GMF Paper Series
German Marshall Fund of the United States, Washington DC, February 2009 .
There are 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States; some say the number is closer to 15 million. Periodically, academic and political debates grow testy and polarizing as they did in 2006. But even though the battle over comprehensive immigration reform in the United States (which included legal status and a path to citizenship for these millions) was fought tooth and nail, very few opponents of the reform proposal argued on grounds of cultural resentment. Rather, their counterarguments were mainly political and social in nature: Illegal immigrants break the law and should not be rewarded for their behavior, and they overburden emergency rooms and public schools.
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