The Worst Yet From Edwin Rubenstein

Edwin Rubenstein makes a habit out of producing economic analyses that are peppered with spin, faulty logic, unsupported economic theories and outright lies. But this one takes the cake. This is the most dishonest column he’s written to date.

His most recent column was to dispute a report by the Cato Institute that reported that immigration yields significant economic gains to Americans: http://tinyurl.com/yl7aem5 Here Edwin Rubenstein takes on the task of arguing that immigration is not good for the economy.

His first deceptive spin is found in his comments on the workforce.

An average 650,000 native-born dropouts were unemployed last year—10.1% of their labor force. That’s the good news. The bad news: the vast majority of uneducated natives—over 10 million—were too discouraged even to look for work. Labor force participation for them was a measly 38.4% compared to 61.3% for their foreign-born counterparts.

Rubenstein wants his readers to think that the labor participation rate among uneducated native born Americans is low because they’re too discouraged to look for work. This is not the case. There are several reasons why people are not included in the workforce. Yes, some are too discouraged to look for work. Others are homemakers raising children. And it should not surprise that many uneducated Americans are not in the workforce actively seeking work because they’re getting an education. This is the primary reason why the labor force participation rate is the lowest among uneducated people: school attendance. Rubenstein doesn’t want his readers to understand that. He tries to inflate the unemployment of the uneducated and undereducated and blame it on immigrants.

This type of deception is typical Rubenstein and is present in most of his writings. But later on Rubenstein goes off the deep end:

Stricter border controls would tend to create labor shortages. But eventually, market forces would kick in: wages would rise, more native-born Americans would enter the workforce, employers would invest in productivity enhancing equipment. That would be good for most workers, although profits might take a hit.

If the supply of illegal aliens were to suddenly dry up, employers would respond in two ways. First they would offer higher wages, increased benefits, and safer working conditions. At the same time, employers would look for ways to substitute capital for these suddenly more expensive native workers. Labor scarcity stimulates capital investment.

Here Rubenstein makes two points. The first is that employers would offer higher wages if the supply of labor were reduced. This is true.

But what is the real effect on wages? George Borjas (a real economist by the way) estimated that the effect of immigration on high school dropouts’ wages is less than 5%. http://tinyurl.com/yg9y7gu So in the absence of immigrants the wages of high school dropouts would increase 5%. So the guy making $10 per hour would make $10.50 per hour theoretically. That’s chump change.

Studies have shown that merely graduating from high school can increase a worker’s earnings potential by as much as 40%. That’s real money. Anti-immigration fanatics are always whining about how immigration affects wages of the uneducated. If they really wanted to help these people, then they’d be encouraging them to get out of bed in the morning and go to school.

The second point that Rubenstein makes is that in the absence of workers, businesses will invest in capital. Rubenstein makes the claim that “labor scarcity stimulates capital investment”. This is what I was talking about when I said that this one takes the cake. This is the most ridiculous claim that Rubenstein has ever made.

The exact opposite is true. Capital compliments labor and labor compliments capital. Workers make equipment productive, and equipment makes workers productive. In layman’s terms, labor helps capital earn more money and vice versa. Thus, it’s not surprising that capital investment follows labor. The United States has an ample supply of labor. Well educated healthy human beings in the prime of the lives. For decades foreign interests have been investing in U.S. companies.

Take shovels. A ditch digger using his hands can only dig so fast. Providing him a shovel will increase his productivity. The shovel alone, without the worker, accomplishes nothing. The same is true with a Mauldin 1550C paver, a McCullough chainsaw or a meat packing plant. Businesses are going to build a meat packing plant near areas of labor or they’re going to encourage laborers to relocate near their investment.

Rubenstein provides some examples to support his contention:
Real world examples of capital replacing well-paid labor abound. Automated switches have replaced most telephone operators. Cars are increasingly produced by robots guided by few workers rather than labor-intensive assembly lines. Thanks to serve-yourself gas pumps, we have fewer attendants but more gas stations.

What Rubenstein ignores is that automated switches replaced some telephone operators because using automates switches was cheaper. I can guarantee you that if it were cheaper to hire workers to rout telephone calls, then PacBell would be hiring right now. The same thing with robots on assembly lines. They were implemented because they were cheaper than labor-intensive assembly lines.

Take the shovel example. The increased productivity that a shovel yields is more than the cost of the shovel. If one could hire a guy to dig a hole at less than the cost of a shovel, then I mean come one, why buy the shovel?

California agriculture was at the forefront of mechanization during the 1960 to 1975 period—roughly from the end of the Bracero program which allowed the importation of Mexican farm workers to the onset of mass illegal immigration. Today, the harvesting of fruit and vegetables in California's Central Valley is among the most labor-intensive activities in North America

The reason it’s a labor-intensive industry is because the businesses find it cheaper to use labor than to develop mechanization to do the work. It’s that simple.

Hick Columnist Writes Hit-Piece About NCLR

http://tinyurl.com/ygzzn4o

In a recent hit-piece, a hick columnist repeats some oft-made comments about the National Council of La Raza (“NCLR” or “La Raza”).

He claims that La Raza calls for 'Reconquista', and the establishment of 'Atzlan'. He claims that La Raza’s motto is “For the Race, everything, outside the Race…Nothing!” Then he compares La Raza to the KKK and suggests that if it were a white organization that its leaders would be jailed.

I’ve heard these accusations before. I didn’t pay much attention to them until now. The fact that these accusations are widely held among anti-Hispanic fanatics is just one more example of how a lie repeated over and over again is considered a fact. An angry internet columnist or talk radio host makes up a lie. It gets posted on the internet and then referenced in a series of blogs and posted on the websites of anti-Hispanic hate groups. Before long it’s accepted as truth.

NCLR has been the victim of so many of these rumors/lies that it has dedicated a webpage to addressing the falsities: http://www.nclr.org/content/viewpoints/detail/42500/

Does La Raza support a reconquista? No. NCLR has never supported this.

Is La Raza’s motto ““For the Race, everything, outside the Race…Nothing!”? No. This statement is not and has never been the motto of NCLR.

Can “La Raza” be translated as “The Race”? While it is true that one meaning of “raza” in Spanish is indeed “race,” in Spanish, as in English and any other language, words can and do have multiple meanings. As noted in several online dictionaries, “La Raza” means “the people” or “the community.” Translating “La Raza” as “the race” is not only inaccurate,it is factually incorrect. “Hispanic” is not a race. Hispanics can be and are members of any and all races.

What about the KKK? Isn’t a group that a group that works for Hispanics just like the KKK which was a group that worked for white people? The KKK is notorious for oppressing non-whites by intimidation, promotion of discriminatory laws and even murder. NCLR doesn’t seek to take rights or benefits from any other group, and it doesn’t seek to oppress or murder people of other ethnic groups.

The fact is that the truth doesn’t matter to many anti-Hispanic fanatics.

Illegal Aliens at Fault for the Current Recession

A lot of finger-pointing is going on with respect to the current recession. Democrats are screaming that Republican George W. Bush caused it. Republicans are screaming that it was caused by Democrats or that Democrat Obama is making it worse. I hope that somewhere economists are objectively looking at the facts to find the real causes so that future generations can learn from our mistakes.

Par for the course, anti-immigration fanatics are blaming illegal aliens for the cause of the current recession. The latest attempt is by William Campenni, an unemployed engineer, who is angry at illegal aliens for his plight: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33821

Campenni concedes that other factors contributed to the collapse of the credit markets including low interest, lowered standards, securitized mortgages, Democrats, the Community Reinvestment Act and Alan Greenspan. But this financial guru informs his readers that these factors “could not have brought about a collapse of the magnitude that ensued.” No, what caused the mortgage meltdown were banks offering mortgages to illegal aliens.

