Illegal Immigration Fallacies

[EricOF]

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I think I remember hearing in this forum that the 'center for immigration studies' was acually founded and it's core group run by... people with strong biases againt foreigners.

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Let's all bet our life's fortune that is a completely incontrovertible fact and not merely an aspersion from those who disagree with their supported policies.

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Illegal immigrants aren't threatening my life's fortune. If they're threatening yours, I suggest you go to community college and/or learn a job skill.

The welfare/warfare state threatens a large percentage of my life's fortune though.

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What level of reading comprehension leads one to think that the accuracy of a characterization of CIS is synonymous with the attendant problems of illegal immigration and that the phrase "life's fortune" was meant as a literal estimation of the cost of it's being innacurate?

[Brainwalter]

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What level of reading comprehension leads one to think that the accuracy of a characterization of CIS is synonymous with the attendant problems of illegal immigration and that the phrase "life's fortune" was meant as a literal estimation of the cost of it's being innacurate?

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Apparently my comprehension is very low, as this post and now that one make little sense to me.

[bkholdem]

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I think I remember hearing in this forum that the 'center for immigration studies' was acually founded and it's core group run by... people with strong biases againt foreigners.

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Let's all bet our life's fortune that this is a completely incontrovertible fact and not merely an aspersion from those who disagree with their supported policies.

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There was a thread with a lot of very specific information in this forum a while back that outlined what I said very clearly.

I'm guessing that you could care less even if it was true, so what is your issue exactly?

[DVaut1]

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Yes, the "Center for Immigration Studies" was a spin-off of the Federation For Immigration Reform, which is essentially a restrictionist lobbying group that, as the Wall Street Journal chronicles, is unsurprisingly funded by white supremacists.

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Well if the WSJ says they are white supremacists, they must be! It's fun to read without questioning isn't it?

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What do you mean "without questioning"? How would you know if I questioned the conclusions of the WSJ editorial board or not?

I give you credit for attempting to try win an argument by hand-wavingly asserting that I "didn't question" what I cited, but unless you have some kind of magical ability to peer through my soul, I'm not sure how you would know what conclusions I've questioned and which I haven't.

I cited the WSJ to preemptively answer any claims of ideological bias on my behalf -- as my previous link demonstrates, even conservative-leaning publications correctly label the Pioneer Fund as an organization whose stated-mission is (or at least, was) to protect racial purity.

By citing the WSJ, I wasn't suggesting that the WSJ is the final arbiter on the matter; but I did cite the WSJ in an attempt to show that it's not just the left who is highly distrustful of the Pioneer Fund's motives. Had I cited Sourcewatch or FAIR, surely that would have been met with "lolz but those are just left-wing groups in the PC Police".

I know the WSJ isn't exactly the most-favored publication of foaming-at-the-mouth right wing bigots who want to limit immigration to protect America's "national identity", but I think it's a fairly well-credentialed conservative publication -- surely not one we could subject to claims of "liberal bias".

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The Pioneer Fund does fund research into the genetic causes of human differences, much of which actually places East Asians above Europeans in IQ. Perhaps they are Asian supremacists? Well, no reason to try to think logically about these things. Let's just assume the WSJ knows what it's talking about and leave the thinking to them.

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"The Pioneer Fund funds research into the genetic causes of human differences" sounds like a nice euphemism for "the Pioneer Fund funds pseudo-science to give scholarly weight to their eugenicist agenda" -- which probably explains why they fund so many CIS 'studies'.

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intel...le.jsp?pid=625

[DVaut1]

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I think I remember hearing in this forum that the 'center for immigration studies' was acually founded and it's core group run by... people with strong biases againt foreigners.

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Let's all bet our life's fortune that this is a completely incontrovertible fact and not merely an aspersion from those who disagree with their supported policies.

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There was a thread with a lot of very specific information in this forum a while back that outlined what I said very clearly.

I'm guessing that you could care less even if it was true, so what is your issue exactly?

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A quick look over EricOF's posting history suggests he only shows up in Politics to defend the notion that blacks and other racial minorities are genetically inferior to whites and Asians, in that they have lower intellectual capacities and are inherently more violent, and that anyone who thinks otherwise has their head in the sand. His evidence is typically the Pioneer Fund funded The Bell Curve and other such work.

So I think his defense of CIS/the Pioneer Fund is rather understandable, and I think he does care. Defending pseudo-scientific race studies seems mightly important to him -- as I noted, he usually only posts here when the topic comes up. So yeah, I think he does care.

[EricOF]

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I think I remember hearing in this forum that the 'center for immigration studies' was acually founded and it's core group run by... people with strong biases againt foreigners.

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's all bet our life's fortune that this is a completely incontrovertible fact and not merely an aspersion from those who disagree with their supported policies.

[/ QUOTE ]

There was a thread with a lot of very specific information in this forum a while back that outlined what I said very clearly.

I'm guessing that you could care less even if it was true, so what is your issue exactly?

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A quick look over EricOF's posting history suggests he only shows up in Politics to defend the notion that blacks and other racial minorities are genetically inferior to whites and Asians, in that they have lower intellectual capacities and are inherently more violent, and that anyone who thinks otherwise has their head in the sand. His evidence is typically the Pioneer Fund funded The Bell Curve and other such work.

So I think his defense of CIS/the Pioneer Fund is rather understandable, and I think he does care. Defending pseudo-scientific race studies seems mightly important to him -- as I noted, he usually only posts here when the topic comes up. So yeah, I think he does care.

