After the incident on September 11, 2001, the amount of people being let into the country drastically decreased. Within two years of the attack, the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) states that 1.1 million people were given permanent living status, over half of which were already living in the United States. This fact alone shows the amount of fear immigrants had of keeping their rights as foreigners in America. The fact that so many people applied for a permanent living status shows how much immigrants were targeted immediately following the attack.
The graph on the right gives a basic gist of immigration patters from 1998 to 2002. As you can see, the Total Illegal Permanent Immigrants remained constant, the Adjustments made by those already living in the United States increased, and the number of New Arrivals accepted into the country decreased.
Effects on Immigration Post-9/11:
~Almost 2/3 of immigrants who received permanent residence were relatives of current United States residents.
~The number of immigrants NOT admitted into the U.S. has increased from 21.6 million to 33.7 million in the last ten years.
~There have been nearly 85,000 opportunities to escape to the United States, all of which have been given up on.
(Information from the Migration Policy Institute)