Campenni claims that few sub-prime mortgages went to poor people. Instead most sub-prime mortgages that went into foreclosure went to illegal aliens, those who intended to exploit illegal aliens and minorities who lost their jobs to illegal aliens. He bases this claim on the fact that a lot of foreclosures were in areas that are believed to have large concentrations of illegal aliens (in other words, areas with high concentrations of Hispanic people).

Campenni continues his argument that therefore illegal aliens are responsible for the current recession because the mortgage meltdown was the event that got the ball rolling. Even the defaulted prime mortgages are the fault of illegal aliens because those homeowners wouldn’t have lost their jobs but for the defaulting loans of illegal aliens.

First of all, the loans to illegal aliens who used an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (“ITIN”) rather than a Social Security Number were not no-document or low-document loans. These loans were subject to more scrutiny than other sub-prime loans, and borrowers were required to show that they were creditworthy and that they paid taxes.

But the actual facts are hard to come by. No actual data has been kept on the rate of foreclosure of loans to illegal aliens. However, two journalists over the past two years have independently tried to find out.

The first was a Wall Street Journal article from October 2007: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119188674981652816.html?apl=y&r=332625 The second was a Los Angeles Times article from October 2008: http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/06/local/me-immighome6

These journalists made inquiries of lenders, the Hispanic National Mortgage Association and real estate professionals. All sources were unanimous in reporting that loans to illegal aliens had a noticeably lower foreclosure rate than other mortgages.

One response to this would be that those articles are outdated. The most recent is a year old. The rate of foreclosure for those mortgages could have increased. The foreclosure rate certainly could have increased over the past year. We don’t know because data is not collected for those types of loans.

Another response might be that those articles are not based on reliable statistical data that the journalists merely made inquiries. Unfortunately we don’t have accurate statistical data on this issue. William Campenni bases his assumptions on the fact that a lot of foreclosures were in areas where a lot of spicks live.

Edwin Rubenstein on Poverty

http://www.vdare.com/rubenstein/090921_nd.htm

If Bill Gates walks into a bar, the average income of those in the room skyrockets. In addition, the number of wealthy individuals increases. But is anyone better off? What if a poor man walks in? The average income of those in the room plummets. The poverty rate increases. But the wealth of the individuals in the room hasn’t changed.

Edwin S. Rubenstein writes a column in which he considers it “bad news” that the presence of poverty-stricken immigrants causes the U.S. poverty figures to increase. What Rubenstein blatantly fails to understand is that whether someone is poor in the U.S. or poor in Cambodia has no effect on the wealth of people in the U.S.

Another thing that Rubenstein blatantly fails to understand is that immigration is one of the most effective poverty reduction methods available. A poor immigrant who comes to the U.S. can increase his or her income by 1,000% easily. This dramatic increase in income not only boosts the immigrant’s standard of living but also that of the family members both in the U.S. and back home. Immigrants send tens of billions of dollars in remittances to their families every year improving the quality of life of their family who stayed in their home country.

More Outrage from FAIR

http://www.fairus.org/site/DocServer/healthcare_09.pdf?docID=3501

Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has a new report out this month. The report is a typical FAIR propaganda piece that attempts to persuade readers that anything other than an all out assault on illegal aliens in our country leaves the nation vulnerable to terrorists.

FAIR has several recommendations that the current administration should implement including the following:
- Require use of E-Verify system
- Development of secure identification system through state drivers’ licenses
- Encourage local police to apprehend illegal aliens
- Increase emphasis on workplace enforcement
- Cancel proposed amnesty for illegal aliens
- Secure the U.S. Mexico Border
- Establish an electronic database that matches entries with exits thereby identifying those who overstay their visas

FAIR claims that the travel, hospitality and education industries have influenced the current administration to ease anti-terrorism efforts so that they can make higher profits. FAIR also blames it on the influence of pro-immigrant groups.

Pardon me, but when did an anti-immigrant group become an expert on counter terrorism techniques? And would someone please explain to me how apprehending and deporting a bunch of busboys, dishwashers and carpenters makes us more secure. I mean come on.

I understand that in an environment with unlimited resources that authorities could better protect the people if every visitor was assigned a team of five highly trained commandos to track his or her every move and ensure that he or she left when the visa expired, check every inch of every piece of luggage and every package that comes across the border and subject every human being to a daily rectal exam.

But the fact is that 100% security is just not possible in a world with limited resources. We have to decide how best to allocate those resources in order to best protect the nation. And allocating resources towards chasing down and deporting millions of illegal aliens the majority of whom only wish to work and live peacefully is not in the nation’s best interest.

2009 List of Lies

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tobar7-2009sep07,0,503680,full.column

Los Angeles Times Writer Hector Tobar discusses a new chain email that he has repeatedly received. It’s the latest anti-immigrant/anti-Hispanic propaganda that’s being spread around. The email is entitled “Just One State” and purports to describe the adverse effects that illegal immigration has on the State of California. After receiving the email multiple times, Tobar decided to investigate the facts [sic].

Not surprisingly, the email was filled with what Tobar described as “for the most part of meaty exaggerations and spicy conjecture, mixed in with some giblets of truth.” Some of the facts [sic] were resurrected from the fictitious 1st Quarter 2006 INS/FBI report.
Below is Tobar’s assessment of the facts [sic] contained in the email:

1. "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."
The source of this information seems to be a 2005
study by the Economic Roundtable on the informal economy in Los Angeles County.
Its findings were reported in The Times and other papers.
But the
chain-mail's author more than doubled the figures in that study, which estimated
that 15% of the county workforce was outside the regulated economy in 2004.
Illegal immigrants getting paid in cash, it said, probably made up about 9% of
the workforce.
A later Economic Roundtable report, by the way, credited
immigrants with keeping the local economy from shrinking in the 1990s.
2.
"95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens . . . "
We
traced this "fact" to a 2004 op-ed in The Times by Heather Mac Donald of the
conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. Mac Donald said "officers"
told her about the warrants. She conceded that there were no such data in
official reports but suggested the LAPD "top brass" was hiding the truth.
I
called the LAPD's press office, which contacted the department's Fugitive
Warrant Section. Officers confirmed that the statistics in item No. 2 and No. 3,
which follows, don't exist.
3. "75% of people on the most wanted list in Los
Angeles are illegal aliens."We traced this figure to something circulating on
the Internet under the name "the 2006 (First Quarter) INS/FBI Statistical Report
on Undocumented Immigrants." The "report" contains similar figures for Phoenix,
Albuquerque and other cities. But it isn't an actual government document. The
INS ceased to exist in 2003, after the Department of Homeland Security was
created.
There's something really disturbing about a work of fakery meant to
tarnish an entire class of people. You wonder what kind of person would pen such
a thing.
4. "Over 2/3 of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal
alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal, whose births were paid for by taxpayers."
Once
again the "statistic" more than doubles the actual figures. According to a 2006
story in The Times, there were 41,240 Medi-Cal births to "undocumented women" in
the county in 2004. They accounted for 27% of all births.
5. "Nearly 35% of
all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here
illegally."
This time the author more than triples the actual figure.
Authorities project some 19,000 of the 172,000 inmates in the California prison
system in the 2009-10 fiscal year will be illegal immigrants. That's equivalent
to 11%.
A study published last year by the nonpartisan Public Policy
Institute of California actually found that U.S.-born men in California are 10
times more likely to be incarcerated than foreign-born men. You can take that
statistic with as many grains of salt as you wish.
6. Over 300,000 illegal
aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages.
This information
apparently comes from a 1987 article in which The Times visited a sampling of
properties across the county and looked for unauthorized garage conversions. The
story concluded that 200,000 people lived in such dwellings.
The story made
no effort, however, to determine immigration status. I'd like to point out that
just living in an "illegal garage" doesn't make you "an illegal." You might just
be a starving artist, or a guy who recently lost his job.
7. "The FBI
reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles are most likely illegal aliens
from south of the border."
This is another "fact" spun from the 2004 op-ed
by Heather Mac Donald, whose article refers to a single Los Angeles gang and the
conjecture of an unnamed federal prosecutor.8. "Nearly 60% of all occupants of
HUD properties are illegal."
Annie Kim, a spokeswoman for the Housing
Authority of the city of Los Angeles, called this statement "an urban legend."
The source of the information may be an Associated Press report from earlier
this year. It quoted a government study that found that 0.4% of residents of
federally funded public housing are "ineligible noncitizens." Half of those, or
about 0.2% of the total, are illegal immigrants.
9. 21 radio stations in L.
A. are Spanish speaking.
10. In L. A. County 5.1 million people speak
English, 3.9 million speak Spanish.
These facts are close to the actual
numbers, though the language figures are deceptive.
An annual census survey
asks people if they "speak a language other than English at home." According to
the most recent report, 3.7 million county residents speak Spanish. But more
than half of those Spanish speakers answered that they also speak English "very
well." Only one in 10 Spanish speakers said they don't speak any English at all.
Obviously, the ability to speak a language other than English, or the desire
to listen to Spanish music, doesn't make you an illegal immigrant or a threat to
U.S. democracy. It's a slur against Los Angeles, really, to find these items on
a list of "problems" caused by illegal immigration.
The authors of the chain
e-mail and the phony government report fear what Los Angeles has become -- a
multilingual, multiethnic city with multicultural tastes.
They search for
information to persuade others to be afraid, but the actual numbers don't quite
add up to the big monster they think is out there.So they make the numbers
bigger. Or they just make them up. And they spread them around until all that
fear and anger turns into a big hate.