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Aw don't worry DV. You aren't the first person to dismiss uncomfortable evidence with phrases like "pseudo-science" in place of an actual argument so you're in plentiful, if not good, company. That's always safe. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[adios]

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The biggest problem most people have with illegal immigrants is the drain on social services.

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Is this even true? In the 1990s, close to two-hundred billion dollars was collected by the Social Security Administration against bad/fraudulent social security numbers. Something close to 75% of this money is estimated to have been paid by illegal immigrants:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/busine...ner=rssuserland

I assume most illegal immigrants rent, so their rent costs likely have various local and state property taxes rolled into their rental fee by their landlords, so they bear that burden as well, at least indirectly. I don't think illegal immigrants are avoiding various sales taxes, either.

Even if they illegal immigrants aren't paying federal or state income taxes, most probably make so little in income that they'd have been refunded whatever was collected anyway.

So I have my doubts the "illegal immigrants are a huge drain" narrative corresponds with the observable reality.

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This gentleman views it differently:

The Fiscal Cost of Low-Skill Immigrants to State and Local Taxpayers

An excerpt:

Giving amnesty to illegal immigrants would increase the costs outlined in this testimony. Some 50 to 60 percent of illegal immigrants lack a high school degree. Granting amnesty or conditional amnesty to illegal immigrants would, overtime, increase their use of means-tested welfare, Social Security and Medicare. Fiscal costs would go up significantly in the short term but would go up dramatically after the amnesty recipient reached retirement. Based on my current research, I estimate that if all the current adult illegal immigrants in the U.S. were granted amnesty the net retirement costs to government (benefits minus taxes) could be over $2.5 trillion.

[bkholdem]

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I think I remember hearing in this forum that the 'center for immigration studies' was acually founded and it's core group run by... people with strong biases againt foreigners.

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's all bet our life's fortune that this is a completely incontrovertible fact and not merely an aspersion from those who disagree with their supported policies.

[/ QUOTE ]

There was a thread with a lot of very specific information in this forum a while back that outlined what I said very clearly.

I'm guessing that you could care less even if it was true, so what is your issue exactly?

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A quick look over EricOF's posting history suggests he only shows up in Politics to defend the notion that blacks and other racial minorities are genetically inferior to whites and Asians, in that they have lower intellectual capacities and are inherently more violent, and that anyone who thinks otherwise has their head in the sand. His evidence is typically the Pioneer Fund funded The Bell Curve and other such work.

So I think his defense of CIS/the Pioneer Fund is rather understandable, and I think he does care. Defending pseudo-scientific race studies seems mightly important to him -- as I noted, he usually only posts here when the topic comes up. So yeah, I think he does care.

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Aw don't worry DV. You aren't the first person to dismiss uncomfortable evidence with phrases like "pseudo-science" in place of an actual argument so you're in plentiful, if not good, company. That's always safe. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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So is the place a spin off of bigots or not eric?

[DVaut1]

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The biggest problem most people have with illegal immigrants is the drain on social services.

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Is this even true? In the 1990s, close to two-hundred billion dollars was collected by the Social Security Administration against bad/fraudulent social security numbers. Something close to 75% of this money is estimated to have been paid by illegal immigrants:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/busine...ner=rssuserland

I assume most illegal immigrants rent, so their rent costs likely have various local and state property taxes rolled into their rental fee by their landlords, so they bear that burden as well, at least indirectly. I don't think illegal immigrants are avoiding various sales taxes, either.

Even if they illegal immigrants aren't paying federal or state income taxes, most probably make so little in income that they'd have been refunded whatever was collected anyway.

So I have my doubts the "illegal immigrants are a huge drain" narrative corresponds with the observable reality.

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This gentleman views it differently:

The Fiscal Cost of Low-Skill Immigrants to State and Local Taxpayers

An excerpt:

Giving amnesty to illegal immigrants would increase the costs outlined in this testimony. Some 50 to 60 percent of illegal immigrants lack a high school degree. Granting amnesty or conditional amnesty to illegal immigrants would, overtime, increase their use of means-tested welfare, Social Security and Medicare. Fiscal costs would go up significantly in the short term but would go up dramatically after the amnesty recipient reached retirement. Based on my current research, I estimate that if all the current adult illegal immigrants in the U.S. were granted amnesty the net retirement costs to government (benefits minus taxes) could be over $2.5 trillion.

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I didn't read the article but the excerpt here seems to suggest the article is concerned with the costs of amnesty, not the current burden illegal immigrants place on social services, which is what Tom was ostensibly referring to, since he plainly said they were "illegal" immigrants. So I'm frankly failing to see how this relevant to either my post or Tom's.

If the claim is that granting illegal immigrant amnesty will be costly, then okay, but that's a different argument. It's wholly separate from "illegal immigrants are currently placing a giant burden on America's social services".

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From the piece:

In FY 2004 there were around 4.5 million low-skill immigrant households in the U.S. containing 15.9 million persons. About 60 percent of these low-skill immigrant households were headed by legal immigrants and 40 percent by illegal immigrants. The analysis presented here measures the total benefits and services received by these "low- skill immigrant households" compared to the total taxes paid.

It doesn't pertain only to amnesty, he maintains that the low skill immagrants who are here illegally are already receiving more benefits than they pay in taxes.