Posted on 03/27/2006 7:07:14 PM PST by Carl/NewsMax
One of the more popular claims by illegal immigration proponents is that those who enter the U.S. by breaking the law are invariably "hard-working" and "law-abiding" once they get here.
That argument, however, has one major flaw. According to Justice Department statistics and the analysis of immigration experts, the "law-abiding" claim often isn't true.
As Investors Business Daily reported in March 2005:
"The U.S. Justice Department estimated that 270,000 illegal immigrants served jail time nationally in 2003. Of those, 108,000 were in California. Some estimates show illegals now make up half of California's prison population, creating a massive criminal subculture that strains state budgets and creates a nightmare for local police forces."
Citing an Urban Institute study, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies Steven Camorata noted in 2004: "Roughly 17 percent of the prison population at the federal level are illegal aliens. That's a huge number since illegal aliens only account for about 3 percent of the total population."
Former California Gov. Pete Wilson places the percentage of illegal aliens in U.S. prisons even higher. In 2001, he told Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly:
"We had problems related to the costs of educating children who were acknowledged to be in the country illegally, healthcare costs. One in five in our prison population were illegal immigrants who had been convicted of a felony after entering the country illegally."
The Federation for American Immigration Reform also turned to the Justice Department to get statistics on criminal aliens. They report:
"In March 2000, Congress made public Department of Justice statistics showing that, over the previous five years, the INS had released over 35,000 criminal aliens instead of deporting them. Over 11,000 of those released went on to commit serious crimes, over 1,800 of which were violent ones [including 98 homicides, 142 sexual assaults, and 44 kidnappings].
"In 2001, thanks to a decision by the Supreme Court, the INS was forced to release into our society over 3,000 criminal aliens [who collectively had been convicted of 125 homicides, 387 sex offenses, and 772 assault charges]."
Up to a third of the U.S. federal prison population is composed of non-citizens, according to Federal Bureau of Prisons statistics - but not all non-citizen prison inmates are illegal aliens.
As to the "hard-working" claim, CIS notes: "The proportion of immigrant-headed households using at least one major welfare program is 24.5 percent compared to 16.3 percent for native households."
Investor's Business Daily concurs: "Once [illegals] get here, they are 50 percent more likely to be on welfare than citizens."
You know, Mexico is not working with us one little bit. Why should we work with them??? We should just empty our prisons into Mexico.
We should at least take their oil - as past payment for all of the health care, education and incarceration we are providing their citizens.
Ping
How do illegal aliens qualify for welfare?
I live about two hours from the border on the direct route to larger cities. Truckloads of illegals are chased down frequently by the police and when stopped they jump out and run into the fields and brush.
Our city has more robberies because of Mexican gangs, our schools suffer the consequences of having many dropouts and our emergency rooms are full of possible illegals who go there for the slightest reason.
These external costs represent a massive transfer of wealth from consumers to corporations, via the federal and state governments. Only after all costs (information) are properly stated can folks make rational decisions (via pricing). I for one would rather pay an extra $0.10 per nectarine at the grocery store than suffer the cost of treating lifetime health care costs and other costs (enter your favorite third world disease). We are in a mess, because BOTH parties, Democrat AND Republican, have sole us out for profits. I hate to sound like a drooling lefties, but there it is.
Keep telling George bush. With a stroke of his pen he can stop this invasion.
I know - they are more concerned with not alienating [lol] the Mexicans so they can win elections.
"The U.S. Justice Department estimated that 270,000 illegal immigrants served jail time nationally in 2003. Of those, 108,000 were in California. Some estimates show illegals now make up half of California's prison population, creating a massive criminal subculture that strains state budgets and creates a nightmare for local police forces."
As mentioned by Phildragoo, who pays for it...the American taxpayer! The criminal element is ID'd as MS-13, who's reported to have ties with al Queda! Nice going Senate RINO's.
I haven't heard a peep out of any Californias politician. Will we ned to invade CA and establih martial law to enforce any new laws passed?
"Our economy can't survive without them being on welfare apparently."
Hey, they're just taking the welfare checks Americans won't.
Most politicians from California are democrats. Illegal aliens voting for them there is their base. That's how they've been winning elections. The only reason Arnold won, he was famous, and among other things, former democrat Gov. Grey Davis gave away over twenty billion in state surplus funds. Money that is still unaccounted for.
Just to add a Smartass note to your note. The illegal alien population in the U.S. is under reported. More like about 30 million. Many with false driver license, and SS cards. by your post, I take it you support illegal aliens invading America and the problems they've brought? Your title is ER Doc, do you think illegals should be tested for TB?
He's a new signup - wait and see!
