See the update below!
A GTB Blogburst that I suggest you read in full.
By Heidi at Euphoric Reality
Facts are a funny thing. They are conveniently forgotten if they don’t uphold one’s point-of-view, and they’re easily overlooked if they are randomly scattered about. But when solid facts are brought together in one place, the pattern is difficult to ignore. The facts I’m about to provide below are just such a case. People may be able to overlook a single fact, but the weight of their significance cannot be denied when they come together in one place. That is the purpose of this week’s Blogburst – to look at some hard facts.
I think it’s important to study the problems of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas as instructive for the rest of the states. It may be that others can write off the doom of California by saying, “Well, that’s just California, a loony state of fruits and nuts – that would never happen here.” But while California is tipping head-first into ruin, it is highly indicative of the chain of events the rest of us are blindly bumbling through. Arizona and New Mexico have declared official states of emergency because they are completely unable to handle the burden of the influx of illegals into their communities. Texas is not far behind with mass hospital closings, an overwhelmed and declining school system, and a climbing crime rate. Just because one lives in Idaho or Nebraska or Maine does not mean that it won’t happen to you! You’re just a few years behind the curve.
The following 10 facts have been pulled from the LA Times. We’ve posted them all at one time or another at ER or in the Blogburst.
1. L.A. County has 10 million people. 40% of all workers in L.A. County are working for cash and not paying taxes. This is because they are predominantly illegal immigrants, working without a green card.
2. Of the 10 million people in L.A. County, 5.1 million people speak English. 3.9 million speak
onlyprimarily Spanish. Of the 14 million people in California, 5.6 million primarily speak other than English.3. 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.
4. 75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal aliens.
5. Over two-thirds of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal whose births were paid for by taxpayers.
6. Nearly 25% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally.
7. Over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages.
8. The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles are most likely illegal aliens from south of the border.
9. Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal.
10. 21 radio stations in L.A. are Spanish language only.
We need to look at the experience of California as inevitable for the rest of us – if we don’t, we’re only burying our heads in the sand and bequeathing that future to our children! After all, if we keep merrily careening down the road to California, we can’t be dumbfounded when we actually end up in California, can we?!
Here are a few more facts on a national scale:
1. Less than 2% of illegal aliens are picking our crops but 36% are on assistance/welfare. More on welfare provided to immigrants.
2. Over 70% of the United States annual population growth (and over 90% of California, Florida, and New York) results from immigration. More on immigration as the primary contributor to our population explosion.
3. The United States receives more immigrants every year than the rest of the world combined.
4. The cost of immigration to the American taxpayer in 1997 was a NET (after subtracting taxes immigrants pay) $70 BILLION a year [Professor Donald Huddle, Rice University].
5. The lifetime fiscal impact (taxes paid minus services used) for the average adult Mexican immigrant is a NEGATIVE.
6. 29% of inmates in federal prisons are illegal aliens.
The problems of illegal immigration are not solely “border state” problems. They impact everyone. California and Texas are the two biggest economic engines in the United States – and they are teetering on bankruptcy on a catastrophic scale. If they go bust, guess who picks up the pieces? Indiana, New Hampshire, South Dakota, West Virginia, and all the rest. Illegal immigration is not – I repeat, NOT – a border state problem. It’s a burden we’re all bearing and a risk we’re all sharing.
We are way past the point of half-way measures and temporary fixes. As a nation, we must demand a definitive, decisive, no-nonsense solution. We cannot be placated by smarmy speeches from self-interested politicians, or fooled by spin semantics (“it’s a guest worker program – not amnesty”), or lulled into apathy by the drone of our everyday lives.
We cannot leave this crisis to our children. Do something! Get out of your comfort zone and get involved. There are bigger issues at stake than the price of lettuce! The time is critical. And it’s NOW.
This has been a production of the Guard the Borders Blogburst. It was started by Euphoric Reality, and serves to keep immigration issues in the forefront of our minds as we’re going about our daily lives and continuing to fight the war on terror. If you are concerned with the trend of illegal immigration facing our country, join our Blogburst! Just send an email with your blog name and url to euphoricrealitynet at gmail dot com.
update 5/8/2006 8:18PM: GTB has been alerted that some figures in this post are not accurate. Efforts are currently underway to make corrections and another update will be posted when that happens.
Later update: Sources were found for some figures and are linked in the post above.
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April 26th, 2006 at 6:28 pm
Pro-Amnesty Businessmen Tell Pro-Amnesty Mexicans They Are Shooting Themselves in the Foot
If the American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico keeps this up, they might end up causing the pro-illegal crowd to realize that their massive protests have been the best recruiting tool for all of us who wish to send illegals back over the border.
The…
November 13th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
The Question is Not IF Los Angeles Has Most Wanted That are Illegals, but if it Might be More Than 75%.
A while back a bunch of stats came out that caused a stir. One of the stats was that “75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal aliens”.
