2005	Rank of the Vlaams Blok, Belgium's far-right anti-immigration party, among the most popular in Flanders: 1	Harper's Index Source: Dedicated Research (Brussels)
Dec 2003	Number of refugees the United States accepted in the last year, expressed as a percentage of the legal maximum: 40	Harper's Index Source: U.S. Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (Washington)
Dec 2003	Rank of 2002 among fiscal years since 1980 in which the fewest refugees entered the United States: 1	Harper's Index Source: U.S. Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (Washington)
Nov 2001	Percentage change since 1996 in the number of U.S. apprehensions of people trying to cross the Mexican border: +9	Harper's Index Source: U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service
Nov 2001	Percentage change since 1999 in the number of people who died on U.S. soil while crossing the border illegally: +56	Harper's Index Source: U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service
Jun 2000	Estimated ratio of immigrants arriving in the U.S. in the 1890s to the number returning home during that period: 3:2	Harper's Index Source: Harold Evans, The American Century, Alfred A. Knopf (N.Y.C.)
Jun 2000	Points by which the percentage of U.S. residents born abroad has changed since 1850: -0.4	Harper's Index Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census (Suitland, Md.)
Jun 2000	Number of immigrants Japan would require in order to maintain its present workforce through the year 2050: 30,450,000	Harper's Index Source: United Nations (N.Y.C.)
Apr 2000	Percentage change since 1996 in the amount of time it takes a U.S. green-card holder to become a resident: +106	Harper's Index Source: U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (Washington)
Apr 2000	Percentage change since 1994 in the number of beds in INS detention facilities: +2821	Harper's Index Source: U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (Washington)
May 1999	Percentage change since 1997 in the number of illegal immigrants deported by the U.S.: +51	Harper's Index Source: Immigration and Naturalization Service (Washington)
May 1999	Percentage change since 1997 in the annual number of people seeking asylum in Switzerland: +72	Harper's Index Source: Federal Office for Refugees (Bern, Switzerland)
May 1999	Chance that one of last year's applicants for Swiss asylum was a Turkish Kurd: 1 in 3	Harper's Index Source: Federal Office for Refugees (Bern, Switzerland)
Aug 1998	Estimated number of undocumented migrants who have died since 1993 while trying to cross the U.S.-Mexican border: 1,185	Harper's Index Source: Karl Eschbach, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Houston (Tex.)

October 9, 2007	The Republican candidates for president gathered in Dearborn, Michigan, for a debate on the economy. Mitt Romney, who was born in Detroit, bemoaned the “one-state recession“ gripping Michigan; Duncan Hunter repeatedly blamed the loss of American manufacturing jobs on free-trade policies with “communist China”; Ron Paul attributed the large profits of hedge-fund managers to a conspiracy among politicians, banks, Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, and the military-industrial complex to inflate or destroy currencies and swindle the middle class; and John McCain advised Paul to read ”The Wealth of Nations." The candidates generally agreed that taxes are too high. “We’re taxed to the max,” said Sam Brownback. Mike Huckabee touted his Fair Tax proposal to abolish the IRS and to tax consumption as a way to shift the tax burden onto drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes, and illegal immigrants. Paul and Tom Tancredo refused to pledge to support the Republican nominee in the general election.	Weekly Review By Christian Lorentzen Source: New York Times
September 26, 2007	Riverside, New Jersey, joined the list of towns across the nation that were rescinding anti-immigrant ordinances because they were hurting local economies. “The business district is fairly vacant now, but it's not the legitimate businesses that are gone,” said former mayor Charles Hilton. “It's all the ones that were supporting the illegal immigrants, or, as I like to call them, the criminal aliens.”	Weekly Review By Miriam Markowitz Source: New York Times
August 30, 2007	Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff vowed to make employers who hire illegal immigrants “unhappy.”	Weekly Review By Theodore Ross Source: Washington Post
