The Washington Post is reporting that thousands of people rallied yesterday in opposition to legislative efforts to stop the flow of undocumented workers across our border with Mexico. I’m pretty sure the numbers reported are correct. It seemed like the crowds I walked through last evening on my way to a class at the Botanic Garden were pretty large -- lots of families, lots of children and young people.

I thought it was interesting that this rally was being held on the very same day the Pew Hispanic Center released its report entitled, “Size and Characteristics of the Unauthorized Migrant Population in the U.S.” This nonpartisan think tank took a look at data from the last Census, the March 2005 Current Population Survey and the monthly Current Population Surveys through January 2006. The findings should not be surprising – the Pew Center estimates that there are now between 11.5 and 12 million “unauthorized migrants” in the United States.

I can just hear the groans – “unauthorized migrants?” The struggle around language to describe people who are here living and working without benefit of citizenship has always hit close to home for me. My mother wasn’t naturalized until I was 18 years old, so I grew up cringing when I heard her being described as an “illegal alien,” as if she were someone who dropped in from another planet. Then we got the politically-correct term, “undocumented workers.” So I guess the Pew Hispanic Center is trying new terminology.

Whatever we call this group of people, one thing is clear, both from what I saw yesterday on the Capitol grounds and the Pew findings – children and families make up a large percentage of this country’s unauthorized, undocumented, and illegal population. Pew reports that there are 6.6 million families in this country in which either the head of the family or the spouse are unauthorized. And 64 percent of the children in these families are American citizens by birth.

Congress is mulling over constructing a fence at our southern border and how best to penalize social service workers who work to help the undocumented with basic human needs. This is indeed a hot button issue these days.

On March 22nd, I’ll be moderating an online chat about
education issues faced by immigrants and the DREAM Act. I hope you’ll log on.