American Politics

[SkStu]

I think it’s poor form to ignore two-thirds of my post and then spend half your response addressing something that I never raised.

Well intentioned or not, if you want to make a better start for yourself than you should start by following the law and not immigrating illegally. If a wall along the southern border helps with that then that’s a good thing surely?

Do you think people should follow legal processes to start a new life in a better country? Do you support people from Central America and Mexico crossing the border into the USA illegally?

I’m asking you some really simple questions in these last couple of replies. Continue to ignore them and I’ll write you off as disingenuous on this topic.

[mark12345]

Well duh... one of the problems with the wall is that it won't actually manage to do that. The point is, and this goes to the heart of the issue of this thread, MS13 have been presented by Trump and right-wing media as a major threat to US security without precedent as justification for this huge expenditure. Even on this thread, you had Mark12345 presenting a figure of 80,000 MS13 members in the US. He claimed that he heard it quoted on one of his news sources, which include Fox News and Right-wing Talk Radio but couldn't remember where. And you know what? I believe him. Based on what I see of Fox News, Conservative Radio and now, more insidiously, Spectrum Media properties, it's entirely probable that Mark12345 was watching Fox or listening to Talk Radio and somebody threw out a figure of 80,000 in the context of MS13 in the US in a discussion about the Southern Border, wasn't challenged and that's the figure he brought here, which we now know, based on figures both you and I presented, to be massively, massively overstated.

And why do they do this? To rile people up. Because most people are reasonable and if you tell them that illegal border crossings have dropped by 80% since the year 2000, that the number of MS13 members crossing each year numbers in the hundreds and that 99% of people crossing the border are simply seeking a better life for their families and don't go on to commit crimes, then they don't see a need for draconian, extreme and expensive border measures, even though they support sensible border regulation and enforcement.

But there are certain groups of people who are not happy with that. No matter the cost, no matter the futility of achieving their claimed objectives, no matter the pointless misery they cause to people, out of spite and hatred (I'm not just parroting that) they throw out misleading information and figures to get otherwise semi-reasonable people riled up. Sarah Huckabee-Sanders got caught out doing this, ironically enough on Fox News, when she threw out the number of terror suspects stopped by border services in the context of The Wall, only for Chris Wallace to point out that none of these terror suspect were stopped at the Southern Border. But of course the most infamous example of this use of misleading rhetoric is the speech that kicked this whole thing off:

"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best... They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with [them]. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

If that's not born of spite and hatred, then I don't know what is.

Sam, listen to this woman. She is a spokesperson for the customs officers in Arizona (it's an interesting video which speaks about border guards facing massive numbers of immigrants which they just cannot handle, and being exposed to disease etc. But if you don't have the time, listen from 13.59 to the end). She says that the media and celebrities portray the border patrol as monsters, but the reality is that America goes above and beyond in the way it treats immigrants crossing the border, many of whom are hardened criminals.

https://youtu.be/IW3ma-IAe1w?t=6

Source - Judicial Watch

http://www.judicialwatch.org/latest-videos/

And......almost 30,000 murders in 2017 in Mexico, see source below.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/mexico-record-homicide-rate-1.4497466

and it's not getting any better with 2500 plus reported in February 2019 alone. The woman in the Judicial Watch video talks about the crime rate going up in Tijuana because of the influx of migrants from the caravans. So in essence there is a real perfect storm of problems on America's southern border.

[mark12345]

Well duh... one of the problems with the wall is that it won't actually manage to do that. The point is, and this goes to the heart of the issue of this thread, MS13 have been presented by Trump and right-wing media as a major threat to US security without precedent as justification for this huge expenditure. Even on this thread, you had Mark12345 presenting a figure of 80,000 MS13 members in the US. He claimed that he heard it quoted on one of his news sources, which include Fox News and Right-wing Talk Radio but couldn't remember where. And you know what? I believe him. Based on what I see of Fox News, Conservative Radio and now, more insidiously, Spectrum Media properties, it's entirely probable that Mark12345 was watching Fox or listening to Talk Radio and somebody threw out a figure of 80,000 in the context of MS13 in the US in a discussion about the Southern Border, wasn't challenged and that's the figure he brought here, which we now know, based on figures both you and I presented, to be massively, massively overstated.

