United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office General Government Division author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 1998-07-31 monographic deposited born digital 91 p. GA 1.13:GGD-98-164 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GGD-98-164 P0b002ee18038d0d8 f:gg98164 DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-23 GAOREPORTS-GGD-98-164 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-GGD-98-164 GGD-98-164 Population statistics Immigration information systems Data collection Data integrity Aliens Immigrants Census Immigration or emigration INS Alien Address Report Program Census Bureau Current Population Survey Census Bureau Post Enumeration Survey Chapter Report GGD

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO identified: (1) policy-related information needs for immigration statistics; (2) federal statistics (and information gaps) on the full range of demographic concepts relevant to immigration policy decisions, including what is known about the quality of those statistics; and (3) strategies for improving statistics.<p/>GAO noted that: (1) Congress periodically makes decisions about numerous immigration policies; (2) thus, informed decisionmaking by congressional committees and members of Congress as well as interested members of the general public, requires information on immigration flow, by legal status; (3) Congress also decides on the eligibility of the foreign-born for government benefits and services--with different benefits typically allowed or restricted for different categories of the foreign-born population; (4) GAO identified 33 discrete categories of demographic information that could be relevant to congressional decisionmaking; (5) information on immigration flow is reported in annual Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) Statistical Yearbooks; (6) statistics on demographic categories other than flow are reported in a more scattered fashion; indeed, a variety of INS and Bureau of the Census publications, including the INS Web page, must be accessed in order to retrieve basic information; (7) INS records that are maintained for administrative purposes are the basis for most federal statistics on flow; (8) these statistics describe the number of new legal permanent residents, new refugees and asylees, and new naturalized citizens; (9) as reported in the INS Yearbook, however, these statistics are limited by conceptual problems and confused reporting, undercounts, and information gaps; (10) the number of new asylees--persons granted asylum--and the number of persons granted citizenship are undercounted in the Yearbook tallies because the data omit certain groups of persons; (11) statistics for other demographic categories are not available; (12) while Census provides some information on the size of the resident foreign-born population, annual net change in size, and emigration, Census has not quantitatively evaluated these data with respect to coverage, accuracy of reported place of birth, or nonresponse rates; (13) there are no separate Census data on legal status because none of the surveys ask questions about legal status; (14) INS has made efforts to fill information gaps for some legal statuses by using the limited data that are available and creating assumption-based models; (15) GAO attempted to identify existing strategies or develop new ones to improve immigration statistics; (16) GAO devised a new method for collecting survey data on the legal status of foreign-born respondents; and (17) GAO also identified strategies for evaluating survey data on the foreign-born. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GGD-98-164/html/GAOREPORTS-GGD-98-164.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GGD-98-164/pdf/GAOREPORTS-GGD-98-164.pdf GAO/GGD-98-164 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GGD-98-164 Chapter Report GAO/GGD-98-164; Immigration Statistics: Information Gaps, Quality Issues Limit Utility of Federal Data to Policymakers; Population statistics Immigration information systems Data collection Data integrity Aliens Immigrants Census Immigration or emigration INS Alien Address Report Program Census Bureau Current Population Survey Census Bureau Post Enumeration Survey Title 8 Section 1101et seq. Title 8 Section 1103(d) Title 8 Section 1237 Title 8 Section 1364 Title 8 Section 1430(b) Title 8 Section 1431 Title 8 Section 208(b)(3) 8 U.S.C. 1101et seq. 8 U.S.C. 1103(d) 8 U.S.C. 1237 8 U.S.C. 1364 8 U.S.C. 1430(b) 8 U.S.C. 1431 8 U.S.C. 208(b)(3) Public Law 99-603 Public Law 101-649 H. Rept. 99-682