Aliens leaving U.S. in "droves"?

Here's another story I picked up over at Outraged Patriots which claims that 1.3 million illegal aliens -- or eleven percent of the illegal population -- have voluntarily returned home over the past year.

Recently the Center for Immigration Studies released a study revealing that, since August 2007, the illegal immigrant population has dropped 11 percent -- the equivalent of 1.3 million illegal aliens returning home. Fox News recently reported that the Mexican consulate office in Dallas is seeing increasing numbers of Mexican nationals requesting paperwork to go home for good.

Of course we can't be sure that the study's numbers are accurate, but obviously significant numbers of Mexican illegals are seeing the handwriting on the wall and fleeing the United States. This is very good news.

Ron De Jong, spokesman for Grassfire.org credits the "crackdown on enforcement," and the "building of the border fence" as mainly responsible for the exodus. I'd say that the former is probably the main reason these people are fleeing, particularly the crackdown at the state and local levels of government with the introduction of state laws prohibiting illegal immigration and denying social benefits to illegals.

But we have to remain steadfast and resolved. 1.3 million is a good start, but it's only a start. And if the federal government will get the hell out of the way, we'll settle this issue at the state level once and for all. As has been said before, "lead, follow, or get out of the way."