Tabor ponders, “There's something really disturbing about a work of fakery meant to tarnish an entire class of people. You wonder what kind of person would pen such a thing.”

UnFAIR Deception

FAIR president Dan Stein has a website “Stein Report” that has been dispersing anti-immigrant hate and skewed statistics for years. This one really caught my eye today.

http://www.steinreport.com/archives/012757.html

Stein Report claims that an LA Times article spills the truth [sic] about illegal immigration and crime.

Studies from the early 20th century though today have almost unanimously found that immigrants in the U.S. have a lower crime rate than natives. The anti-immigrant fanatics have claimed that the studies lump legal and illegal immigrants together and that if data were available for illegal immigrants only it would surely show that illegal immigrants have a higher rate of crime than other groups. Nevertheless, no one has been able to come up with any data to prove this assumption.

Stein found a comment in the L.A. Times that he is trying to pass off as evidence that illegal immigrants have an unusually high inclination to commit crimes.

“Nationwide, about 12% of all inmates checked were here illegally and had prior criminal convictions.”

Stein flunky Jack Martin writes, “The significance of that statistic is that it demonstrates the disproportionate involvement of illegal and deportable aliens in crime.”

“… illegal aliens …appear to be jailed about three times their share of the population.”

JACKPOT!

Is it true? Could it be? Did they finally come up with proof that illegal aliens have a higher propensity to commit crimes?

Not necessarily.

The article was about a new program implemented by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) called Secure Communities. Secure Communities is a process for ICE to determine if an individual in local custody is a potentially removable criminal alien. The program checks the immigration status of inmates in local jails.

According to the Secure Communities website, ICE deploying the program across the nation beginning by focusing on sites that represent the highest concentrations of the most dangerous criminal aliens. The map below shows where the program is currently deployed and where they intend to expand it in the coming years.

http://www.ice.gov/secure_communities/deployment/

As one would expect, ICE is beginning this program in localities believed to have high concentrations of illegal aliens. Jurisdictions like Helena, Montana and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with low populations of immigrants, are not included.

So Stein Report takes crime data collected in communities that have high concentrations of illegal aliens and compares it to the percentage of illegal aliens nationwide and concludes that the data support the contention that illegal aliens have a higher propensity to commit crime.

The Costs of Illegal Immigration to Virginians

In June 2009 the Federation for American Immigration Reform (“FAIR”) released a report that purports to present an estimate of the cost of illegal immigration to the state and local governments of the Commonwealth of Virginia. FAIR has put out these types of reports in the past, and I’ve never paid much attention to them.

FAIR is not an economic think tank, and it’s publications are not scrutinized by other economists. In contrast, college professors and professional think tank organizations produce serious economic papers which are subject to review and criticism by peers and other professionals. If these people produce reports that have blatant factual misstatements or outrageous assumptions, then they will lose their credibility in their profession. What FAIR produces will be embraced by the anti-immigrant community, and its validity won’t be scrutinized by any professional. For that reason I haven’t paid much attention to reports generated by FAIR.

But lately FAIR has been producing reports for various states claiming outrageous costs to the states as a result of illegal immigration. So for that reason I decided to look at one of the reports. As I expected, it’s outrageous. Some assumptions conflict with basic economic principles that have been proven centuries ago. Other assumptions show either blatant ignorance of Federal and State tax laws or outright deception (I don’t know which would be worse).

The report estimates that illegal immigrants cost the state $1.7 billion per year. Most of this ($1.56 billion) is a result of providing K-12 education for the children of illegal immigrants. The rest is for health care and incarceration.

What the calculation does not consider are the contributions made by illegal aliens in the form of goods and services produced and taxes paid. FAIR assumes that whatever work currently done by illegal immigrants would be done by legal workers if the illegal workers were not available. This is a false assumption that the number of jobs are stagnant, that adding new workers automatically creates unemployment. This was proven false centuries ago. The number of jobs is not a fixed number. The workforce in the United States has doubled in the past 50 years, yet the rate of unemployment has not increased as a result. Workers are also consumers. As the number of workers increases, the number of consumers also increases. The new workers added to an economy also purchase boots, clothes, food, housing, transportation, furniture and recreation. So FAIR’s assumption that there would be no change in economic output or tax revenue in the absence of illegal workers is false.

In calculating the cost of illegal immigration, the report makes some assumptions. First of all, it includes many legal immigrants in the illegal population. Northern Virginia includes a large population from Central America. Temporary Protected Status was extended to illegal aliens from several countries in Central America as a result of a hurricane and an earthquake. FAIR includes these individuals as “illegal” even though they are legally permitted to reside and work in the United States. FAIR also includes in the calculation children of illegal aliens who were born in the United States (i.e. United States citizens).

FAIR estimates that the cost of education as a result of illegal immigration is $1.56 billion per year. Of this figure $1.1 billion is for educating American citizens who have illegal immigrant parents. Only $456 million is with respect to actual illegal alien children.

Most children in school are members of young families. The parents are not in their peak earning years. Even those parents that do have higher incomes don’t pay enough in taxes to cover the costs of educating their children. The cost of education in the United States is spread out over a lifetime. A young family will have children in school meanwhile paying little in real estate taxes which fund most public schools. The cost to the school district almost always exceeds the amounts paid in taxes by the students’ families. However, the families and the students after graduation will be paying taxes will be paying taxes for decades. The end result is that the students’ families more than pay for the K-12 education of the children.

My neighbor is a flight attendant. She has two children in school. The estimated cost of their education is somewhere between $15,000 and $20,000 per year based on estimates of the local school district. My neighbor pays probably about $3,000 per year in real estate taxes. Five years from now both those children will have graduated. However, my neighbor and her children will continue paying taxes for decades to come.

FAIR’s calculation only includes the snapshot. It doesn’t include the fact that today’s illegal immigrants and their children will be working and paying taxes for decades after their children have graduated. Using FAIR’s methodology, one would conclude that all families with school age children are a drain on society. Over the long run, that’s not true.

