Illegal immigrant numbers understated

For years, the American public has been misled about the size of our illegal immigrant population. For the past five years, we've been fed an outdated, fallacious number of 11.3 million to quantify the illegals who are "living in the shadows."

This number is based on a guesstimate by the Department of Homeland Security that was published in 2011 and quoted endlessly by Washington politicians, federal bureaucrats and the media.

This phony number is based on data extrapolated from the 2000 census and 2010 census; a guess that was arrived at using truly convoluted logic. It is also a static number that doesn't account for the millions of illegals who have entered the country in the intervening years, plus the millions foreign students and workers who have overstayed their visas.

This frozen-in-time estimate is extant the several million Central and South American illegals who have flooded our borders over the past three years. And, it does not include the two million plus Middle Easterners who have been force-fed into the country via fast-tracked, un-vetted refugee programs.

So, when you hear or read the "11.3 million" reference in the future, use it to remind yourself that an accurate estimate of our illegal immigrant population is somewhere between 20 and 30 million people.

Richard Stack

Huntley