An American Citizen

So how many illegal immigrants are currently in the U.S.? Politicians have been saying (about) 11 million for years. Other people say other numbers. (The short answer is between 22-33 million, way higher than politicians keep saying.)

Here is a link to a segment on a recent Tucker Carlson Tonight episode that discusses how the original 11 million number came about, why that number was too low when it was first promulgated, and how we know it’s much higher today. It’s the best discussion of the number that I have seen to date.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-illegal-immigration-numbers-game

Backup: A study by Yale and MIT provides a range of 16.5 to 29.1 million illegal immigrants in the U.S, with an average number of 22 million.
https://thehill.com/latino/407848-yale-mit-study-22-million-not-11-million-undocumented-immigrants-in-us.

So why do politicians keep lying about the number? Because the higher the number, the more Americans will push back on a lenient policy with regard to illegal immigration. And the more strongly they will object to a move towards legalizing and then extending citizenship to illegal immigrants. So the only way to force their lenient policies on the citizens is to keep them thinking the total number is 11 million. And to repeat that number over and over again until it’s burned into our brains. (If the citizens knew it was 22 million to 33 million, the politician’s policies would meet much higher resistance.) So they keep lying to us, year after year.