Economists consider education as an investment. The children are educated, and as a result, have higher incomes that lead to them paying higher taxes in the future. The net result is increased tax revenues over the long term. Studies have found that merely obtaining a high school diploma can increase one’s earnings potential by 40%.

Taxes: FAIR also makes some false assumptions when calculating taxes paid by illegal immigrants. As noted above, FAIR assumes that any taxes paid by illegal immigrants would have otherwise been paid by legal workers because any jobs held by illegal immigrants would be held by legal workers in the absence of illegal workers. Centuries of studies have proven that this assumption is false.

FAIR also claims that illegal aliens are eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The EITC is a credit for Federal tax purposes and does not affect state taxes. Furthermore, illegal aliens are NOT entitled to the EITC. IRS Publication 596 clearly states that in order to be eligible for the EITC, the filer must have a valid SSN and must be a U.S. citizen or resident alien for the entire year. If filing jointly, then the spouse must have a valid SSN. Publication 596 is clear that persons using the ITIN (“Individual Taxpayer Identification Number”) are not eligible to receive the EITC.

As a result of the false assumptions used by FAIR, the cost of illegal immigrants to Virginia is vastly overstated. In just a few minutes of review, I was able to identify several material errors in assumptions that, conveniently for FAIR, resulted in the estimate to be grossly overstated. It is my contention that FAIR intentionally used false assumptions to create the impression that the impact of illegal immigrants is greater than it actually is.

Yet Another Deceptive Report From Edwin Rubenstein

A new report was released by Edwin Rubenstein on April 14, 2009. The report, entitled “The Earned Income Tax Credit and Illegal Immigration”, purports to document how illegal immigrants receive the Earned Income Tax Credit (“EITC”).

On May 13, 2004, Vdare.com published a short article by Rubenstein on the subject of the EITC and illegal immigrants. This new 51 page report contains no new data. It’s just embellished to make it appear to be based on an actual academic study of actual facts and data.

In his 2004 article, Rubenstein claimed that 39% of illegal immigrant households receive the ETIC making it the most compelling reason for illegal aliens to file tax returns. In the 2004 article Rubenstein conveniently left out the fact that illegal aliens are not entitled to the EITC regardless of their children’s immigration status or their spouse’s immigration status. But Rubenstein doesn’t let actual facts stop him from spreading his propaganda.

In his latest report, Rubenstein seems to be unsure whether or not he thinks illegal aliens may be entitled to receive the EITC. On page 7, he admits that the EITC is only available to people with valid Social Security numbers, i.e. not illegal aliens. He claims that illegal aliens are able to obtain money through the EITC by using counterfeit Social Security cards, identity theft and other scams. But he writes on page 12 that the Internal Revenue Code does not prohibit illegal aliens from receiving the EITC if they meet the eligibility requirements.

One of the requirements of obtaining the EITC that the filer be a U.S. citizen or resident alien for the entire year, or a nonresident alien married to a U.S. citizen or resident alien and filing a joint return. An illegal alien by definition cannot meet any of these requirements. So Rubenstein claiming that illegal aliens can receive the EITC if they meet the eligibility requirements is either a bold faced lie or a result of patent ignorance.

IRS Publication 596 clearly states that in order to be eligible for the EITC, the filer must have a valid SSN and must be a U.S. citizen or resident alien for the entire year. If filing jointly, then the spouse must have a valid SSN. Publication 596 is clear that persons using the ITIN (“Individual Taxpayer Identification Number”) are not eligible to receive the EITC.

On page 24, Rubenstein goes on to claim that nearly 40% of households headed by illegals from Mexico are eligible for EITC. In other words, Rubenstein lied. Illegal aliens cannot legally get the EITC under any circumstance.

Rubenstein claims that a disproportionate share of illegal alien households receive the EITC using “bogus” SSNs to get the EITC. He explains:

“Most illegal aliens have fraudulent Social Security cards. Their favorite target: young children. Social Security Numbers assigned to infants are stolen from medical paperwork and used to file returns. The fraud can go undetected for years – until the child looks for a job as a teenager.”

[Note: Rubenstein’s footnote to support this claim is a url to a CNN transcript. The url comes up “Page Not Found”.]

On page 14, Rubenstein presents a graph showing the percent of illegal aliens from Mexico that used various means-tested programs in 2000. The information came from a report issued by the Center for Immigration Studies (“CIS”) in 2001. The data that CIS used did not distinguish illegal Mexican immigrants from illegal Mexican immigrants. Instead, CIS estimated the number of illegal Mexican aliens based on year of entry, age, educational attainment, welfare use, and citizenship of spouse. In other words, as usual for a Rubenstein and CIS report, the information reported about illegal aliens is based on absolutely no actual data or evidence, only conjecture.

Based on this, Rubenstein concludes that households headed by illegal Mexican immigrants are more than three times as likely to receive EITC as households headed by native-born Americans.

Most of Rubenstein’s report is filled with mostly irrelevant information. He cites some reports from the General Accountability Office (f.k.a. General Accounting Office) estimating a considerable amount of fraud with respect to the EITC. It includes a diatribe about how the EITC constitutes taxing the rich and giving a handout to the poor.

What really shows the degree of Rubenstein’s lunacy is his claims of all the evils that the EITC causes. One is population growth: people decide to have children so they can get a couple thousand dollars through the EITC. EITC also depresses wages for low-skilled workers. And EITC, along with immigration, is responsible for the income gap between rich and poor in the U.S.

But Rubenstein takes the cake when he suggests that the EITC is responsible for the current credit crisis and economic downturn. It’s funny to see him explain it. You see, some people who receive the EITC get Refund Anticipation Loans (“RAF”s). These RAFs are high interest, high fee loans that enable people to get their hands on their tax refunds a little sooner. According to Rubenstein, the widespread availability of RALs made poor borrowers easy marks for sub-prime mortgage “hucksters”. The resulting defaults have pushed the entire economy to the brink of collapse. He doesn’t really explain exactly how RAFs have caused this, but then again, Rubenstein rarely presents facts to support his claims.

To summarize, Rubenstein’s report is based on a lie and an estimated, based on no facts or data, from 2001 CIS report mixed with a whole lot of B.S. That’s it.

That leads one to question how he gets away with this or why he would take the time to write up such a juvenile document. The real purpose of the report is for use as a citation. People can now cite this report in blogs, columns and debates. “According to a comprehensive study by Edwin S. Rubenstein, 39% of illegal immigrants obtain the Earned Income Tax Credit.” Most people won’t even read this report past the first couple of pages. Even fewer will actually inquire as to its validity. But like the sham CIS reports, it can now be used as a source when the propaganda is spread

Another Bogus Report From Edwin S. Rubenstein

Edwin S. Rubenstein is one of many hacks that contribute to the white supremist web site VDare. He claims to be a well educated economist with years of experience. He uses that as a pedestal to spew propaganda disguised in skewed reports.

The National Policy Institute has published a paper, “The Cost of Diversity”, by Edwin S. Rubenstein that purports to tally the cost of diversity to the nation. In short, the paper doesn’t have anything to do with the costs of diversity. It actually addresses the costs due to affirmative action programs and immigration, and those supposed costs are intentionally tremendously overstated.Some effects of multiculturalism are discussed at the end of the paper.

In a few paragraphs Rubenstein addresses a study that found that the level of trust is lower in more ethnically diverse communities. However, Rubenstein doesn’t attempt to estimate a cost with respect to that effect.

At first the narrative of the report isn’t clear about what it’s reporting. It starts off claiming to be a report about the cost of diversity. Then Rubenstein makes the claim that the report calculates the reduction in gross national product caused by diversity. But there is nothing in the report explaining how diversity affects gross national product.

The report is actually about costs to the government as a result of immigration and what Rubenstein refers to as affirmative action programs.

