The term undocumented immigrants is one that amnesty advocates prefer instead of the term illegal aliens, which is used by those who oppose both their presence and any official approval such as amnesty. Both terms refer to foreigners who either enter a country without authorization to do so or enter on temporary visas but remain after the time limit. Such actions are most often matters of choice but may also include victims of sexual or labor exploitation, smuggled into countries to work as prostitutes or in factories, on sugar plantations, or elsewhere.

Usually, the push-pull factors that drive legal immigration are the same ones spurring people to bypass the prescribed processes for entry. Among the common push factors are negative elements such as persecution, repression, poverty, and war. Conversely, the most common pull factors are positive elements such as freedom, opportunity, higher living standards, and/or joining family members already there.

Although the democratic nations of Western Europe have long experienced undocumented immigrants in their midst, the situation evolved into a social problem in recent decades with the fall of communism to the east and quality-of-life issues resulting from burgeoning populations to the south. With the collapse of an artificial economic interdependence system under communism, the resulting factory shutdowns, lost jobs, and the sudden opportunity to cross borders no longer guarded to prevent emigration, tens of thousands sought a better life without bothering to obtain any formal approval to do so.

England, France, and Germany attracted many of these clandestine migrants. Italy, though, became the main conduit into the European Union. Italy still attracts more illegal immigration than other European countries because its long coastline and close proximity to other countries make it especially vulnerable. The most popular clandestine sea route for Africans is from Libya or Tunisia to the Italian island of Lampedusa (closer to Africa than to Italy) or to Sicily. Asecond underground gateway is a 60-mile speedboat ride by smugglers from Albania across the Adriatic Sea. Albanians, Afghans, Kurds, Turks, and Chinese are the most frequent arrivals this way. A third route is by truck over the Slovenian border into Milan.

Because of Italy's limit of 20,000 to 30,000 legal immigrants per year and an estimated 2 million others waiting for transit to enter, the "back door" of illegal entry has become the only viable choice for many. About 2.5 million (4.3 percent) of Italy's 58 million people in 2007 were foreign born, about half of them beneficiaries of four amnesties between 1986 and 1998. Rather than solving the problem, however, these amnesties attracted even more illegal migrants. Each year hundreds drown in unsafe, overcrowded boats in attempts to reach Italy.

Nativist reaction against the entry of unprocessed immigrants is practically as old as the United States itself. Late 18th-century Americans bristled at English ships approaching U.S. shores and dumping Irish rebels into the water to swim ashore. Late 19thcentury Americans, who had barred Chinese laborers with passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, resented their illegal entry through the unguarded northern border with British Columbia. Late 20thcentury Americans sought to stop the flow of undocumented immigrants from Mexico, still a problem in the 21st century.

What fuels public debate about immigration is the rising number of unauthorized foreign-born people in the United States. Some critics claim that more immigrants arrive illegally than through legal means. The Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization, estimates a growing influx each decade, from about 8.4 million unauthorized migrants in 2000 to about 12 million in 2006. About two thirds have been in the United States for less than 10 years, with the largest share (40 percent of the total) for less than 5 years.

Mexicans comprise the largest segment of undocumented migrants (about 56 percent), a proportion that has remained steady for a decade. Other Latin Americans constitute an additional 22 percent. About 13 percent come from Asia, 6 percent from Europe and Canada, and 3 percent from other parts of the world. Most of these arrivals are people from foreign lands slipping across U.S. borders, but others (about 165,000 annually) first arrive legally as visitors (tourists, students, or businesspeople) and then overstay their allotted time and become visa violators.

References:

1) Buchanan, Patrick J. 2006. State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America. New York: Thomas Dunne.

2) Chavez, Leo R. 1997. Shadowed Lives: Undocumented Immigrants in American Society. 2nd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

3) Ngai, Mae M. 2005. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. New ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

4) Parrillo, Vincent N. Forthcoming. Strangers to These Shores. 9th ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

5) Passel, Jeffrey S. 2006. The Size and Characteristics of the Unauthorized Migrant Population in the U.S. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center.

6) Portes, Alejandro and Ruben G. Rumaut. 2006. Immigrant America: A Portrait. 3rd ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

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