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October 06, 2008
LA Internet Legends More Accurate Than WSJ
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As a researcher who prefers to work
at home, the internet is a godsend for me. A few
Google searches, quick clicks on authoritative
websites, and I have the data I need to write on
virtually any topic. No more long hours in dusty
library stacks!
But, perhaps because I honed my
research skills the old fashioned way, I am wary of the
disembodied factoids common on the Internet.
Allan
Wall recently
put
in perspective one widely circulated email
contrasting US and Mexican treatment of immigrants.
Another example: an email making assertions about
illegal immigration into Califonia mostly sourced to the
LA Times, but
without dates, authors, or urls. (See Snopes.com for the
original email.)
Others, including
bloggers at the LA
Times, have tried myth-busting this one. But
they have neither our expertise, nor our
patriotic motivation and seem more interested in
protecting the good name of illegal aliens.
Bottom line on both these emails:
they are sometimes careless, exaggerated or guesses,
possibly accurate, in areas where the authorities refuse
to collect data. But they do reflect the underlying
reality better than, say, the
Wall
Street Journal Editorial
Page.
Here’s my point by point
commentary.
1. 40% of all
workers in L.A.
County
(L.A. County has 10.2 million people) are
working for
cash and not paying taxes. This is because they are
predominantly illegal immigrants working without a
green card.
Too high. The magnitude of the
underground (informal) labor force in LA, and its
illegal alien component, is addressed in a 2006 study of
the
Pat Brown Institute:
"Our best estimate is that on a typical day in 2004 there were 679,000
informal workers in [LA] county and 303,800 in the city [of
LA]. These workers are estimated to account for 15
percent of the county labor force and 16 percent of the
city’s labor force, as shown in Table 1. We estimate
that undocumented immigrants account for 23 percent of
the foreign born population in the county and 25 percent
in the city, and make up 61 percent of the informal
labor force in the county and 65 percent in the city."
[Poverty,
Inequality and Justice: A Vanishing Middle Class in
Southern California,
March 22, 2006
PDF]
This statement implies that, at
most, 15% of
LA County’s labor force is paid off the books—but
that illegal aliens could account for as much as 61
percent of this group.
IIn other words, the real fraction
of the LA County work force that is illegal is nearer
10%. Of course, that’s still extraordinary.
2. 95% of
warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for
illegal aliens.
Sort of. This is from
Heather Mac Donald’s study published by the Center
For Immigration Studies. [Crime and the
Illegal Alien, CIS Backgrounder, June 2004.]
While
LAPD officers apparently told her this, there is no
corroborating data posted at the Department’s website.
Indeed, such info may not be formally collected due to
the
city’s sanctuary laws.
Mac Donald actually used the term
"outstanding warrants," which casts her statement in a somewhat
different light. Illegals may well be disproportionately
represented in outstanding homicide warrants because
they are
more likely to flee before their cases are adjudicated—not
necessarily because they commit a larger share of
murders. Homicide warrants can remain outstanding for
years; the 95 percent does not pertain to warrants
issued in a particular year or period of time.
This interpretation is supported by
a
1998UC-Davis summary off immigration issues that
notes:
“The Los Angeles Police Department has a 12-year old Foreign Prosecution
Unit that pursues suspects who fled the US after committing crimes in Los Angeles and gives
testimony when they are prosecuted aboard. The United States does not have
extradition treaties with most Latin American countries
but many countries, for example,
Mexico,
Nicaragua
or El
Salvador
try suspects for murder and other violent crimes
committed in the US.
“The Foreign Prosecution Unit was founded in 1985, after
a study found that
nearly half [ER: Emphasis added]
of the LAPD's outstanding arrest warrants involved
Mexican nationals who were presumed to have fled the
country. The FPU works with Interpol to find suspects
who flee abroad and then prepares the evidence so that
the person can be arrested and prosecuted. The FPU
clears about one-third of its cases, compared to
two-thirds of all homicide cases in Los Angeles.
"Nearly half"
is not the same as 95 percent. But it's still appalling.
3. 75% of
people on the most wanted list in
Los Angeles
are illegal aliens.
Maybe. Nine of
"Top Ten Most Wanted" on the LAPD website had
Hispanic surnames, when we checked on September 28, 2008. (The tenth was an
Armenian.) Next to each mug shot is the usual info:
sex, "Descent" (white, Hispanic, etc.), DOB, height, weight, etc. Nothing
on country of birth or immigration status. Thus this
claim cannot be substantiated.
But it may well
be true, or almost true, or some perps could be legal
immigrants. The real question: why doesn’t the LAPD
report immigrant status?
4. Over 2/3 of
all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien
Mexicans on Midi-Cal, [sic, they mean
Medi-Cal] wwhose births were paid for by
taxpayers.
Too high. I’ve just looked into
births to immigrant mothers in
California
cities as part of a study of
Sanctuary City laws. In 2006, the latest year of
available data, 30.2% of births to LA residents were to
mothers
born in Mexico. The
share of
LA babies born to Mexican mothers has come down in
recent years: it had been 33.8% in 2001. This reflects
all births—to legal and illegal. Some of these Mexican
mothers must be legal immigrants, so the assertion that
"over 2/3 of all
births" are to illegal alien Mexicans is off the
mark.
But the reality is extraordinary
enough: Immigrants in total accounted for 54% of LA
births in 2006. A good portion must be illegals. And yes,
Medi-Cal pays.