It starts off discussing the cost of affirmative action programs. Rubenstein includes the entire budget of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as a cost of affirmative action programs even though affirmative action is a very, very small part of EEOC's mission. The EEOC enforces laws that prohibited discrimination in the work place based on age, disability, national origin, pregnancy, race, religion, retaliation and sex.

Rubenstein also includes the entire budgets of other agencies including National Labor Relations Board, an agency that Rubenstein refers to as the "Employment Benefits Security Administration" [the real name of this agency is the Employee Benefits Security Administration, and it is charged with enforcing laws affecting private sector retirement and health plans (in other words it has absolutely nothing to do with diversity or affirmative action)] and what Rubenstein calls the "Occupational Health and Safety Administration" [the real name of this agency is OSHA the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and it enforces worksite safety laws (this has nothing to do with affirmative action either)].

At this point I would normally accuse a writer of intentionally attempting to deceive his readers by including the budgets of agencies that have absolutely nothing to do with affirmative action in his tally of the cost of affirmative action. But Rubenstein apparently doesn’t even know the actual names of these agencies. It would be too much for me to expect him to have a clue as to their actual mission. So in this case I suspect that it is Rubenstein’s blatant ignorance that is most at fault for this mistake.

In calculating the costs of immigration, Rubenstein considers several factors including the reduction of native wages due to competition from immigrants and the reduced taxes paid as a result of the aforementioned reduction of wages and costs to taxpayers.

He cites Professor George Borjas (an actual economist, not a hack like Rubenstein) claiming that wages of native workers is reduced as a result of immigration.The Borjas paper cited in Rubenstein’s report states that a 10 percent increase in supply reduces wages by 3 to 4 percent thereby resulting in reduced wages of native workers of about 5.5%. The Borjas study cited by Rubenstein was from 2003. In 2006 Borjas amended the estimate to 3.3% in the short run and 0.1% in the long run (i.e. after capital adjusts to the increase in labor). Rubenstein simply ignores the new figures and uses the outdated figures instead.

What Rubenstein also ignores is the fact that if wages are lower, then the result is an increase in the net income to businesses. Think about it. If your boss reduces your salary by a dollar, then automatically your boss’s income is increased by the same amount, other things being equal. The net effect to the nation as a whole is $0. Yet Rubenstein formed his argument this way in order to deceive his readers.

This paper is peppered throughout with what I can only describe as white supremacist rhetoric. Rubenstein laments that non-Hispanic white people only constitute two thirds of the population. He laments that, due to immigration and higher fertility rates of minorities, the percentage of the population that is white is expected to decline in coming years. An uninterested reader would be inclined to ask, “What’s so horrible about that?” In Rubenstein’s report the answer is not clear. However, what is clear is that for some reason Rubenstein considers this a crisis.

Are there costs associated with enforcing affirmative action programs? Of course. But Rubenstein intentionally inflates those costs. Does immigration result in costs? Yes, but again Rubenstein inflates said costs. Most economists believe that the benefits by far exceed the costs.

The real purpose of the report is for use as a citation. People can now cite this report in blogs, columns and debates. “According to a comprehensive study by Edwin S. Rubenstein of The National Policy Institute, diversity costs the nation $1.1 trillion.” Most people won’t even read this report past the first couple of pages. Even fewer will actually inquire as to its validity.

The Rubenstein Report - More Anti-Immigrant Propaganda

Edwin Rubenstein has written a report entitled “The Fiscal Impact of Immigration – An Analysis of the Costs to 15 Federal Departments and Agencies”. In this report he claims to have analyzed the impact of immigration on the Federal government for the year 2007. Rubenstein estimated that immigrants cost the Federal government $346.4 billion per year.

This report is not specifically about illegal immigration but immigration in general. The report estimates the cost as a result of both legal and illegal immigration. Included also is the costs associated with children of immigrants that were born in the United States. Rubenstein’s reason for including this category is that if not for immigration, these individuals would not be here and therefore the Federal government would not be incurring costs as a result of their presence, never mind that every single one of us is a descendent of immigrants.

The report does not include any increase in revenues or decrease in costs associated with immigration. Rubenstein only included costs and adverse effects. His reason for doing this was so that anti-immigration fanatics would have a larger number to quote as the cost of immigration.

In addition, the report only addresses the impact of immigration on the Federal government. Costs to states and localities are not included in the total.

One would expect that a report entitled “An Analysis of the Costs to 15 Federal Departments and Agencies” would be about an analysis of costs to federal departments and agencies, but it’s not. Most of the narrative in the report discusses issues unrelated to the topic including building a fence along the U.S. – Mexico border, the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, the North American Union, an imaginary four football fields wide super highway that goes from Mexico to Canada, how farm subsidies affect Mexican farmers, and other totally unrelated topics.

The problem with analyzing Rubenstein’s report is that he doesn’t disclose how he came up with the numbers. For example: he claims that immigration costs the Department of Homeland Security $25.2 billion, but he doesn’t disclose how he came up with that figure. He discloses that the budget included $3 billion for border patrol and $2.2 billion for detention and transportation of illegal aliens. How he came up with the other $20 billion is not mentioned.

The final page of the report Rubenstein claims that costs are estimated based on the foreign born share of the U.S. population or the foreign born share of the labor force. In other words, Rubenstein estimated the cost of the Department of Energy by multiplying total outlays by the percentage of the population made up by immigrants. This method is clearly not used for some areas such as the USDA, Department of Transportation, Treasury, HHS and Social Security. Trying to duplicate Rubenstein’s method of estimating the costs is futile. Using the method he described, I unsuccessfully tried to duplicate Rubenstein’s calculations using 2007 expenditure figures for the various departments and agencies. He is not specific in how he arrived at the costs he claims are the result of immigration.

This report includes lies, false statements and exaggerations. One obvious false statement is in the prologue on page three of his report. He claims that the Earned Income Tax Credit is available to illegal immigrants with children. IRS Publication 596 page 5 states that a filer must have a valid social security number to receive the credit. The qualifying child must also have a valid SSN, and if it’s a joint return, then both filers must have a valid SSN. Something that obvious, something that clear, something that easy to verify, and Rubenstein gets it wrong. One is only left to ponder whether or not Rubenstein is uninformed about the subject matter or that he intentionally included the false statement in his report.

Department of the Treasury $146.6 Billion: The agency that Rubenstein claims incurs the most cost of immigration is the Department of the Treasury. Rubenstein estimates that the immigrant workforce reduced the average wage of Americans by 5.25% using a model prepared by economist George Borjas. Rubenstein goes on to conclude that this would thereby reduce income taxes, payroll taxes and other taxes. This he estimates will reduce taxes by $98.4 billion.

However, Rubenstein blatantly fails to address the other side of the equation. If the average wage decreases, then the net income of the business that employs the wage earner increases by exactly the same amount. Because corporate income tax rates are higher than individual income tax rates, the actual result would be a net positive affect on tax revenues. Low skilled workers’ wages are decreased meanwhile corporate income increases. This results in a net positive effect.

In addition, Rubenstein blatantly leaves out the taxes paid by immigrants. The Immigration Policy Center estimated that immigrants pay over $165 million in federal income taxes alone. Rubenstein claims that the foreign born receive 12% of personal income. Total social insurance receipts were $884 billion in 2007 thereby rendering at 12% over $100 million was received as a result of immigration.

Rubenstein goes on to say that some immigrant households received an earned income tax credit in 2000 but doesn’t disclose where he got this figure or what the total cost is. He repeats the false statement he made in the prologue that illegal immigrants are eligible to received the earned income tax credit for their children.

In summary, Rubenstein claims that immigrants cost the Treasury $146 billion. The actual figure is that immigrants result in a net positive benefit of over $265 billion.

So in analyzing Rubenstein’s report, we’ve gone from a $146 billion loss to a $265 billion net benefit.

