Some memes never die
Despite our sound debunking last spring of ten "facts" on immigration sourced to The Times, the list still makes the occasional blog post and e-mail round, and, as it did last month, sometimes ends up in the inbox of a Times editor. New and just as wrong "facts" and assorted rants (worrying, say, about the Emperor of Japan taking advantage of affirmative action programs) have glommed on to the original list of ten, meaning it's time for myth-busting, round two.
"Fact" 1: Less than two percent of illegal aliens are picking our crops, but 29% are on welfare.
Factual basis? Pew Hispanic Center found last year that four percent of illegal immigrants work in farming (compared to 0.5% of the native population). Most illegal immigrants work in services (31%) or construction (19%). Illegal immigrants are generally barred from receiving welfare (they can access emergency medical care and a K-12 education). The tough-on-illegal-immigration think tank Center for Immigration Studies reports in 2004:
In terms of welfare use, receipt of cash assistance programs tends to be very low, while Medicaid use, though significant, is still less than for other households. Only use of food assistance programs is significantly higher than that of the rest of the population.
CIS goes on to state that, on balance, illegal immigrants take more in services than they pay in taxes, but that is disputed.
"Fact" 2: Over 70% of the U.S.’ annual population growth and over 90% in CA, FL, and NY results from immigration.
Factual Basis? The Census Bureau estimates that from July 2005 to July 2006, population increased by 2,891,423 in the U.S. Immigration accounts for 1,204,167 people, or 42%.
California’s population increased by 303,402 people; 266,295 or 88% were immigrants.
Florida saw an increase of 321,697 people, including 99,754 immigrants, who make 31% of the total. New York’s total population decreased by 9,538.
"Fact" 3: The cost of immigration to the American taxpayer in 1997 was (after subtracting taxes immigrants pay) a net $70 billion a year (Professor Donald Huddle, Rice University). The lifetime fiscal impact (taxes paid minus services used) for the average adult Mexican immigrant is a negative number.
Factual Basis? Huddle has conducted several such studies, though we can’t confirm a $70 billion cost. Huddle does, however, estimate that immigrants cost the U.S. tens of billions of dollars a year. In his 1997 study he estimates that the 1996 cost was $24.44 billion. Huddle's figures are disputed, and other organizations, notably the Urban Institute, claim immigrants are a net benefit to the country. The discrepancy — which would also arise in any discussion of lifetime fiscal impact — comes from cherry-picking data. The Urban Institute, for example, includes Social Security taxes paid; Huddle includes estimates for native-born children of immigrants. (For a side-by-side comparison of an early Huddle study and Urban Institute research, see here.)
"Fact" 4: 29% of inmates in federal prisons are illegal aliens.
Factual Basis? Thirty seven percent of inmates in federal prisons are noncitizens, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The number of them that are illegal immigrants isn’t offered by the Bureau, though they do note that 10% of the offenses are immigration-related.
"Fact" 5: According to the Los Angeles Times, Orange County, California is home to 275 gangs with 17,000 members, 98% of which are Mexican and Asian.
Factual Basis? The Times has not printed these figures. On June 8, 1994, a Times story did state that Orange County had 275 gangs with 17,000 members, of which 85% were Latino. It did not specify how many of that group were Mexican, nor how many were Asian.
There needs to be a stop to the rationalization of illegal immigration. Finally we are starting to see concrete numbers from your newspaper which show the burden that illegal immigrants are having on our jail system. Illegal immigrants in our jail system number in the thousands, fact. With the numbers that cross the border every year the net result has been and will be overwhelmingly negative. If there were not psychotic groups like the North American Forum then illegal immigration would have been halted years ago. Why your newspaper does not cover this group and how they are pushing to eliminate the borders, by influencing domestic policy, strictly for the business benefits is strange.
