The state of Illegal immigration in South Florida
Bottom Line: Hmm, is it possible that illegal immigration is on the decline in South Florida? On the surface it seems unlikely but then again perception certainly doesn’t always equal reality. Enter updated research on illegal immigrants (or unauthorized immigrants as the Pew Research Center refers to them).
According to the most recent research available from the Pew Research Center, illegal immigration in South Florida actually declined over the previous decade. Based on their findings the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro saw a net decline of approximately 100,000 illegal immigrants between 2007-2016 with the overall number dropping from 525,000 to 425,000. Surprised?
Overall South Florida retained the fifth highest population of estimated illegal immigrants in the country behind Dallas, Houston, Las Angeles and New York. The fastest growing metro for illegal immigration over the previous decade was, and you can’t make this up, Washington D.C. Almost seems sadly apropos doesn’t it?
Now here’s the thing and you might have noticed it already. The most recent information we have is now two years old. A lot has happened over the past two years and if you’ve paid attention there’s been a dramatic surge of illegal activity at the southern border. How much of that activity has made its way to South Florida? We won’t know until it’s already dated information, but it places emphasis on a couple of important points.
The first is the importance of not having sanctuary policies at the local level and allowing ICE to do their job.It seems as though they’ve been pretty effective given the opportunity.
The other is that perception once again doesn’t allows equal reality. Would you have necessarily suspected we had 19% fewer illegal immigrants in South Florida over any recent ten-year period?