Social Security Administration $58.3 Billion: In the chapter on Social Security, Rubenstein doesn’t explain one penny of this. He devotes several pages to a totalization agreement with Mexico which hasn’t even been approved by Congress yet. Then he starts talking about welfare, medical assistance and housing subsidies which have nothing to do with Social Security Administration. He cites a Center for Immigration Studies report that claims that illegal aliens receive, at the federal level, $10 billion more in benefits than they pay in taxes. The CIS report includes costs for education, welfare and justice, not social security. Then he cites another study saying that illegal aliens’ net cost to states is $15 billion. And that’s it. Not one word of this chapter explains the $58.3 billion.

His report is sloppy and rails to support his conclusion.

Department of Health and Human Services $57.2 Billion: Rubenstein does provide some explanation at least for a portion of what he claims immigrants cost this department. Rubenstein describes Individual Development Accounts for refugees ($145 million), the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1985 ($250 million) and Medicaid. Rubenstein estimates that immigrants are recipients of 11% of Medicaid payments total $21.1 billion. He leaves $35.7 billion out of $57.2 billion unexplained.

Department of Homeland Security $25.2 Billion: Rubenstein states that the cost of Border Patrol is $3 billion and the cost of detention and transportation of detainees is $2.2 billion. These are all the costs that Rubenstein mentions. His report includes a lengthy narrative about estimates of the cost of a fence along the U.S. – Mexico border.

Rubenstein doesn’t include this figure, but the 2007 budget for ICE was approximately $4.7 billion.

Department of Transportation $13.7 Billion: Rubenstein talks about how more people cause more congestion. More immigrants means more people. He also mentions an executive order issued by President Clinton mandating the improvement of service for people with limited English proficiency. Rubenstein provides no cost for this. On the last page of the report, Rubenstein mentions in a footnote that $6 billion of federal revenues are lost due to immigrant related traffic congestion.

He never explains how he concluded that immigrant related traffic congestion costs the Federal government $6 billion in revenue.

Department of Education $12.9 Billion: An Urban Institute report states that the nation’s K-12 population consists of 5% immigrants and another 14% children of immigrants resulting in 19% immigrant or child of immigrant. Rubenstein claims that immigrants and their children are more costly to educate because they require ESL instruction. Thus, Rubenstein claims that 25% of education expenditure are a result of immigration.

Department of Agriculture $10.3 Billion: Rubenstein calculated the cost of immigration to the Department of Agriculture as follows:

Food Stamps: USDA spends $35.6 billion on food stamps according to Rubenstein. Of that, 14.8% is attributable to immigration thereby costing the government $5.3 billion.

WIC: USDA spends $5.2 billion on WIC according to Rubenstein. Of that, 25.5% is attributable to immigration thereby costing the government $1.3 billion.

School Lunch Program: USDA spends $13.7 billion on the school lunch program. Rubenstein claims that 27.3% is attributable to immigration thereby costing the government $3.7 billion.

Rubenstein cited a report by the Center For Immigration Studies for these figures.


Department of Labor $7.1 Billion: Rubenstein mentions the Office of Foreign Labor Certification ($177 million) and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (the actual name is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration but never mind that Rubenstein doesn’t even know the names of the agencies he writes about). OSHA’s budget is $490 million according to Rubenstein. His rationale for including this as a cost of immigration is that sometimes immigrants get hurt on the job. Nevertheless, the costs that Rubenstein mentions are a long way from the $7 billion he claims. He spends most of this chapter explaining why workplace enforcement should be conducted by the Department of Labor.

Department of Energy $2.6 Billion: In the chapter on energy, Rubenstein talks about how the higher the population the more stress on energy resources. He also talks about greenhouse gases and urban sprawl and claims that increased immigration results in increased population thereby worsening these areas. He doesn’t spend a single word explaining how he arrived at the $2.6 billion figure.

Department of Justice $2.1 Billion: Rubenstein claims that 27% of federal prisoners are foreign born. Thus, 27% of the $5.4 billion cost of incarcerating federal prisoners is a result of immigration. He also includes $300 million due to the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program.

State Department $1.2 Billion: Rubenstein explains the costs of consular offices in various countries. The total cost is $4.9 billion, but Rubenstein never explains his estimate of the portion that is attributable to immigration. In addition he cites the Refugee Admission Program which costs $750 million.

Commerce Department $1.1 Billion: Rubenstein spends the bulk of this chapter on the Security and Prosperity Partnership, the North American Union and the NAFTA Super Highway. Not one word of this chapter explains the $1.1 billion he claims immigrants cost the Department of Commerce.

Department of Interior $400 Million: Rubenstein explains that $36.4 million is spent cleaning up trash on the border. He doesn’t explain the rest of the cost.

Defense Department $300 Million: The bulk of this cost is a result of National Guard troops on the U.S. – Mexico border. Rubenstein estimates the cost of 6,000 troops on the border at an average pay of $45,000 per year.

In the end, Rubenstein’s report doesn’t even come close to explaining how he arrived at the estimated impact of immigration. It’s sloppy. The purpose for writing the report was just so that anti-immigration fanatics could cite a figure while they spam forums, message boards and emails all over the internet.

Does immigration result in costs to the Federal government? Yes. But as I reviewed Rubenstein’s report, I was surprised at how much taxes paid by immigrants exceed the costs. As a result of immigration, Federal tax revenues increase an estimated $265 billion. That by far exceeds any costs that the Federal government incurs due to immigration.

Response to Anti-Immigrant Propaganda

A few years ago there was a set of factoids supposedly from the Los Angeles Times. The factoids were spread via email and were posted on various blogs and websites to the extent that the LA Times itself put on its own website a statement that said factoids did NOT originate from the LA Times. In addition, the LA Times refuted the content of the factoids. Many of the factoids were found to be lies or unsubstantiated claims.

In 2006, an email was circulating that included similar factoids. It claimed that said factoids came from an INS/FBI report. The fact that the INS hadn’t existed for years didn’t stop people from spreading the email as if it were factual. Many of the factoids were copies of the LA Times factoids. Some new ones were added. Most of the factoids were found to be lies or unsubstantiated claims.

A columnist by the name of Frosty Woolridge came up with the series of lies for 2007. As expected, most of the factoids are untrue. Some are outright lies, but others are based on actual facts but exaggerated to make the effect of illegal aliens to seem more severe. Some of the factoids seem to have an actual basis.Below are the factoids presented by Woolridge along with the actual data.

How Much Further Into This Nightmare?By Frosty Wooldridge1-22-7

1. $11 billion to $22 billion spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year. www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecenters7fd8The link provided leads to a FAIR report. The report states that each year, state governments spend an estimated $11 billion to $22 billion to provide welfare to immigrants. A reference is made to footnote 2. Footnote 2 refers to a report by Center for Immigration Studies CIS “Back Where We Started: An Examination of Trends in Immigrant Welfare Use Since Welfare Reform”. The CIS report contains no documentation to support the claim that FAIR made.

A chart in the CIS report finds that 24.3% of illegal immigrant households used some welfare program. The average payment was $1,040. The report says there were about 8 million illegal immigrants in the country in 2002. Estimate 3 persons per household. The result is less than $1 billion. The FAIR report does not state how they arrived at the $11 billion to $22 billion figure from the CIS report.Conclusion: Woodridge’s reference does not support his claim.

2. $2.2 billion dollars a year spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens. http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

The report linked to states that food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches imposed a cost of $1.9 billion. However, the figure is only an estimate.

Conclusion: Woolridge misstated this.

3. $2.5 billion dollars a year spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens. http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
The report linked to does state that Medicaid for illegal aliens cost $2.5 billion. However, the figure is only an estimate.Conclusion: This factoid is based on an estimate, but based on the report it’s more like a wild guess. Woolridge reported it as if it were an actual fact.

