September 15, 2008
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)
A Report by Jack Martin, Director of Special Projects
Most Americans do not realize that illegal immigrants are also represented by members of the U.S. House of Representatives. How can that be? It is because by interpretation of statute1 the constituency of Representatives is based not just on the number of citizens but also on non-citizen foreigners residing in the United States, including illegal alien residents.
Rather than apportioning congressional seats among the states on the basis of the full count of the decennial Census, a more logical distribution would be on the basis of the number of native-born and naturalized U.S. citizens. If this were done, states with large numbers of illegal aliens and other non-citizens would lose seats to states that have a higher share of citizens.
REPRESENTING ILLEGAL ALIENS
The interests of illegal aliens are not only represented in Congress. Mexico and other countries aggressively assert the right to represent their nationals illegally residing in the United States. Through the petition of Mexico, the International Court of Justice has asserted a right to weigh in on the rights of illegal immigrants in the United States. A plethora of national and community-based organizations across the country regularly defend the presence of illegal aliens and work for laws to offer them various protections including amnesty. In addition, our legal system provides access to counsel for indigent illegal aliens in criminal proceedings.
Read the full report in pdf format.
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The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is a national, nonprofit, public-interest, membership organization of concerned citizens who share a common belief that our nation's immigration policies must be reformed to serve the national interest.
