Illegal immigration is migration to a country/state in violation of the immigration laws and sovereignty of that country/state. Illegal immigration raises many political, economic and social issues and has become a source of major controversy in developed countries and the more successful developing countries.
In 2010, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimated that 25.5 to 32.1 million people (or 10%–15%) of the world's total 214 million international migrants are unauthorized immigrants, though the IOM notes that it is difficult to make accurate estimates.
Read more about Illegal Immigration: Other Terms, Problems, Legal and Political Status
Famous quotes containing the words illegal and/or immigration:
“No more astounding relic of the subjection of women survives in western civilization than the status of the prostitute.... In connection with what other illegal vice is the seller alone penalized, and not the buyer?”
—Crystal Eastman (1881–1928)
“I was interested to see how a pioneer lived on this side of the country. His life is in some respects more adventurous than that of his brother in the West; for he contends with winter as well as the wilderness, and there is a greater interval of time at least between him and the army which is to follow. Here immigration is a tide which may ebb when it has swept away the pines; there it is not a tide, but an inundation, and roads and other improvements come steadily rushing after.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)