2.5 Million Additional Illegals Swamp the Border Under Obama’s Presidency

A new study by the Center for Immigration Studies and the Pew Research Center has determined that during Obama’s terms in office so far, an additional 2.5 million illegals have sneaked into the United States. The study estimates that as many as 400,000 a year have entered the country illegally since Obama was inaugurated.

The study released on Monday found that up to 2013, about 1.7 million have either overstayed a temporary visa or simply walked across the border. That is in addition to 790,000 who entered between 2013 and 2015.

The study’s author, however, says that the number of illegals in the U.S. has remained “roughly constant” as several million have also left the U.S. either by going home, by deportation, by gaining legal status, or dying.

The problem is still massive, though.

“While the level of new illegal immigration is lower than a decade ago,” writes author Steven A. Camarota, “the enormous ongoing scale of illegal immigration is a clear indication that the United States has not come close to controlling it.”

Still, Camarota, the director of research for CIS, reports that if Obama had clamped down on border crossings, the number of illegals would actually have decreased by just over 2 million due to attrition and other normal causes.

Camarota notes in the study:

Prior research indicates that roughly half a million illegal immigrants return home on their own each year, are deported, die, or get permanent residence. Those who get legal status each year are not beneficiaries of President Obama’s administrative amnesty known as DACA–which does not give permanent residence, but does provide Social Security numbers, work authorization, and identity documents. Rather it has been long-standing policy to allow those who violate immigration laws to still get green cards (permanent residency) if they qualify in one of the legal immigration categories such as marrying a U.S. citizen.

But even with the massive influx under Obama, the numbers are still smaller than during the Bush administration. In the first six years of Bush’s term, 600,000 illegals crossed into the U.S. each year.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.