Illegal immigrant population difficult to determine

The number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. is rising. The number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. is declining. Eight million. Ten million. Thirteen million.

There are as many statistics about the illegal immigrant population here as there are opinions about how to handle it. In McHenry County, narrowing that number is even tougher.

“It’s like an invisible population,” McHenry County Sheriff Keith Nygren said. “There would be no way … anybody could give you a figure.”

Locally, that’s not just because of the difficulty of counting up every illegal immigrant, census-style. Law enforcement, health care and school personnel generally don’t ask questions about citizenship in the course of their duties.

“Immigration laws are federal laws, so we have no authority in the enforcement of federal laws other than if a federal agent would ask for our assistance,” Nygren said.

Non-federal law enforcement are banned from investigating immigration status without a contractual arrangement with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

But local law enforcement officers can report to an immigration officer concerns about a possible illegal immigrant, Nygren said.

Schools take a hands-off approach to potentially illegal immigrant parents and students.

Students don’t need to provide a Social Security number or proof of citizenship to enroll in school, said Bill Clow, Harvard District 50 community outreach director. Only proof of residency within district boundaries is required. A utility bill, apartment lease or piece of mail will suffice.

“That’s the law,” Clow said.

The Supreme Court decided in 1982 that illegal immigrants and their children are as entitled to a public school education as American citizens. They’re also entitled to other protections provided in the 14th Amendment, including due process and equal protection provisions, the ruling said.

Because the law requires public schools to teach illegal immigrant children, most schools don’t bother asking.

“It wouldn’t make a difference,” said Edward Fallone, a law professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee.

The same legal standard applies to hospitals, Fallone said. Emergency care must be provided regardless of a patient’s residency status.

In McHenry County, hospitals within the Centegra Health System take the law a step further, said Kim Kubiak, Centegra spokeswoman. Illegal immigrants don’t need to have a medical emergency to receive treatment of any type.

“Our policy is to treat anybody who comes to us for care, despite race, religion, ethnicity or anything,” Kubiak said. “We treat based on the symptoms, not on Social Security or insurance.”

Centegra doesn’t track how many illegal immigrants it treats, but hospital officials do track the dollar amount of “charity care” it provides, Kubiak said.

From July 1, 2008, to June 30, the hospital system provided about $3 million in charity care to people who couldn’t pay, she said. This figure is not the amount of money that was spent treating illegal immigrants; it includes legal residents who might have lost their jobs, those who lost their insurance coverage or people who simply are having a tough time financially, Kubiak said. It’s also likely that some percentage of illegal immigrants who received care were able to pay their bills.

Fallone said it’s expected that agencies all the way up to the federal level don’t have a firm grasp of the number of illegal immigrants, or their financial impact on local communities.

“You see all kinds of estimates,” Fallone said. “These are all just numbers pulled out of the air.”

The U.S. Census Bureau doesn’t track the number of illegal immigrants. Neither do most federal and state agencies.

Attempts are made to estimate the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. by the Office of Immigration Statistics, a sector of the Department of Homeland Security.

This office generates figures based on “residual methodology.” These estimates are generated by subtracting the number of legal permanent residents, those seeking asylum, refugees and non-immigrants from the total foreign-born population figures frequently generated by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Office of Immigration Statistics estimated that the number of illegal immigrants living in the United States declined from 11.8 million in January 2007 to 11.6 million in January 2008, according to data released in February.

But experts are undecided on the accuracy of these numbers and – if they are accurate – what might be driving the decline.

“Many believe the current state of the economy and the lack of jobs and employment … is leading to undocumented workers voluntarily leaving the country,” Fallone said.

The struggle to apply an exact figure to the number of illegal immigrants isn’t new, however. 
Public agencies have been unable to generate exact figures for years and, until recently, would only assume that the number was rising.

While confusion and discrepancy persists over the exact population of illegal immigrants, there at least one firm fact: Entering the U.S. legally is harder than ever.

“The myth of someone with two strong arms going to make a life for themselves in the U.S., no,” Fallone said. “If you have no skills and education and no job waiting here … there’s really no lawful means for you to enter the U.S.”

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