The undocumented population in the United States could be twice as large as the most commonly-used estimate, according to a research study published Friday in the scientific journal Plos One.
The paper, led by Mohammad M. Fazel-Zarandi, a researcher at Yale and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, estimates there are 22.1 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.
Fazel-Zarandi's study compared inflows and outflows of immigrants as well as demographic data. According to the report, the number of undocumented immigrants could be as low as 16.5 million, or as high as 29.1 million.
“We combined these data using a demographic model that follows a very simple logic,” Edward Kaplan, a co-author of the report, told Yale Insights. “The population today is equal to the initial population plus everyone who came in minus everyone who went out. It’s that simple.”