I'm not really that invested in the illegal immigration issue, but I'm not a big fan of wild distortions. Here's a quick breakdown of some of the nonsense in the email (the email itself is copied in the previous blog post, if you'd like to see it).
The Iraq and Afganastan wars should not be lumped together for any cost comparison. Iraq was the optional one that was based on "poor intelligence" of more than one type.
It is also untrue to suggest that if illegal immigrants cost us too much, the war must not have cost too much. Perhaps both cost too much!
Next, if you support our troops in any way, you can’t talk about the cost of the war and leave out the loss of American lives. This email leaves that out. What is the implication? Since it doesn’t hit our pocketbook, maybe it’s not worth mentioning? I disagree.
Estimates for the cost of the Iraq War range from $700B-1T (so far). Please note, it also does not include the long-term cost of health care for those soldiers who have been injured. The estimates for that cost are staggering, and will go on for a generation.
Some other notes: “Fairus.org” is an anti-immigration website. (Many of these websites are far from credible.) It was not difficult to find another source which stated that “As the Congressional Research Service points out in a 2007 report, undocumented immigrants, who comprise nearly one-third of all immigrants in the country, are not eligible to receive public "welfare" benefits -- ever.” This is a blog sponsored by the Houston Chronicle, which is a real newspaper. http://blogs.chron.com/immigration/archives/2008/01/post_80.html
The second “Verify at” is very interesting because it also claims to estimate the “total” annual cost of illegal immigration to the government, which it pins at less than $11B, far short of the $338B that the email claims. Another part of the linked article that the email fails to mention is this: “In terms of welfare use, receipt of cash assistance programs tends to be very low.” http://cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
Funny what happens when you actually look into these claims.
Did anybody notice the double and triple counting? 11-22B on welfare by states, then 2.2B on food assistance, then $90B for welfare…? These are counting the same dollars. The $90B figure is bunk, by the way.
$200B annually in suppressed wages? Well then don’t listen to Karl Rove, who said this about illegal immigrants: “We can't just root them out and not have some economic damage done to our country. Let's be honest about it. It's going to cost big economic damage to our country. Not only will prices of a lot of things go up, but we're going to see a lot of jobs leave the country and never come home again.”
Part of the absurd cost counting in this email is the allegedly high cost of deportation. So I guess the email is in support of amnesty for illegal aliens, because deportation is too costly? If not, then what's the point of this figure? This email suggests it would cost $11,500 per illegal immigrant to deport them, assuming the maximum estimate of 20M illegal immigrants in America. Interesting calculation.
Anyone check out rense.com, another so-called “source” for this email? Yikes.
The sex crimes stuff is really stupid and has no basis in reality. Check out http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2007/01/sex_crimes_and_illegal_immigra_1.php.
I’ll close with this: it is necessary for a nation to have an immigration policy, it is necessary to limit immigration, and it is necessary to enforce the laws of a nation. It is not necessary to hate poor, desperate people (illegal immigrant or not), or to blame them for the difficult things in life.
Some of us are familiar with the story of the good Samaritan. Dr. Martin Luther King wondered what people were thinking when they walked by the poor hurt man in the ditch and did not help him. They were probably nervous or scared, and wondered “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But, Dr. King proposed, the good Samaritan came along and “he reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’”
I suggest that most of us have been raised to be like the good Samaritan.
The Iraq and Afganastan wars should not be lumped together for any cost comparison. Iraq was the optional one that was based on "poor intelligence" of more than one type.
It is also untrue to suggest that if illegal immigrants cost us too much, the war must not have cost too much. Perhaps both cost too much!
Next, if you support our troops in any way, you can’t talk about the cost of the war and leave out the loss of American lives. This email leaves that out. What is the implication? Since it doesn’t hit our pocketbook, maybe it’s not worth mentioning? I disagree.
Estimates for the cost of the Iraq War range from $700B-1T (so far). Please note, it also does not include the long-term cost of health care for those soldiers who have been injured. The estimates for that cost are staggering, and will go on for a generation.
Some other notes: “Fairus.org” is an anti-immigration website. (Many of these websites are far from credible.) It was not difficult to find another source which stated that “As the Congressional Research Service points out in a 2007 report, undocumented immigrants, who comprise nearly one-third of all immigrants in the country, are not eligible to receive public "welfare" benefits -- ever.” This is a blog sponsored by the Houston Chronicle, which is a real newspaper. http://blogs.chron.com/immigration/archives/2008/01/post_80.html
The second “Verify at” is very interesting because it also claims to estimate the “total” annual cost of illegal immigration to the government, which it pins at less than $11B, far short of the $338B that the email claims. Another part of the linked article that the email fails to mention is this: “In terms of welfare use, receipt of cash assistance programs tends to be very low.” http://cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
Funny what happens when you actually look into these claims.
Did anybody notice the double and triple counting? 11-22B on welfare by states, then 2.2B on food assistance, then $90B for welfare…? These are counting the same dollars. The $90B figure is bunk, by the way.
$200B annually in suppressed wages? Well then don’t listen to Karl Rove, who said this about illegal immigrants: “We can't just root them out and not have some economic damage done to our country. Let's be honest about it. It's going to cost big economic damage to our country. Not only will prices of a lot of things go up, but we're going to see a lot of jobs leave the country and never come home again.”
Part of the absurd cost counting in this email is the allegedly high cost of deportation. So I guess the email is in support of amnesty for illegal aliens, because deportation is too costly? If not, then what's the point of this figure? This email suggests it would cost $11,500 per illegal immigrant to deport them, assuming the maximum estimate of 20M illegal immigrants in America. Interesting calculation.
Anyone check out rense.com, another so-called “source” for this email? Yikes.
The sex crimes stuff is really stupid and has no basis in reality. Check out http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2007/01/sex_crimes_and_illegal_immigra_1.php.
I’ll close with this: it is necessary for a nation to have an immigration policy, it is necessary to limit immigration, and it is necessary to enforce the laws of a nation. It is not necessary to hate poor, desperate people (illegal immigrant or not), or to blame them for the difficult things in life.
Some of us are familiar with the story of the good Samaritan. Dr. Martin Luther King wondered what people were thinking when they walked by the poor hurt man in the ditch and did not help him. They were probably nervous or scared, and wondered “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But, Dr. King proposed, the good Samaritan came along and “he reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’”
I suggest that most of us have been raised to be like the good Samaritan.
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