4. $12 billion dollars a year spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
The link refers to the April 1, 2006 transcript of Lou Dobbs Tonight. In the transcript, reporter Christine Romans states that The Federation for American Immigration Reform says taxpayers spend $12 billion a year on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally.

A report by FAIR from 2005 entitled “Breaking the Piggy Bank: How Illegal Immigration is Sending Schools Into the Red” provides the basis for these claims. What the FAIR report blatantly fails to include are the taxes paid by the immigrants and the return on the investment of education.A family with two children in school pays property taxes of $3,000 per year. The cost to the school district is $16,000 resulting in a net cost to taxpayers of $13,000 per year. However, before and after the children are in school, the family pays real estate taxes. In addition, after the children graduate, their education will result in increased earnings potential. Some studies have found that merely graduating high school increases a student’s lifetime earnings potential by as much as 40%. The result is a net benefit to society as a whole.

Conclusion: Woolridge selected which information to include thereby misrepresenting the actual situation.

5. $17 billion dollars a year spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
See the response to item 4.

6. $3 million dollars a day spent to incarcerate illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
The link refers to the April 1, 2006 transcript of Lou Dobbs Tonight. In the transcript, reporter Christine Romans states that according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, taxpayers spend more than $3 million every day to house non-U.S. citizen in our federal prisons. Read the statement carefully. Christine Romans refers to non-U.S. citizens.

Conclusion: Woodridge changed that to illegal aliens thereby exaggerating the effect of illegal aliens.

7. 29 percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
The link refers to the April 1, 2006 transcript of Lou Dobbs Tonight. In the transcript, reporter Christine Romans states that according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, 30 percent of federal prisoners are not U.S. citizens.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons reports that 73.6 % of inmates are U.S. citizens thereby 26.4% are not U.S. citizens. http://www.bop.gov/news/quick.jsp#1 The number who are illegal aliens would therefore be much lower.

Conclusion: Woolridge took a statement that refers to persons who are not U.S. citizens and changed it to read illegal aliens thereby exaggerating the effect of illegal aliens.

8. $90 billion dollars a year spent on illegal aliens for welfare & social services by the American taxpayers. http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html
The link refers to the October 29, 2006 transcript of Lou Dobbs Tonight. The transcript quotes Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation as saying, “the total cost of services and benefits provided to them, education, welfare, general social services would be about $90 billion a year.”Rector has conducted an extensive study that estimated the costs of illegal immigrant households on taxpayers. The study concluded that, in 2004, there were 4.5 million low-skill immigrant households with an average net fiscal deficit of $19,588 per household, the total annual fiscal deficit for all of these households together equaled $89.1 billion. Notice that Rector uses the term "immigrant" households. In his analysis only 40% of these households are headed by illegal immigrants. The other 60% are headed by legal immigrants. So only 40% of the $90 billion can be attributed to illegal immigrants, i.e. $36 billion. Because illegal immigrants are not eligible to receive some government services, the actual estimate would have to be even below that figure.

Over and over again we are seeing misstatement of facts. Every misstatement makes the effects of illegal immigration seem worse than it actually is. Woolridge is intentionally manipulating the wording in order to create a false impression.

9. $200 billion Dollars a year in lost-suppressed American wages caused by the illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
The link refers to the April 1, 2006 transcript of Lou Dobbs Tonight. In this transcript, host Lou Dobbs states, “That economy, we know the estimates by the most authoritative and recent study put the suppressed wages at $200 billion a year, as a result of immigration, both legal and illegal.”The report Dobbs was referring to was an estimate by Dr. George Borjas, a Harvard University professor. Dr. Borjas considered the effects of immigration from 1980 through 2000. Had the study considered the effects of immigration after the year 2000, a higher calculation may have resulted. In this case Woolridge cites a fact.

Conclusion: While the statement is based on fact, the deception is in what is left out. Over the years, the U.S., in addition to receiving immigrants, has received trillions of dollars in investment from abroad. Economists are in agreement in that this investment from abroad results in increased productivity. This increase in productivity results not only in increased profits for business but increased wages for workers.Additionally, the $200 billion in reduced wages does not constitute a net loss to society. The wages lost by workers is made up by increase profits for businesses, increased return on investment by investors and lower prices for consumers.

10. Illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of citizen-taxpayer Americans. Their children make a huge additional crime problem in the United States. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html
The link refers to a transcript of the June 12, 2006 broadcast of Lou Dobbs Tonight. The transcript quotes Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation as saying, “Hispanics in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-Hispanics.” Note that Rector’s comment refers to Hispanics, not illegal aliens.

Conclusion: Woolridge took a statement that refers to Hispanics and changed it to read illegal aliens thereby exaggerating the effect of illegal aliens.

11. During the year of 2005, there were 4 to 10 million illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border. In addition, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens arrived from terrorist countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroine and marijuana, crossed into the U. S. from the Southern border. http://www.house.gov/mccaul/pdf/Investigaions-Border-Report.pdf
The link refers to a report prepared by the House committee on Homeland Security.The report states that during 2005, the Border patrol apprehended approximately 1.2 million illegal aliens. 650 were from special interest countries, i.e. “countries that could export individuals that could bring harm to our country in the way of terrorism.” The report also states that Federal law enforcement estimates that 10 percent to 30 percent of illegal aliens are actually apprehended. Using these figures, one can see how the 4 to 10 million figure was arrived at.

With respect to illegal immigrants from terrorist countries, this figure is vastly overstated. Using the figures from the report, about 1,500 to 6,000 illegal aliens from terrorist countries may have crossed the border in 2005 according to this report.

The website for the U.S. Border Patrol confirms that 1.2 million individuals were apprehended while trying to illegally enter the United States.Conclusion: Woolridge misrepresented the report.

12. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 billion in remittances back to their countries of origin. Obfuscation may have hidden $35 Billion more. http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/nation/15795654.htm?source=rss&channel=cctimes_nation
The link refers to an article in the Contra Costa Times. Following the link, one is directed to the main page of the Contra Costa Times. A search of the Contra Costa Times reveals no articles that support this claim.

A report released by the Inter-American Development Bank estimated that immigrants living in the United States sent $45 billion to family members in 2006.

Conclusion: Woolridge took a statement that refers to total remittances and changed it to read remittances by illegal aliens thereby exaggerating the effect of illegal aliens.

13. "The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants in the United States." http://www.drdsk.com/articles.html

http://www.drsk.com/ is a webpage of a Violent Crimes Institute. One article found on this website is entitled “The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants in the United States”. The article is written by one Deborah Schurman-Kauflin, Ph.D. Violent Crimes Institute, Atlanta, GeorgiaThe writer arrived at this figure as follows: She estimated the number of illegal aliens at 12,000,000. She examined ICE reports and public records and found that sex offenders comprise 2% of illegal aliens apprehended. She estimated that each sex offender has 4 victims.

Thus, she concluded that there are 240,000 illegal alien sex offenders in the United States each having four victims thereby arriving at the one million figure.

The article makes an erroneous assumption: that illegal aliens not apprehended by law enforcement commit sex crimes at the same rate as those that are apprehended by law enforcement. A report by the Government Accountability Office GAO-05-646R identified over 55,000 illegal aliens in federal and state prisons and local jails and identified that those criminals had committed 11,833 sex offenses.

14. Every day (average), 12 Americans are murdered by an illegal alien. Another 13 Americans are killed by uninsured drunk illegal aliens, and Eight American Children are victims of a sex crime committed by an illegal alien each day! http://www.house.gov/apps/list/hearing/ia05_king/col_20060505_bite.html

These false statements are taken from a statement released by Congressman Steve King. King has never provided any data to support these claims.

Conclusion: While Woolridge did cite Steve King, he failed to verify the accuracy of the statement.

