Migratory truths

WILL THE CROWDS be as large? Probably not. More American flags than Mexican? Likely. A majority of marchers with legal resident status or without? Nobody knows. The only sure bet about today’s second annual May Day demonstrations for immigrants’ rights is that every last detail will be fiercely disputed and freely falsified.

Such are the challenges for those who prefer truth to emotion when it comes to an issue that has historically produced a preponderance of the latter. Immigration is already among the hardest public policy phenomena to quantify, even before factoring in the distortions popularized by advocates on all sides. Are immigrants a net positive or negative for the economy? Depends on where and how you measure, and who you ask.

On days like this, it is customary for this page to reiterate our long-standing charge that reforming the immigration process and providing a pathway to legal status for the estimated 12 million undocumented residents here is among the most urgent of national priorities. But there is use, too, in trying to preemptively separate commonly believed immigration fiction from fact.

For instance, you might have heard that more immigrants are coming to the U.S. now than ever before. But it’s not true -- the number obtaining legal, permanent residency status peaked at 1.83 million in 1991 and was down to 1.27 million by 2006, according to the Department of Homeland Security. (Illegal border crossings are presumed to be far down from previous peaks because of stepped-up enforcement.)

But illegals are sucking up welfare and clogging up the jails, right? Not at the same rates as the native born. Also, one out of three illegal immigrants pays income taxes, and collectively they pour in billions of dollars a year into Social Security without hope of receiving anything in return.

The myths aren’t limited to any one side. Immigration levels correlate with wages for domestic high school dropouts, undermining claims that the undocumented are just doing work natives won’t. And any marcher dreaming of a political entity called Aztlan is living in dreamland.

Meanwhile, we can all dream of a day when Congress has the guts to pass real reform.