This is a critical review of surveys conducted on the American deaf population since 1990. There is no agreement among the surveys on the number of deaf and hard of hearing individuals in the US. This behooves us to study the question: Why the lack of agreement in estimates and prevalence rates of the American general deaf and the deaf child population across the surveys? Prior studies explained the discrepancies in terms of sampling and probability errors, different survey methodologies, federal mandates, changing medical conditions and fluctuations in prevalence rates. It is proposed here that the estimates are delimited by the mandates, purposes, survey questions, definitions of population cohorts and survey methodologies devised by the surveying institutions. (Contains 9 tables.)