Donald Trump has made some interesting generalizations in his recent rant against illegal Mexican immigrants ... saying that Mexico sends to the United States the dregs of their society ... rapists, murderers, drug dealers, gang members and other felons. Even as admitted by Trump, clearly not all those Mexicans and other Latinos are bad people . But, it is now estimated that about 347,000 illegal-immigrant felons are loose in our country ... see: Breitbart Story. This is about 3% of the estimated 11 million such illegal immigrants now in the United States. Assuming that this number does not count all those illegal immigrant felons who are in jail, on parole, or have already been deported, one could easily double or triple this estimate ... bringing a reasonable estimate to close to 10% or so ... or about one in ten illegal immigrants matching Trump's pejorative slight.
So The Donald has probably engaged in a bit of hyperbole during his campaign announcement ... and may deserve a little push back .... but he should not be so castigated by as many Republicans and media pundits as are now doing. He has pointed out a very serious problem.
But, these numbers still do not include all the myriad catch-and-release numbers of illegal immigrant miscreants who pass through our judicial system untouched because local authorities have been instructed on the futility of pursuing such cases ... because of false identities and the cost of their police showing up in court when these criminals seldom do. John Hinderaker of the Powerline also does a deeper top-down analysis and surprisingly concludes that illegal immigrants commit serious crimes by as much as ten times the rate of U.S. citizens ... see: Powerline Blog. Perhaps, now some ambitious, but naive and vocal Republican candidates need to hold their tongues a little more.
Afterward: Actually Hinderaker's and my analyses might be flawed for the following reason: What if there are substantially more than 11 million illegal immigrants in this country ... say by a factor of 2 or 3?
3 comments:
The Donald expressed two very flawed points: (1) the Mexican gov't is not "sending" these people to America, and (2) many people coming across the Mexican-American border have traveled from South and Central America to get there.
I think the obverse of restraining might be "sending." You're right on the second point ... but Mexico generally allows free passage through its country. These people cannot stay in Mexico ... if they try, they are deported back to their countries.
And, at least at one time, Mexico was pushing their people to go to the U.S. ... see: http://www.eagleforum.org/topics/amnesty/Mexican-Guidebook.pdf
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