It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
First, it requires reaching a representative sample of all those born outside of the United States. Second, it requires accurate responses from survey respondents when asked where they were born, and whether they are American citizens. It is plausible that undocumented immigrants are more difficult to locate (and survey) than other foreign-born residents of the United States, and if contacted, undocumented immigrants might misreport their country of origin, citizenship, and/or number of household residents fearing the possible consequences of revealing their true status. Any of these circumstances would lead to underestimating the true number of undocumented immigrants.
The academics expected their techniques to show the population is smaller than the consensus estimate of 11.3 million. “Our original idea was just to do a sanity check on the existing number,” said Edward Kaplan, operations research professor at Yale. “Instead of a number which was smaller, we got a number that was 50 percent higher. That caused us to scratch our heads.”
Operations research is a skill that extracts accurate estimates from scraps of data. It began in World War II when academics were enlisted to help track Nazi U-boats and weapons-production. For example, the academics used scraps of information to conclude that the Nazis produced 270 Panther tanks in February 1944. After the war, captured factory data showed the production of 276 Panthers in that month.
The figure [below] also shows our conservative estimate of 16.7 million in Red, and the most widely accepted estimate heretofore of 11.3 million in Blue on the far left. We note that this last estimate is for 2015, but should be comparable since both the estimates based on the survey approach and our modeling approach indicate that the number of undocumented immigrants has remained relatively constant in recent years. Finally, the mean estimate of 22.1 million is shown in black in the center of the distribution.
We ran 1,000,000 trials simulating the model. For each trial we recorded the total number of undocumented immigrants predicted to be in the U.S. in each year from 1990 through 2016 for that trial.
The results of our analysis are clear: The number of undocumented immigrants in the United States is estimated to be substantially larger than has been appreciated at least in widely accepted previous estimates. Even an estimate based on what we view as conservative assumptions, in some cases unrealistically so, generates an estimate of 16.7 million, well above the conventional estimate of 11.3 million. The mean of our simulations, which range over more standard but still conservative parameter values, is 22.1 million, essentially twice the current widely accepted estimate; the ninety-five percent probability interval is [16.2,29.5]. Even for the scenario presuming net inflows of 0.5 million per year for 1990-98 our results still exceed the current estimates substantially. The mean estimate is 17.0 million with a 95% probability interval of 13.5 million to 21.1 million. The conservative estimate for this scenario is 14.0 million, still significantly above the widely accepted estimate of 11.3 million.
originally posted by: scraedtosleep
a reply to: pavil
Illegals have never once harmed me or anyone that I love so I don't care how many there are.
originally posted by: scraedtosleep
a reply to: pavil
Illegals have never once harmed me or anyone that I love so I don't care how many there are.
originally posted by: UnBreakable
a reply to: one4all
Ya, Americans are lining up in the millions at the Canadian border to flee the USA for that second rate country to the north.
originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: one4all
You guys up in canada just let people stay without permission right?
No paperwork, no restrictions,
originally posted by: ccseagull
a reply to: one4all
What are you talking about? I'm in Canada and that is not the case whatsoever.
originally posted by: Klassified
a reply to: pavil
What is the Real Accurate number of the amount of Illegal Immigrants in the U.S.?
Around 326 million last I checked. That's been a while.