Their kids are born here so now they are tied to the US because their kids are now citizens...even though they are illegal.
The history of Ellis island show, that millions upon millions of Europeans came through that portal. All were tested for various contagious diseases, mainly for TB. Those that failed, were refused entry, and put on the next ship back. Other than MS-13 gangs, we haven't a clue what other diseases have crashed our Southern borders.
Since about 1/5 of the jail population is comprised of illegal aliens, then we can estimate about 5*270K = 1.35M people served jail time. Since the US population is about 294M people, over 99.5% of the general population is not in jail, mostly doing honest work.
Clearly, the illegal alien community has a significantly lower rate of people who are not in jail, mostly doing honest work than the rest of the population.
Also, as mentioned in the article, 108K of those jailed illegal aliens were in jail in California, and the CA prison population is estimated to be closer to 1/2 illegal alien. Given the CA population estimate of 36M, even if all of the estimated twelve million illegal aliens were in CA (to maximize the denominator for the illegal aliens and minimize the denominator for the legal aliens plus citizens -- obviously an exaggeration), the illegal aliens would have twice the rate of members in CA jail. Since that proportion is an exaggeration, the illegal alien membership of CA jails is proportionally even higher. And, therefore, the proportion of illegal aliens not in jail, mostly doing honest work is significantly lower than in the rest of the population in California, as well.
Mexico and many other countries allow children to claim the citizenship of their parents. So, many US-born babies of illegal alien parents could still go to their parents' home countries without visa problems if the parents were ever deported.
Mexico allows dual citizenship.
Today I called Maggie in Pete's SF office and gave her the long version: Barrier now; amnesty never.
The profusion of Chihuahua plates and pointy cowboy boots in aqua and coral has reached tsunami proportions, and it ain't due to global warming.
Again, this is no melting pot, no assimilation.
In South Pacific was the line "I am so easy to assimilate"--
Pero ahora it's the Mexican flag waved by Mexicans in the streets cursing Americans in Mexican.
Picture the reverse (Americans in Mexican streets cursing Mexicans in American) and picture Vicente blithely ordering live-fire operations.
The Department of Homeland Security has failed as miserably as Brown's Federal Emergency Mess Agency--
The invasion has been successful--Bush has rescinded Houston v. Santa Ana--
Tomorrow he will return the Alamo with his heartfelt apologies en Espanol por seguro.
"To provide for the common defense. . . ."
. . .and all that oath of office stuff about dispensing with the Constitution and seeing to it that the laws be faithlessly flouted.
As his alma mater enrols the Taliban's foremost flacker--
Stay tuned for World on Its Head--
Termites are slowly and steadily destroying this house, America.
A nurse told me that they see lots of exotic third world diseases in our charity hospital. TB is epidemic and one can get it standing in line in the grocery story, docs have told me. One night late I came on some research showing the only thing effective against the drug- resistant TB was nicotine. So, now, when docs challenge me about smoking, I say I'll stop when they control
TB. In the meantime I am using it as a preventative. LOL
Just because someone is not in jail does not mean they are doing honest work. They may or may not be working.
I understand this is an aspect. I do not know wha happened, precisely, in CA with Pete Wilson and prop 187 that turned the state dem. I am sur, however, that national dems hope to repeat that now. They have said for years that the browning of America worked in their favor. That's why they want amnesty. I am noticing that the media is reporting bills in Congress as Republican bills.
I'm not against legal, controlled immigration. But, among other things, when we have thirty million illegals that are not being tested for any contagious diseases, that to me is a serious problem. Also must be noted, that all illegals are not from just Central and South America, but tens of thousands from Asia and elsewhere visiting on visas, then just don't ever go back. The question must always be who, what and where, otherwise why have a Homeland Security or borders? Why be a sovereign nation?
I'm not a smoker, so I can't lend anything to your question! However, common sense would tell me/you to take my chances in a controlled TB environment, than uncontrolled.
As Investors Business Daily reported in March 2005:
"The U.S. Justice Department estimated that 270,000 illegal immigrants served jail time nationally in 2003. Of those, 108,000 were in California. Some estimates show illegals now make up half of California's prison population, creating a massive criminal subculture that strains state budgets and creates a nightmare for local police forces."
They're counting all the Hispanics serving jail time in 2003 as illegal aliens. here Plus, Hispanics are only 38% of California's prision population, even if we assume that all of them are illegal aliens, there is no way they can make up half of California's prison population.
Yes, you are absolutely right, and I agree. I was reusing another poster's words (hence the italics), combined with some numbers, to counter his argument that the illegal aliens aren't so bad because most are not in jail. In comparison, the non-alien population in jail is proportionally lower.
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