TITLE: The Number of Undocumented Immigrants in the United States

ABSTRACT:

We apply standard operational principles of inflows and outflows to estimate the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States, using the best available data, including some that has only recently become available. We generate a lower bound for the number of undocumented immigrants using conservative parameter values that underestimate inflows and overestimate outflows. Our lower bound is close to 17 million, 50% higher than the most prominent current estimate of 11.3 million, which is based on survey data and thus different sources and methods. Standard parameter values generate an estimate of 22.8 million undocumented immigrants, twice as large as the current estimate.

BIO: Mohammad Fazel-Zarandi is a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer at the Yale School of Management. His research interests are in the areas of Public Sector Operations, Data-Driven Decision Making, Applied Probabilistic Modeling and Statistics, and Operations Strategy. His current research focuses on the application of Operations techniques to improve decision making in the public policy domain. Before joining Yale, he received his PhD from the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto in Operations Management and his M.Sc. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Toronto.