Woodrow-Lafield, Karen A. 1995. "An Analysis of Net Immigration in Census Coverage Evaluation," Population Research and Policy Review 14(2):173-204.



The 1990 census portrayed a larger foreign-born population than shown in national surveys in the 1980s. Yet the assessment of population coverage may have insufficiently accounted for decadal net immigration. With an allowance of one million for presence of foreign-born persons having authorization for temporary residence and certain ambiguous categories, 1990 census coverage could have easily been lower than initially presented. Without adequate accounting for net authorized immigration, these evaluations cannot deal with allocating a sufficient amount for uncounted unauthorized immigrants. At least 2.1 to 2.4 million undocumented residents were included in the 1990 census, with a point estimate of 2.3 million. Based on acceptable assumptions of undercoverage of the foreign-born population, the number of unenumerated undocumented residents may easily have ranged between .5 and 3.0 million, and a range of 1 to 2 million is plausible. Better measurement of census coverage of the foreign-born population would aid in setting upper limits on net undocumented immigration as of the census. Clearly, the PES measure of net undercount cannot include much of the undercount of unauthorized immigrants.

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