Posted by: Concerned Citizen | February 05, 2007 at 07:12 PM
For those who like to learn who exctly comprises the North American Forum a link below will take you too a story that Judicial Watch did recently on the last meeting of the “North American Forum” at the Banff Springs Hotel in Banff, Canada on September 12-14, 2006. The details stated openly are shocking. Read for yourself and share with anyone aho cares. One may think that this cannot be true. Yet when examined closer projects like the Trans-Texas Corridor and the push for a national driver license make much more sense. Frightening!
http://www.judicialwatch.org/6123.shtml
Posted by: Concerned Citizen | February 05, 2007 at 07:21 PM
You know, if Caifornians had been as vigilant about illegals in the 1850's we wouldn't be having this discussion. At that time, rainbow-chasing western european descendant "Americans" driven by avarice arrived here in droves. At the point of a gun, they took our statehouse. They overturned our land laws with the concepts of lands held in common by all, in favor of a new system that favored and was written by rich landed white guys. They corrupted our educational system, insisting we teach not in our native language, but in the predomiant language of the newcomers. 150 years later it looks as if things have come full circle. But only a fool tries to stem historic migrations. These well meaning folks are just being used by larger forces seeking to divide us and distract us as they create a lawless utopia for megacorporations and the ultra rich.
So keep wasting your time in defense of some mysterious culture that doesn't exist any more amigo. In the future, if you don't speak the language, it won't be our fault.
Posted by: 5th generation Native Californian | February 05, 2007 at 08:30 PM
Re Fact 5:
This came to me via email from several people. I knew it to be untrue, because I had read a scholarly study sometime before on the subject.
Then, I compared the percent of gang deaths in one year, with the estimated percent of illegal Mexican, gang members, with black, citizen gang members. I came up with an approximate number of murders that could be attributed to illegal Mexican gang members of 102. It is an estimate. It was a percentage higher than their distribution in the population, but less than half of the 98% of all murders that was published in the email.
The point is, THEY take a disparity that has some meaning, and blow it TOTALLY out of proportion so it loses any meaning what-so-ever.
Posted by: Joanne | February 05, 2007 at 10:14 PM
The attempt, by some, to justify illegal immigration through "we were here first" or "you stole this land from us" is laughable. These individauls should complain to the Mexican government for its inabilty to defend its territory in an age of imperial expansion. The United States won that war, and to the victor go the spoils. My family came here legally from Mexico and shares in its celebration of the American dream. I understand that illegal immigrants are, for the most part, hard working and good people, but it simply is illogical to say that because territory was once in the hands of another country that any citizen of that other country, regardless of if their family actually lived in the land lost to war is entitled to come here without documentation.
If anyone hurt Latin America it was Spain. Native populations in the Americas were reduced to 6 million by 1550 (about half the number a half century earlier). So why not move to Spain? Also what about the system of Missions that was secularized and seized from the Catholic Church and distributed to rich Mexicans by the Mexican Government in the 1820s, should the Mexican government pay the native people for their act? Point is that history is shaped by war and atrocities and seemingly theft. It is not our job to pay for the mistakes of our great grandfathers. It is the job of the individual to respect the laws to which they are subject or face the punishment perscribed by those who wield the power to create law.
Posted by: Paul | February 06, 2007 at 01:08 PM
Since people have heard false reports...
WHY DON'T YOU PUBLISH A REAL ONE WITH ALLLL OF THE STATISTICS?
THERE WERE 10 AND I ONLY SEE A CORRECTION OF 5?
WHY IS THAT!!!
Posted by: Sabrina | June 29, 2007 at 01:57 PM
Please, if the folks at the Times were honest, they would simply admit that even if these statistics were true, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES WOULD NEVER, EVER, PRINT THEM IN A MILLION YEARS. THEY WOULD FIRST GO OUT OF BUSINESS. Why would you say this? Because I and dozens of friends from all types of backgrounds I've discussed politicis with believe this to. It has been way too obvious over the years that illegal immigration topics when negative are covered only with the greatest hesitation and tight editorial control , giving things a postive spin, or not at all. I could be wrong.
Posted by: Bobby | July 25, 2008 at 05:56 PM