And why do they do this? To rile people up. Because most people are reasonable and if you tell them that illegal border crossings have dropped by 80% since the year 2000, that the number of MS13 members crossing each year numbers in the hundreds and that 99% of people crossing the border are simply seeking a better life for their families and don't go on to commit crimes, then they don't see a need for draconian, extreme and expensive border measures, even though they support sensible border regulation and enforcement.

But there are certain groups of people who are not happy with that. No matter the cost, no matter the futility of achieving their claimed objectives, no matter the pointless misery they cause to people, out of spite and hatred (I'm not just parroting that) they throw out misleading information and figures to get otherwise semi-reasonable people riled up. Sarah Huckabee-Sanders got caught out doing this, ironically enough on Fox News, when she threw out the number of terror suspects stopped by border services in the context of The Wall, only for Chris Wallace to point out that none of these terror suspect were stopped at the Southern Border. But of course the most infamous example of this use of misleading rhetoric is the speech that kicked this whole thing off:

"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best... They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with [them]. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

If that's not born of spite and hatred, then I don't know what is.

Sam, is it possible that we're being fed a media narrative which simply is not true?

Here's something from a journalist who went to the very source. He says that the media are misrepresenting the narrative as they portray the migrants to be mostly women and children when in point of fact they are 90 -95% young men.
Interesting

https://youtu.be/lfP2UJP0hJE

[ifk101]

Sam, is it possible that we're being fed a media narrative which simply is not true?

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/judicial-watch/

[mark12345]

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/judicial-watch/

And why should anyone believe Media Bias Fact Check?
What are the political leanings of the people who run / fund that website?

I could point you in the direction of Liberty News Now and an article entitled "Judicial Watch Instrumental In Firing Of Corrupt FBI Agent McCabe"
Not just any run of the mill website if they can wield that amount of power, one would have to say.

But then I'm sure you could come up with another website to counteract that and we could go on with this ad nauseum.

So I've learned a lot this week.
You've got to give us sources I was told. You cannot just blurb out things without giving sources or you will be banned.
So I go to the trouble of sourcing information and then I'm told it is not to be believed.
To be fair it is people's perogative to believe and not to believe what they want.

Part of the problem in this particular situation, I believe, is that I live 3000 miles away from most of the posters on this site (I think that is the case anyway?).
I turn on my TV or radio every day and am bombarded with this type of news or propaganda which it is in many cases.
I tend to forget that many of the people I am corresponding with do not have the same level of saturation coverage of this topic and therefore they need to search for it from other sources.

All I can say is that we truly live in an age where information is the biggest weapon of all.

[Real ale Madrid]

Sam, listen to this woman. She is a spokesperson for the customs officers in Arizona (it's an interesting video which speaks about border guards facing massive numbers of immigrants which they just cannot handle, and being exposed to disease etc. But if you don't have the time, listen from 13.59 to the end). She says that the media and celebrities portray the border patrol as monsters, but the reality is that America goes above and beyond in the way it treats immigrants crossing the border, many of whom are hardened criminals.

https://youtu.be/IW3ma-IAe1w?t=6

Source - Judicial Watch

http://www.judicialwatch.org/latest-videos/

And......almost 30,000 murders in 2017 in Mexico, see source below.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/mexico-record-homicide-rate-1.4497466

and it's not getting any better with 2500 plus reported in February 2019 alone. The woman in the Judicial Watch video talks about the crime rate going up in Tijuana because of the influx of migrants from the caravans. So in essence there is a real perfect storm of problems on America's southern border.

What does the murder rate in Mexico have to do with immigration? It's conjecture mentioning the murder rate there.

Among communities in the USA with high / low populations of immigrants there is little change in crime rates. One example of such a study is the below by the CATO Institute

https://www.cato.org/publications/immigration-research-policy-brief/criminal-immigrants-texas-illegal-immigrant

The vast majority of research finds that immigrants do not increase local crime rates and that they are less likely to cause crime and less likely to be incarcerated than their native-born peers.3 There is less research on illegal immigrant criminality, but what research there is shows that illegal immigrants have lower incarceration rates nationwide and in the state of Texas relative to native-born Americans, although they have the same rates of re-arrest in Los Angeles County.4 Consistent with those findings, immigration enforcement programs targeting illegal immigrant criminals have no effect on local crime rates, which indicates that they are about as crime prone as other residents.5

No one should be saying that they should be welcoming in illegal immigrants but building a wall according to all known research will do little to help make America Safer.

