Source:
St. Petersburg TimesOn the July 11, 2010, edition of ABC's This Week, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill. -- a champion of immigration legislation that includes a path to citizenship -- faced off with Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Calif., a leading lawmaker who favors prioritizing immigration enforcement.
At one point, Gutierrez said, "Here's the problem, and here's the fact that Mr. Bilbray leaves out of this debate. The fact is that 40 percent of the undocumented workers in this country didn't cross that border. They came here legally to the United States. They came on a tourist visa. They came on a student visa. They came on a temporary worker visa, and they overstayed their visa."
We thought that statistic was worth a fact-check.
Quantifying the number and nature of illegal immigrants is tricky -- precisely because they are evading law enforcement. But we located estimates made by the Pew Hispanic Center which the experts we interviewed consider credible.
In a 2006 report, the center estimated that "nearly half of all the unauthorized migrants now living in the United States entered the country legally through a port of entry such as an airport or a border crossing point where they were subject to inspection by immigration officials." Specifically, the estimate ranged from 38 percent to 50 percent. The report split the difference by proposing a figure of 45 percent.
Read more:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/jul/12/luis-gutierrez/democratic-rep-gutierrez-says-40-percent-illegal-i/