15. Today, criminal aliens account for over 29 percent of prisoners in Federal Bureau of Prisons facilities and a higher share of all federal prison inmates. These prisoners represent the fastest growing segment of the federal prison population. http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecenters0b9c
This is from a FAIR report entitled “Criminal Aliens”. It is a collection of information about criminal aliens. Note that the term criminal alien refers to non-citizens who commit crimes and does not refer exclusively to illegal aliens.

16. "Illegal Aliens and American Medicine," "Many illegal aliens harbor fatal diseases that American Medicine fought and vanquished long ago, such as drug-resistant tuberculosis, malaria, leprosy, plague, polio, dengue and Chagas disease." The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. http://www.jpands.org/jpands1001.htm
This refers to an article by Madeleine Pelner Cosman. The article contains exaggerations and false statements. In an interview with Democracy Now, Lou Dobbs referred to Dr. Cosman as a whack job.

17. In 2002, HIV/AIDS was the third leading cause of death among Hispanic men aged 35 to 44 and the fourth leading cause of death among Hispanic women in the same age group. Most Hispanic men were exposed to HIV through sexual contact with other men. Source (U.S. CDC):http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/hispanic.htm
The link is to a webpage of the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The page states that HIV/AIDS was the fourth leading cause of death among Hispanic/Latino men and women aged 35 to 44. HIV was the fifth leading cause of death for all men and women aged 35 to 44.

18. If enacted, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA, S. 2611) would be the most dramatic change in immigration law in 80 years, granting Amnesty to 30 million illegal immigrants, and allowing an estimated 100-203 million persons to legally immigrate to the U.S. over the next 20-40 years ­ a number equal to fully two-thirds of the current population of the United States. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Immigration/wm1076.cfm

The link is to a report by Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation. He estimates that the number of legal immigrants who would enter the country or would gain legal status would be around 66 million over the next 20 years. The CIRA, S. 2611 was never passed and the finding is irrelevant.

19. U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) today unveiled an impact analysis that shows the Senate immigration bill ­ should it become law ­ would permit up to 217.1 million new legal immigrants into the United States over the next 20 years, a number equal to more than 70 percent of the total current population. http://sessions.senate.gov/pressapp/record.cfm?id=255553&&

The link is to a report of Senator Jeff Sessions who estimated that Senate immigration bill of 2006 would have permitted between 78.7 and 217.1 million new legal immigrants into the United States over the next 20 years. The bill never passed.

20. The number of illegal immigrants in the United States is at least 20 million, and may be as many as 30 million people, more than triple the official nine million people estimated by the Census Bureau. 03 Jan 2005. http://www.bearstearns.com/bscportal/pdfs/underground.pdf

The link is to a report that states that the number of illegal immigrants in the United States “may be” as high as 20 million. Woolridge again exaggerated the statement in the link he provided.Conclusion: Woolridge misstated the claim to exaggerate the effects of illegal immigration.

21. Cases of Leprosy on the Rise In The U.S., The New York Times. "While there were some 900 recorded cases in the United States 40 years ago, today more than 7,000 people have leprosy." Leprosy is an airborne virus; it can also be spread by touching and coughing. http://www.stevequayle.com/News.alert/03_Disease/030226.leprosy.in.US.htmlhttp://jscms.jrn.columbia.edu/cns/2005-03-15/whitford-americanleprosyhttp://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=78621
The following chart shows that the reported cases of leprosy in the United States have been declining steadily since the 80s. http://www.cdc.gov/epo/dphsi/annsum/2003/slides/hansgraf.ppt#256,1,Slide 1

Conclusion: While Woolridge may have cited his source correctly, he failed to verify the data. Woolridge himself is a good example as to why it is so important not to believe something just because it’s in print.

There are some patterns here. The first one is taking what is clearly an estimate and reporting it as if it were an actual fact. Another is taking a data and changing one aspect of it in order to exaggerate the effects of illegal immigration. For example, taking the total number of non-citizens in prison and changing it to the total number of illegal aliens in prison. The act overstates the number of illegal aliens in prison and, at the same time, the subtle change may be overlooked by a casual reader.

Another pattern is citing an article or statement as fact without considering the reliability. Sometimes the factoid is blatant untrue like the claim by Congressman Steve King. Other times it’s spun or stretched or exaggerated like the case of leprosy.Another pattern is conveniently selecting facts that support your conclusion and conveniently leaving out contradictory information. Yet another pattern is citing a convenient estimate. When citing an estimate, he picks the estimate (whether it be number of illegal aliens or the costs) that support your conclusion without noting disputing estimates.

The end result is a reckless, dishonest excuse for journalism.At the time of this writing, it is unknown what factoids will be invented for 2008 or who will come up with these factoids. One thing is certain and that is that some anti-immigrant fanatic will come up with a list of lies and represent them as facts.

Chuck Colson on Anti-Immigration Fanatics

Chuck Colson became a born again Christian shortly before going to prison. In 1976 after his release he founded Prison Fellowship Ministries. It is now the largest Christian outreach to prisoners and ex-prisoners in the United States. Chuck writes a daily commentary called Breakpoint. Recently he touched on the issue of illegal immigration.

The Demonizing of ImmigrantsDid you know that “95 percent of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens?” Or that “75 percent of people on the Most Wanted List in Los Angeles are illegal aliens”? What’s more, “Over [two-thirds] of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on [Medicaid] whose births were paid for by taxpayers.” This is outrageous.

Especially since none of it is true! Instead, it’s just one example of how, in some ways, we have gone beyond worrying about illegal immigration to demonizing the immigrants themselves.
This example came from a widely circulated e-mail that was posted on at least 130 conservative websites. It listed ten “facts about immigration” and gave as its source the Los Angeles Times.
Not only was the Los Angeles Times not the source of these “facts,” when the paper examined the alleged “facts,” none of them withstood scrutiny. Some of them distorted the data: For instance, approximately 62 percent of all births in Los Angeles County are to Hispanic women. But this number includes American citizens, legal aliens, Hispanics from countries other than Mexico, and has nothing to do with Medicaid.

The so-called “facts” about illegal alien criminality are even worse: They are deliberate misrepresentations or complete fabrications.

Unfortunately, this is only the tip of an often very ugly iceberg. The illegal immigration problem is often called an “invasion” that threatens the existence of the United States. Illegal aliens are depicted as part of an effort to “reconquer” the American Southwest. And it’s not only illegal immigrants: American citizens of Mexican ancestry are also regarded as part of this plot.
Now, there are a few fringe Latino groups that talk about “reconquista”—that is all they are, however: fringe. To judge all Latinos, including illegal aliens, by the words of these groups is as fair as judging all Christians by the actions of clinic bombers or Fred Phelps.

A concern for fairness isn’t the most important reason that Christians ought to oppose this demonization of “the strangers in our midst.” As theologian T. M. Moore recently wrote on BreakPoint Online, “God defends strangers. He has compassion for those who have left all and risked all to find new lives in a strange country. Moore reminds us that God expects His people’s “attitude toward the strangers and sojourners in their midst” to reflect His own concern.
Now, this does not mean that Christians ought not to be concerned about the massive lawbreaking, by both illegal immigrants and those who employ them. We must! The rule of law is a Christian contribution, coming out of the Reformation, and it requires respect for law, just as the Bible does. Nor does it mean that there’s one particular immigration proposal that Christians ought to be supporting. What it does mean is that Christians must work to see that the immigration debate generates light instead of heat. We must insist that the illegal-immigration issue be addressed without treating millions of Americans, many of whom have died protecting our country, as a kind of fifth column.

That is the very least we can do if we are obedient to God’s command to welcome strangers. And that’s a fact I got from the highest possible Source.

More information supportin Colson's article can be found a breakpoint.org.http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=2438