July 18, 2007	Former congressman Tom DeLay gave a speech about abortion to a gathering of college Republicans in Washington, D.C. “If we had those 40 million children that were killed over the last 30 years,” said DeLay, “we wouldn't need the illegal immigrants to fill the jobs that they are doing today.”	Weekly Review By Paul Ford Source: Raw Story
April 4, 2007	In Beardstown, Illinois, federal agents arrested 62 undocumented immigrants in a pork plant.	Weekly Review By Theodore Ross Source: Reuters
February 13, 2007	Bank of America was offering a new credit card aimed at illegal immigrants.	Weekly Review By Gemma Sieff Source: Reuters
October 27, 2006	Mexican president Vicente Fox called a proposed 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico border an “embarrassment.”	Weekly Review By Theodore Ross Source: Yahoo News
September 22, 2006	Fruit farmers rallied in Washington, D.C., to protest a shortage of low-wage, uninsured, illegal immigrant laborers.	Weekly Review By Theodore Ross Source: New York times
September 21, 2006	The Boeing Company was awarded a congressional contract to build a 6000-mile “virtual fence” along the U.S.-Mexico border.	Weekly Review By Theodore Ross Source: Washington Post
August 22, 2006	The mayor of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, announced his intention to make his city the “toughest place on illegal immigrants in America.”	Weekly Review By Theodore Ross Source: Washington Post
July 19, 2006	Sheriff's deputies in Arizona stumbled upon 100 Mexican immigrants wandering in the desert west of Phoenix.	Weekly Review By Theodore Ross Source: NY Times
June 20, 2006	The theme of the 2006 World Refugee Day was hope.	Weekly Review By Theodore Ross Source: VOA via Google News
June 14, 2006	Vandals were emptying the water tanks that volunteers place in the Arizona desert; the volunteers maintain the tanks so that illegal immigrants from Mexico do not die from dehydration when crossing into the United States.	Weekly Review By Paul Ford Source: KVOA Tucson
June 8, 2006	President George W. Bush traveled to Artesia, New Mexico, to address the Border Patrol Academy and suggested that immigrants had better learn to speak good American. “I knew I was in pretty good country when I saw all the cowboy hats,” he said. “And I think I saw one guy spitting in a can.”	Weekly Review By Roger D. Hodge Source: San Francisco Chronicle
June 2, 2006	California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered 1,000 National Guard soldiers to the Mexican border.	Weekly Review By Rafil Kroll-Zaidi Source: The Los Angeles Times
May 17, 2006	A Honduran teenager who stole an anti-immigration protest sign in New York was facing deportation.	Weekly Review By Paul Ford Source: Breitbart.com
April 1, 2006	Polls found that 51 percent of Americans oppose gay marriage (the same percentage that thinks illegal immigrants mostly contribute to American society).	Weekly Review By Paul Ford Source 1: HoustonVoice.com Source 2: Times-Herald
March 26, 2006	A half-million people protested in Los Angeles against changes to U.S. immigration law.	Weekly Review By Paul Ford Source: The Los Angeles Times
March 11, 2006	In Chicago between 300,000 and 500,000 people marched to protest a House bill that calls for increased border protection to limit immigration.	Weekly Review By Paul Ford Source: CBS2Chicago.net
May 5, 2005	Spain gave 700,000 illegal immigrants amnesty.	Weekly Review By Paul Ford Source: ISN
March 2, 2005	The Department of Homeland Security required 1,700 legal immigrants to wear ankle bracelets.	Weekly Review By Paul Ford Source: NPR
February 2, 2005	Malaysia's Home Ministry gave illegal immigrants one last chance to leave the country before being whipped.	Weekly Review By Theodore Ross Source: BBC News
January 24, 2005	United States immigration authorities were evaluating a program that uses unmanned drones to patrol the border of Arizona and Mexico.	Weekly Review By Paul Ford Source: USA Today
December 28, 2004	A new law took effect that bars immigrants from claiming refugee status in Canada if they have to travel through the U.S. to get there,	Weekly Review By Arno Kopecky Source: New York Times
April 17, 2004	The 9/11 commission concluded that the harsh immigration policies put in place after September 11 were useless.	Weekly Review By Roger D. Hodge Source: New York Times

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