Keep harping on about it but if you invested this 25 billion on say , gun legislation then you might say half the current gun deaths (approaching 40,000 per year) . If you did manage to reduce it by half then there would be 200,000 Americans alive in 10 years time that will otherwise die.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/us/gun-deaths.amp.html

[SkStu]

I agree Mark. It’s a dangerous game to play ifk. On the left side of the spectrum on that site are a load of familiar names to the posters on this site - CNN, HuffPo and others.

On JW, the site says to take the veracity of their (and by extension those left wing sources) articles on a case by case basis. The best thing we can do on here is post articles that rebut the claims or data in a particular source. It allows people to have both sides presented and then, at least we can make our own minds up. I don’t think posting a link like the above furthers any type of decent debate.

No one should be saying that they should be welcoming in illegal immigrants but building a wall according to all known research will do little to help make America Safer.

According to those who are responsible for patrolling the border, a wall is desperately needed to prevent the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs across the border. This is Carla Provost, Border Patrol Chief.

https://www.upi.com/Border-Patrol-chief-urges-senators-to-support-border-wall/6061544661131/

https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/401535-full-interview-trumps-new-border-patrol-chief-carla-provost-talks-support-for

Could you share some of the research you are referring to?

I am glad to read that you don’t believe in illegal immigration. I was worried that no one on this site was going to actually answer that question which just seems obvious to me.

[mark12345]

According to those who are responsible for patrolling the border, a wall is desperately needed to prevent the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs across the border. This is Carla Provost, Border Patrol Chief.

https://www.upi.com/Border-Patrol-chief-urges-senators-to-support-border-wall/6061544661131/

https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/401535-full-interview-trumps-new-border-patrol-chief-carla-provost-talks-support-for

Could you share some of the research you are referring to?

I am glad to read that you don’t believe in illegal immigration. I was worried that no one on this site was going to actually answer that question which just seems obvious to me.

Thanks Stu. As I said before you are a clear thinker.
No coincidence I suppose that the pair of us (as far as I can see anyway, but there may be exceptions?) are closer than anyone else to the 25 hours a day / 8 days a week American newsfeeds on our TV's.
I think there are a lot of very knowledgable posters on the Current Affairs topics on this site, and I have learned quite a bit from them regarding things at home in Ireland and in England.
I just wish there was the same level of acceptance of the facts / stories we present from our side of the world.

What does the murder rate in Mexico have to do with immigration? It's conjecture mentioning the murder rate there.

Among communities in the USA with high / low populations of immigrants there is little change in crime rates. One example of such a study is the below by the CATO Institute

https://www.cato.org/publications/immigration-research-policy-brief/criminal-immigrants-texas-illegal-immigrant

No one should be saying that they should be welcoming in illegal immigrants but building a wall according to all known research will do little to help make America Safer.

Keep harping on about it but if you invested this 25 billion on say , gun legislation then you might say half the current gun deaths (approaching 40,000 per year) . If you did manage to reduce it by half then there would be 200,000 Americans alive in 10 years time that will otherwise die.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nyt...eaths.amp.html

I think and hope that we all (myself included - believe me I am trying) turn over a new leaf in relation to the tone of our posts.
That said if I can make a few brief comments regarding your post here.
In response to your questions, my reasoning is as follows:

"What does the murder rate in Mexico have to do with immigration?" It has everything to do with immigration as in, if you and I were a couple of young kids in Mexico and all we saw in our town was carnage, mutiation and intimidation, would we not want to get out of town as quick as we could? I think that would be only natural to want to do that, and I would think that millions of Mexicans feel the same way? That is why we see so many trying to go north to America (and from what I am seeing now online, the people who were for so long under the thumbs of the cartel are arming themselves into militias and fighting back - that is mosty in southern Mexico). Anyway, I think you would agree that Mexico is a corrupt, lawless country at present which is run by the drug cartels? This can only translate into thousands wanting to flee north to America, and they are doing that (76.000 apprehended on the border in the month of February alone).
And you might want to balance that CATO Instiute story with a look into the city of Chicago, it's off the charts annual murder rate and the number of shootings in that city (all with illegal guns) which are linked in many cases to the flow of drugs from Mexico. I would be happy to debate you on your perception of gun control in America. Some day, but not today.

One last thing before I go. I mentioned in a post the other day that a truck crossing the southern border, a month or so ago, was stopped by the border patrol.
That truck contained enough Fentanyl to kill 60 million Americans. Does that concern you in any way?

[ifk101]

And why should anyone believe Media Bias Fact Check?
What are the political leanings of the people who run / fund that website?

