Experts eye decline, shift in immigration

At the Southwestern border, the number of those caught trying to sneak into the US between October and June was down 30 percent from the same months in 2001, to 702,328. Mr. Bergeron suspects stepped up INS border controls are discouraging illegals from trying to enter.

Yet Rep. Tom Tancredo (R) of Colorado, back last week from a three-day tour of the Arizona border with Mexico, says some areas are so overrun with illegal immigrant traffic that US troops are needed to augment the Border Patrol.

Mr. Tancredo, head of the Immigration Reform Caucus in the House, was told that more OTMs (other than Mexicans), including some from the Middle East, are being spotted by border patrols.

Most Middle East immigrants have entered the US legally. Only about 150,000 are illegals, Camarota estimates. And most of those just overstayed their visas. They didn't try to dash across the border.

That pattern may be changing a bit as immigrants face stricter inspections at legal ports of entry. This bothers Tancredo. Lax border controls, he says, worsen the danger to the nation from potential terrorists.

Though Tancredo's Immigration Reform Caucus has grown from 16 to 64 members since Sept. 11, neither the Republican nor the Democrat leadership is willing to take strong measures to restrain immigration, even against illegals.

It's political. Democrats hope to win the allegiance of the burgeoning number of voters of Latin American origin. Last month, House minority leader Richard Gephardt (D) of Missouri announced a bill that would grant legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants who have lived in the US for at least five years and worked for two years.

Tancredo calls the bill "a perfect example of pandering to the Hispanic voting bloc." The bill, he adds, tries to "one-up" the Bush administration's proposal of a guest-worker system with eventual legal residency for millions of illegals.

Tancredo maintains Republicans are catering to those businesspeople in such areas as restaurants, meat packers, and landscaping firms that often employ a large number of illegals.

In the past two years of the Clinton administration and under the Bush White House, the INS has not made a serious effort to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants. Raids are out.

"Everybody knows it's a joke," says Paul Donnelly, a consultant on immigration policy in Hyattsville, Md.

If the number of illegals does slip, as Camarota predicts, it could force some firms to pay enough for their often tough, undesirable jobs to attract American-born citizens. Instead of $7 an hour, a meat packer might have to pay $15.

Despite Sept. 11, people from such nations as Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, and Lebanon are still keen to enter the US with its prosperity and freedom. Each year, the US awards 50,000 green cards to those who win a drawing in a visa lottery. Last time, 1.5 million from the Middle East region applied.

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