Underestimated illegal immigration

A new report shows that the US government has vastly underestimated the size and costs of illegal immigration:

The Wall Street investment firm Bear Stearns has published a new report, "The Underground Labor Force is Rising to the Surface," [link is to PDF version] which claims that the illegal alien population is double the official government estimates. According to Bear Stearns analysts, Robert Justich and Betty Ng, the illegal alien population of the U.S. is about 20 million – roughly the population of New York State. The report asserts that there are between 12 and 15 million jobs in the U.S. currently held by illegal aliens, or about 8 percent of the work force. Moreover, between 4 and 6 million jobs have shifted to the underground economy since 1990. These are not "jobs Americans won’t do," but rather jobs Americans used to do. "The United States is simply hooked on cheap, illegal workers and deferring the costs of providing public services to these quasi-American," conclude Justich and Ng.