November 29, 2007

Democrat Asks: Why Did WaPo’s Aizenman Spin CIS Report?

By Donald A. Collins

Here we go again—on the propagandistic way the Mainstream Media [MSM] reports the legal and illegal immigration invasion. My party's Presidential candidates have all come out for "comprehensive immigration reform"—which anyone not brain-dead knows is just another major amnesty. But the facts proving how massive, serious and unnecessary this immigration deluge is get more obvious all the time.

For example, the respected Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) just released a massive, authoritative Backgrounder report, Immigrants in the United States, 2007 |A Profile of America’s Foreign-Born Population [November 2007]. Using Census Department numbers, it shows that, as of March 2007, immigrants, both legal and illegal, are at record highs (about 38 million—representing, with their children born here, 17% of our total population).

One third are here illegally, and "Half of Mexican and Central American immigrants and one-third of South American immigrants are illegal."

Shockingly, "Since 2000, 10.3 million immigrants have arrived — the highest seven-year period of immigration in U.S. history. More than half of post-2000 arrivals (5.6 million) are estimated to be illegal aliens".

Let me make sure this is understood: "More than half of post-2000 arrivals (5.6 million) are estimated to be illegal aliens."

 The new arrivals' poverty rate is high and their education level is low: "Among households headed by immigrants from Mexico, the largest single group, 51 percent use at least one welfare program."

This 101 page in-depth report contains many other disturbing revelations. And this invasion, which accelerated from 1990 onward, unchecked by proper Federal government action, is continuing unchecked.

So how does the Washington Post tell this story and analyze the CIS Backgrounder?

Well, on page 10, its November 29, 2007 article is entitled, Illegal Immigrants in Md. and Va. Out-Earn U.S. Peers, Study Says.

The story begins:

"Illegal immigrants in Maryland and Virginia make more money than illegal immigrants nationwide, but their incomes are substantially lower than those of native residents of those states, and they are much less likely to have health insurance, a report says."

And then N.C. Aizenman [Email] proceeds to note that

"In Maryland and Virginia, about one in five illegal immigrant-headed households uses some form of social service, compared with one in six in native households in Maryland and one in seven in Virginia. (Nationwide, 40 percent of illegal immigrant-headed households use some type of benefit, compared with 19 percent of native households.)"

Gee, that certainly sums up the fact that the illegals in my hometown D.C. area seem to be better off than elsewhere. But it hardly captures the essence of the CIS data.

For example, nationally, "34 percent of immigrants lack health insurance, compared to 13 percent of natives. Immigrants and their U.S.-born children account for 71 percent of the increase in the uninsured since 1989."

After a few turgid paragraphs about how demographic information is an inexact science, etc., Aizenman quotes "Steven A. Camarota, who wrote the report for the Washington-based center, which advocates limits on immigration, said it also suggests that a greater share of illegal immigrants in the Washington region are people who overstayed their entry visas rather than sneaked across the border."

Camarota: "People who overstay are more likely to be foreign students and guest workers who are more educated. People who cross the border illegally tend to be the least educated".

Implication: isn't this great, those illegal aliens we get in this area are better educated that those elsewhere!

Hey, let's be sure to put a great face on this looming disaster of importing increasingly large numbers of poor, uneducated slaves!

Since California's population is composed of 26% who are immigrants right now, with the result that the state is now majority-minority, perhaps we will only have to wait a few more years until that will be true for the country at large. At the rate of influx of legal and illegal aliens that could easily be the case by 2050, when our population is likely to be half a billion. (It’s now a mere 310 million).

After identifying the CIS report as partisan (i.e. favoring limits on immigration), the Washington Post article goes on to say,

"Randy Capps, a researcher at the nonpartisan [emphasis added] Urban Institute who studies welfare use by immigrants and their children, said illegal immigrant families appear to be largely limiting themselves to programs such as subsidized school lunches and Medicaid. Regarding the program most commonly associated with welfare—cash assistance to needy families—fewer than 1 percent of illegal-immigrant households nationwide and in Maryland and Virginia use the benefit, compared with 3 percent of native households in Virginia, 5 percent of native households in Maryland and 5 percent nationwide."

I would suggest that the non partisan Mr. Capps is simply ignoring the big picture–in a nonpartisan way, of course!

Just lunches and Medicaid! Ah, how restrained. The children of these illegal aliens are in our schools, adding to classroom disruption and learning dysfunctionality, while adding teaching costs by not knowing English. Such "nonpartisan" reports seem always to minimize the impact which everyone knows is severe.

Folks, you already understand perfectly that it is we taxpayers who are paying for this schooling of illegal aliens' children and hospital care and a bunch of other tax-supported services.

But if the Mainstream Media continues to behave like the Washington Post, which is committed editorially and in its news coverage to "comprehensive immigration reform”, we will be assured every step of the way that it’s okay to keep importing more aliens, both legal and illegal, in numbers far beyond any reasonable need.

Blandly and blankly cruising along we will go, mouthing the old saw that we are a “Nation of Immigrants”—even though the US is fully, yea, even over-developed. Some will continue to feel great about letting endless numbers come here to partake of the so-called “American Dream”, basking in a dazed state. And our spineless elites will think their neat nests at the top of the privilege tree are safe.

By the time they wake up to the fact that their own best interests and those of their children are endangered, irreparable damage will have occurred.

About the Author: Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC. , is a board member of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). However, his views are his own.