Some claim this stat is not true. I think this stat has a strong basis in fa…
November 14th, 2006 at 6:45 am
Got those facts from the L.A. Times did you? That is false. Here’s what the L.A. Times has to say about those “facts” http://opinion.latimes.com/immigration/2006/05/according_to_th.html
Fact” 1: 40% of all workers in L.A. County (L.A. County has 10 million people) are working for cash and not paying taxes. This was because they are predominantly illegal immigrants, working without a green card.
LAT citations: None.
Factual basis: The Economic Roundtable, a research outfit affiliated with the Los Angeles County government, concluded in a December 2005 report [PDF] that the low-end estimate for LA County workers working for cash is 322,400 and the high end is 972,500 in 2000. From this, the Economic Roundtable paper extrapolates a mid-range 2004 estimate of 679,000, or 15% of the workforce. (Note that the total workforce of Los Angeles County is about 4.5 million, while the total population is closer to 10 million.)
“Fact” 2: 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.
LAT citations: May 15, 2005 — “According to Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute, 95% of the hundreds of outstanding homicide warrants (and 60% of outstanding felony warrants) in L.A. are for illegal immigrants.”
Similar citations: January 19, 2004
Factual basis: An outstanding warrant is quite a different beast than a regular warrant, so this “fact” left out the key word. We did some more checking on the outstanding warrants point itself. MacDonald stated this in a 2004 City Journal article, and in testimony before the House of Representatives in spring 2005, noting that this came to 1,200-1,500 warrants. One LAPD officer cited the same factoid in the National Review earlier this year, saying that it’s specific to “the first half of 2004″. But Jane Robison, press secretary for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, told us that the D.A. does not keep track of this number; a representative with Detective Headquarters said the same.
“Fact” 3: 75% of people on the Most Wanted List in Los Angeles are illegal aliens.
LAT citations: None.
Factual basis: We can’t locate such a fact anywhere. The Los Angeles Police Department’s most wanted list contains a number of people with unknown or obscured identities, suggesting that tallying the legal status of everyone on the list would be very difficult if not impossible. Ditto for the FBI’s most-wanted list.
“Fact” 4: Over 2/3’s of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal whose births were paid for by taxpayers.
LAT citations: Jan. 15, 1999 — “As many as 70,000 illegal immigrants a year use state-funded prenatal services.” (Similar citations: Jan. 14, 1999, June 12, 1998, March 6, 1998, Jan. 30, 1998, Jan. 4, 1998, Dec. 18, 1997, Aug. 26, 1997, July 10, 1997, Feb. 6, 1997, Nov. 13, 1996, Nov. 5, 1996, Nov. 2, 1996, OCt. 24, 1996, Oct. 17, 1996)
Feb. 14, 1999 — “Two-thirds of all births here are to foreign-born mothers.” (Similar citation: July 25, 2004 — “40% of the births in California are to foreign-born women.”)
July 7, 1998 — “[Rep. Elton] Gallegly [(R-Simi Valley)] cited a 1990-91 Los Angeles County study that showed that two-thirds of the women giving birth in public hospitals were undocumented.” (Similar citations: Oct. 2, 1995, July 19, 1995, June 11, 1995, Jan. 27, 1995, Nov. 21, 1993, Sept. 13, 1993, Aug. 17, 1993, Aug. 1, 1993, May 28, 1992, Apr. 2, 1992, Oct. 26, 1991, Oct. 24, 1991)
Factual basis: None of these citations establishes the “fact” above. According to the California Department of Health Services, 158,782 babies were born in L.A. County in 2001 (these are the most recent statistics available online). Of these, 99,089 were to Hispanic mothers. That’s just under 2/3 — 62.4% for all Hispanic moms, which would include legal and undocumented mothers from Mexico as well as other countries.
“Fact” 5: Nearly 25% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally.
LAT citations: May 1, 2005, in an op-ed by Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Col.) — “More than 10% of the inmates in U.S. jails and prisons are illegal aliens, and in California it is more than 20%.”
July 11, 2004 — “Each year, the [Los Angeles] County Jail system processes about 170,000 inmates, and federal officials estimate that a fourth of them are illegal immigrants. But with just a fraction of the foreign-born being questioned, officials say it is impossible to know exactly how many illegal immigrants are in the system and how much the county should receive in federal compensation.” (Similar citations for Riverside County, Apr. 12, 2006; Anaheim city, Nov. 5, 1997, June 27, 1996; Los Angeles County, Jan. 25, 1996, Jan. 15, 1996, July 10, 1995, May 23, 1995; state and county, Nov. 27, 1993, June 1, 1993, Oct. 19, 1992, Oct. 6, 1992, Aug. 4, 1992, Aug. 18, 1991, Dec. 16, 1990, Dec. 4, 1985)
Factual basis: The 25% figure could be approximately correct for state and federal prisons in California, or correct for county, at least as of 2004. But “detention centers” is an extremely broad term that could include all juvenile detention facilities, federal prisons, state prisons, and county jails in California’s 58 counties — making this figure very tough to come by. The San Francisco Chronicle offered a lower figure for state prisons on May 4: “Of the nearly 171,000 inmates crowding state prisons, 22,478, or about 13 percent as of March 31, are undocumented immigrants or are suspected of being undocumented.” The Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group in favor of reducing immigration, offers a lower figure for L.A. County jails: “Deportable aliens comprise 11% of the Los Angeles County jail population costing the county an estimated $75 million a year.”
