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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.
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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.
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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.
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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, Georgia
The 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.
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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.
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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_immigrationissuecenters0b9 c
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.html
http://jscms.jrn.columbia.edu/cns/2005-03-15/whitford-americanleprosy
http://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.