Immigrants at Mid-Decade A Snapshot of America's Foreign-Born Population in 2005

Center for Immigration Studies ^ | December 2005 | By Steven A. Camarota

[tbird5]

An analysis of Census Bureau data shows that the nation's foreign-born or immigrant population (legal and illegal) reached a new record of more than 35 million in March of 2005. The data also indicate that the first half of this decade has been the highest five-year period of immigration in American history. This Backgrounder provides a detailed picture of both numbers and the socio-economic status of immigrants.

Among the report's findings:

*

The 35.2 million immigrants (legal and illegal) living in the country in March 2005 is the highest number ever recorded -- two and a half times the 13.5 million during the peak of the last great immigration wave in 1910. *

Between January 2000 and March 2005, 7.9 million new immigrants (legal and illegal) settled in the country, making it the highest five-year period of immigration in American history. *

Nearly half of post-2000 arrivals (3.7 million) are estimated to be illegal aliens. *

[ncountylee]

Put every illegal captured to work at hard public project labor until ransomed by their country. The wall could be built quickly and cheaply.

Only half kidding.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Lots of good immigration info at source.

[MamaDearest]

If the problem is Muslim terrorists, then what?

Snip: In September, federal prosecutors charged illegal alien Mahmoud Maawad, 29, with wire fraud and fraudulent use of a Social Security number. But their real worry was that the Egyptian student had just ordered $3,000 in aviation materials, including DVDs entitled “Ups and Downs of Takeoffs and Landings,” “Mental Math for Pilots,” and “Mastering GPS Flying.” Shortly after this July’s London bombings, U.S. antiterrorism authorities arrested five Egyptian men—four of them illegal immigrants—in a Newark, New Jersey, apartment, which contained maps of the New York City subway system, train schedules, videos of city landmarks, and $8,000 in twenties and fifties. A few weeks earlier, in the sleepy town of Lodi, California, about two hours north of where I live, the FBI arrested Umer and Hamid Hayat (father and son) on immigration charges and for lying to federal agents about ties with Islamic terrorist groups in Pakistan. Officials allege that Hamid visited an al-Qaida camp in Pakistan during 2003 and 2004 for training in weapons, explosives, and hand-to-hand combat. Last autumn, authorities broke up a terrorist cell in Portland, Oregon, charging four with plotting to set up a terrorist training organization and with traveling to Afghanistan to aid al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Since September 11, the list of those arrested, and in a growing number of cases convicted, for Islamist terrorist activities in the U.S. has gotten longer and longer. Some arrestees have been U.S. citizens; more have been aliens, legal and illegal, living in out-of-the-way places on work or study visas. The list includes such abettors of evil as Mukhtar al-Bakri of Lackawanna, New York (ten years for providing support to al-Qaida), Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed of Brooklyn (45 years for providing support to al-Qaida and Hamas), and Ibrahim Admed Al-Hamdi of northern Virginia (15 years for firearm violations in connection with terrorist activities). The continued presence within our borders of so many who seek to destroy us suggests that we still haven’t squarely faced the problem that Islamic radicalism poses to our domestic security.

In fact, sometimes we have seemed to encourage actively the spread of such radicalism on our shores. On Halloween night 2001—just weeks after September 11 and with U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan—firebrand imams Abdul Alim Musa, Muhammad Asi, Abdel Razzag Al Raggad, and other Islamic radicals broadcast live from the National Press Club on C-SPAN2 a bold proclamation of empathy for the Taliban, hatred for Jews, and understanding for the murderers of 3,000 Americans. Asi, for example, spoke of the “grand strike against New York and Washington” and the “twin evils in this world . . . the decision makers in Washington and the decision makers in Tel Aviv.” Not only did we allow such a broadcast to tens of thousands—our government subsidized it.

Or consider the ease with which the now-deported Muhammed Adil Khan, a radical Islamic cleric associated with the two Lodi suspects, first arrived in America in the eighties, welcomed on a “religious worker” visa. Another Lodi extremist, Shabbir Ahmed, entered more recently on such a visa—despite having led demonstrations in Pakistan shortly after September 11 that called for jihad against America. At his immigration hearing, Ahmed successfully pleaded that his past anti-American agitation “was a requirement of all imams. If you don’t [agitate], people turn against you. They sort of force you to say something.”

[stephenjohnbanker]

Now, watch how many babies they have over the next 5 years. They have twice the ratio of babies here that they have in Mexico because of welfare and forced free medical care.