“Fact” 6: Over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages.
LAT citations: Jan. 31, 1994 — “As many as 100,000 families in Los Angeles County are believed to be living in bootlegged apartments or illegally converted garages.”
May 24, 1987 — “A systematic survey by The Times indicates that about 42,000 garages are sheltering about 200,000 people in Los Angeles County.” (Similar citations: Apr. 3, 1989)
Factual basis: None of these estimates makes clear who among those taking shelter in garages are in the country illegally. No comment so far from county offices. One City of Los Angeles representative said that the last tally was done over five years ago, and found 50,000 to 70,000 illegally converted units in the city of Los Angeles, out of about 800,000 residences.
“Fact” 7: The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles are most likely illegal aliens from south of the border.
LAT citations: May 15, 2005, in an op-ed by attorney Carol Platt Liebau — “Of the membership of the notorious 18th Street gang, estimated at 20,000, fully 60% are illegal aliens, according to a 1995 report by the state Department of Justice.” (Similar citations: Jan. 19, 2004, March 25, 2000, June 11, 1997, Dec. 17, 1996, Nov. 21, 1996, Nov. 17, 1996)
Factual basis: Heather MacDonald of Manhattan Institute stated that “No one knows for certain the percentage of illegals in gangs, thanks in large part to sanctuary laws themselves.” She does offer some statistics in the City Journal:
A confidential California Department of Justice study reported in 1995 that 60 percent of the 20,000-strong 18th Street Gang in southern California is illegal; police officers say the proportion is actually much greater. [...]
The leadership of the Columbia Lil’ Cycos gang, which uses murder and racketeering to control the drug market around L.A.’s MacArthur Park, was about 60 percent illegal in 2002, says former assistant U.S. attorney Luis Li.
Even if you accept the 18th Street Gang estimates, which would be notoriously difficult to determine with accuracy, that’s just one gang in a city where several prominent gangs — including the Crips, Bloods and Aryan Nation — are not largely comprised of immigrants, at least not from “south of the border.”
“Fact” 8: Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal.
LAT citations: None.
Factual basis: No comment yet from HUD, and the only statistic we found online is at FAIR, and it is for only the state of California:
The state Housing and Community Development department has prepared new screening rules based on the welfare reform legislation adopted by Congress in 1996 that would ban illegal aliens from public housing programs. The HCD estimates that as many as 5 percent of 25,000 housing units could be affected.
“Fact” 9: 21 radio stations in L.A. are Spanish speaking.
LAT citations: None in the last 10 years.
Factual basis: Estimates vary by source: one website lists 15 Spanish stations out of 78, another lists 18 out of 83.
“Fact” 10: In L.A. County, 5.1 million people speak English. 3.9 million speak Spanish (10.2 million people in L.A.County).
LAT citations: None.
Factual basis: The Census reports that as of the year 2004, 3.9 million people in L.A. County speak only English at home; 3.7 million speak primarily Spanish at home.
November 14th, 2006 at 8:32 am
Buford – I guess you decided to come over from freedomfolks.blogspot.com to spread your nonsense, since you are obviously avoiding the information I posted there and the fact you dislike that FreedomFolks takes a stand against those who break America’s immigration laws. It was already noted that some information was not accurate. Which is why links were added to information that both the LA Times and even Snopes.com failed to find in their fact checking.
And I’ve already shown that what the LA Times claims can’t be proven is most likely true and based on sound evidence given the facts.
November 14th, 2006 at 12:02 pm
You make claims that you can’t back up! You can’t back up the things you put on your blog, but you include them anyway!!
November 14th, 2006 at 1:40 pm
I’ve already backed them up and you can’t refute that 90% of LA’s Ten Most Wanted could be illegals.
If you have a problem with my blog, there are literally millions of others for you to choose from.
November 14th, 2006 at 3:16 pm
90% of LA’s Ten most wanted “could be” illegals. Maybe they’re illegals. They just might be illegals. Ya know it is a possibility that they could maybe perhaps be illegals.
November 14th, 2006 at 3:16 pm
YOU MADE CLAIMS THAT YOU CAN’T BACK UP!!!!!!!
November 14th, 2006 at 3:17 pm
More than likely they are illegals.
November 14th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
You can’t refute the claims because the illegals are not being tracked as they should be by the states.
I’ve already noted in the post above that some of the information was not accurate and we sourced what we could. The rest although not fully verifiable is probably closer to fact than fiction, like the LA Most Wanted List, that you cannot refute. If you continue this circular mess I’ll remove you myself. I’m not going to continue a circular debate with you over something I’ve already clarified in the post. Come with something constructive or you’re getting a one-way ticket off this blog.
If you want to sit around and jabber-jaw about the same thing repeatedly you’ll do it elsewhere.
November 14th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
Why do you make claims that you can’t back up?
November 14th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
Farewell Buford.