Many critics of immigration hope these and other laws and practices will make life so difficult for unauthorized immigrants that they engage in self-deportationby returning to Mexico or their other native countries. According to the Immigration Policy Center (2012), [38] however, there is little evidence that self-deportation actually occurs. A major reason for this fact is that two-thirds of unauthorized adult immigrants have been in the United States for at least ten years, and almost half are parents of children born in the United States (who, as mentioned earlier, are thus US citizens). These adults and their children therefore have established roots in American soil and simply want to stay in the United States.