5. Nearly 35%
of all inmates in California detention
centers are Mexican nationals here illegally.
Not exactly.
The figure, stated as 25% in some internet
postings, appears to trace from Heather MacDonald’s
April 2005 testimony before the House Judiciary
Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and
Claims:
"The LA County
Sheriff reported in 2000
that 23% of inmates in county jails were deportable,
according to the New York Times."
McDonald’s statement pertains to
all criminal aliens—i.e., all immigrants convicted of
crimes. This
obviously includes both legal and illegal immigrants,
from Mexico and any
other country. Again,
that’s still pretty amazing.
6. Over
300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages.
Who knows? As we’ve seen (point #
1, above) about a quarter of LA County’s 10-plus million
people are illegal aliens i.e. some 2.5 million. Many
illegals do live in
crowded housing conditions and some undoubtedly
sleep in garages. But that’s about all we know. Neither
the U.S. Census nor LA authorities collect data on
garage-dwellers, since
such conversions are illegal.
7. The FBI
reports half of all gang members in
Los Angeles are most likely
illegal aliens from south of the border.
Up to a
point. This appears
loosely related to Heather Mac Donald’s
April 2005 congressional testimony:
"No one knows for certain the percentage of illegal in gangs, thanks in
large part to sanctuary laws themselves. But various
estimates exist:
--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 bloody gang collaborates with
the
Mexican Mafia, the dominant force in
California
prisons, on complex drug-distribution schemes,
extortion, and drive-by assassinations. It commits an
assault or robbery every day in L.A. County.
The gang has grown dramatically over the last two
decades by recruiting
recently arrived youngsters, most of them illegal,
from Central America
and
Mexico."
Note that Mac Donald sources the
statement to the California Department of Justice (not
the
FBI), and it pertains to one gang—a gang that likely
has the highest rate of illegal membership. A search of
the FBI’s website revealed
several reports on LA gangs, but no data on illegal
alien membership.
8. Nearly 60%
of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal.
Probably too high.
I found no
discussion on HUD’s LA website. (Why not?) However, this
statement appears on
another website supposedly devoted to debunking
internet froth:
"HUD provides no data for LA County. They do admit that at least 5% of
all HUD housing in
California
is occupied by illegal aliens."
9. 21 radio stations in
L.A.
are Spanish speaking.
Almost.
This from
e-rumor, a website devoted to debunking internet
froth of all types:
"As the Spanish-speaking population of Los Angeles has grown so has the presence of
Spanish-speaking media. We counted about
18 stations in
Los Angeles
that are either Spanish or are multi-cultural and
include Spanish in their music or programming. At this
writing, four of the top ten stations in Los Angeles are Spanish
and the number-one station is usually Spanish."
10. In L.
A. County 5.1 million people speak English, 3.9 million
speak Spanish. (There are 10.2 million people in
L.A.
County.)
Definitely in the ballpark. The
2000 Census reported 6.0 million residents of LA
County spoke English exclusively or
"very well"
with other languages, and 3.33 million spoke Spanish.
The figures count people 5 years and over only.
11. Less than
2% of illegal aliens are picking our crops, but 29% are
on welfare.
Why the
"but"? There’s no apparent reason to link these two facts--unless
you believe only
crop pickers are worthy of, or eligible for,
welfare.
Regarding the first point, 3
percent of illegal alien workers are employed in
"farming"
according to the
Pew
Research
Center. That is three times
the 1 percent share of native workers falling into the
same occupational group. [Jeffrey S. Passel,
Unauthorized Migrants: Numbers and Characteristics,
June 14, 2005.]
As for welfare, illegal immigrants
themselves are not eligible—but their U.S.-born children
are, if parental income is low enough.
In 2007 27
percent of households headed by illegal aliens received
Medicaid, 33 percent received food assistance such
as
food stamps, WIC, or school lunch benefits, while
less than 1% received outright cash assistance. A
whopping 40 percent received least one major welfare
program, according to a CIS study. [Steve Camarota, “Immigrants
in the United States, 2007: A Profile of America’s
Foreign-born
Population,” Center for Immigration Studies,
November 2007.]
12. Over 70%
of the United States' annual population growth (and over
90% of California, Florida, and New York) results from
immigration.
An understatement! Pew Research
estimates that 82% of U.S. population
between now and 2050 will be from immigration. This
includes the U.S.-born children of future immigrants.
[Jeffrey S. Passel and D’Vera Cohn,
U.S. Population Projections: 2005-2050,
Pew
Research
Center,
February 11, 2008.]
13. 29% of
inmates in federal prisons are illegal aliens.
A misunderstanding. In 2004 27.2%
of Federal prison inmates were
"criminal
aliens," non-citizens convicted of a crime. This
group includes resident aliens—i.e., people here
legally, albeit not long enough to become naturalized
citizens. No data is collected on what percent of
criminal aliens are illegals. [GAO, Letter to
Congressman John N. Hostettler, April 7, 2005. [PDF]
My conclusion: This email is
accurate enough to suggest that the writer was not
malicious but simply an amateur making mistakes in a
difficult technical area.
But at least this writer is a
patriotic amateur. What do we conclude about
professionals in government and the MSM who refuse to
face the facts at all?
Edwin S. Rubenstein (email
him) is President of
ESR Research Economic Consultants in Indianapolis. |
