With a vote of 84-15, the Senate has voted to take up S.744 (Comprehensive Immigration Reform) for floor debate. One of the issues central to that debate is border security and the fate of the estimated eleven million unauthorized immigrants currently residing in the United States. While there is an ample amount of information about who unauthorized immigrants are in the demographic sense (for a broad overview, see this January piece from the Pew Hispanic Center), two recent studies from the University of Arizona focus on the effectiveness of current border controls based on interviews with recent deportees. [cont.]
Dina Smeltz & Craig Kafura, Chicago Council on Global Affairs