Maybe they leave, maybe they come back

This is the sort of news article that should make every social scientist wince. The argument is that undocumented immigrants are coming back to Alabama because the state's most restrictive immigration laws are being blocked.

Now, on to the evidence:

No one knows how many people initially left the state, so it's impossible to say how many have returned. But some illegal immigrants are trickling back, unable to find work elsewhere and missing the place that had been home for years. 

Of 18 Hispanic immigrants interviewed by The Associated Press in the Birmingham area, six said they had friends or relatives who had returned to Alabama after fleeing because of the law.

Let me translate that:

We decided to interview some people we found on the street for a tiny and unscientific sample. Then we generalized their experiences to talk about an entire state, while admitting we have no idea whether what we argue is true.

So maybe people left, and some people came back. But from this article we can't really say anything with more precision than that.