Quote Originally Posted by Alexanderofmacedon
I'm not saying we should allow them to stay. I think, A) People are making too big a deal of it, and B) People are unrealistically thinking we can take all these illegals out of here. It's too big a task, we need to find a temporary solution. I don't know what that is, but it's not my job. Give me a link that states it's about 20 million instead of 11.
Most sources claim between 11 and 20 million, I choose to prepare for the worst and be pleasantly surprised if we ever find out that the numbers are better.
The Wall Street investment firm Bear Stearns has published a new report, “The Underground Labor Force is Rising to the Surface,” which claims that the illegal alien population is double the official government estimates. According to Bear Stearns analysts, Robert Justich and Betty Ng, the illegal alien population of the U.S. is about 20 million—roughly the population of New York State.
links: 1 2 3 4

The 20 million number isn’t even the biggest issue, it’s the fact that if they are given any kind of “legal” status they are then able to bring in family who can stay here while going thru the process of becoming a citizen. Say each illegal brought in/sponsored a parent, spouse, child and a sibling. Then the spouse brought in a parent, the sibling brought in a spouse and child, etc. Even if the number is 11 million, in 5 years its going to be over a hundred million, how’s that going to effect the economy?