You said

Sam, is it possible that we're being fed a media narrative which simply is not true?

[mark12345]

You said

All true.
It is more than possible that we're being fed an untrue narrative.
Did you happen to find out anything new about Media Bias Fact Check?
Let me know so I can try to refute your findings, and we can go on like this forever.

What has happened to us? 15 - 20 years ago you took the news on your TV as gospel.
Now no one knows what to believe. Seems like we are puppets on the strings of the media.
Like Stu says, it's a slippery slope.

[ifk101]

All true.
It is more than possible that we're being fed an untrue narrative.
Did you happen to find out anything new about Media Bias Fact Check?
Let me know so I can try to refute your findings, and we can go on like this forever.

I'm sure you'll refute until the cows come home. Or the immigrants go home.

What has happened to us? 15 - 20 years ago you took the news on your TV as gospel.
Now no one knows what to believe. Seems like we are puppets on the strings of the media.

Are we meant to be in agreement here? :-)

[mark12345]

I'm sure you'll refute until the cows come home. Or the immigrants go home.




Are we meant to be in agreement here? :-)

Please let us be in agreement.
I am sick of this already.

[samhaydenjr]

Sam, is it possible that we're being fed a media narrative which simply is not true?

Yes, I think you are... that's why you ended up quoting a completely erroneous figure about MS13 members in the US that supported that media narrative (sorry, couldn't help myself)

Here's something from a journalist who went to the very source. He says that the media are misrepresenting the narrative as they portray the migrants to be mostly women and children when in point of fact they are 90 -95% young men.
Interesting

https://youtu.be/lfP2UJP0hJE

Couple of quick notes before I talk about the video itself:

1. Ami Horowitz is not a journalist. He's a documentary filmmaker, whose educational background is political science and philosophy and whose employment background is as an investment banker - he made statements about Sweden in a film that have been "described as false by fact-checkers, news organizations and criminologists as well as Swedish authorities" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ami_Horowitz
2. Judicial Watch is not a news organisation - they are a conservative activist group, founded by a birther, who have a list of false claims as long as my arm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Watch - many thanks for sending me there - it's one step away from a Facebook conspiracy clickbait site run by Russian Hackers designed to get your credit card details with promises of dirt on Hillary Clinton

So to the video itself. I got through half of it before I figured them out - basically they take normal, reasonable behaviour of extremely poor people and spin it so that it sounds like a grand conspiracy (personally, that sort of messing with vulnerable people's lives makes me angry) :

1. The Young Men Invasion theory. The 90-95% figure is unverifiable (based on what I've just learned about the sources, utterly unreliable - but that's my personal opinion) and based on personal estimates of a couple of caravans - one of the large caravans was estimated to have 2300 children out of 7000 participants. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/w...s-history.html. I'll be generous and say that there can be variations in the demographic make-up between caravans. I will concede that it is entirely likely that there will be a higher proportion of young men (as there was among the Syrian refugees who moved across Europe in 2015), however this is not a sign of a grand invasion of criminals or terrorists.
Stop and think about it for a moment, please Mark - if you're a poor family and you have enough money to send one or two family members on a risky and arduous journey to do backbreaking work in the economic shadows of a more advanced economy, who are you going to send? That's right, the young men. So no, contrary to the narrative of the right-wing media and the President, these young men are not a whole bunch of criminals or terrorists... they are seeking to work hard to support their desperately poor families back home

2. The Outside Financing Theory- Horowitz estimated the costs of the caravan at $800000 and wondered where this money came from (ooh, is it George Soros? Or the Clinton Foundation?. Well in a caravan of 2000 people that means 400 bucks per person - they're from poor countries, but It's not unreasonable to believe that they could scrape that together.

3. The Grand Outside Plan Theory - again, poor people are capable of putting up a few Facebook posts and renting a bus

4. The "UN has organized the Caravans" Theory - just because the UNHCR and UNICEF show up to ensure the well-being of the migrants (which is their job) does not mean the UN is out to get America

OK, that was WAY more work than it should have been. Please Mark, stop believing the narrative that migrants are bad people out to get you. Work from a starting viewpoint that they are normal people, reacting as anyone would, given their desperate circumstances (as many Irish people did over centuries) - then you will start considering sensible, humane immigration policy, not the hysterical, spiteful plans being put forward.

[Real ale Madrid]

According to those who are responsible for patrolling the border, a wall is desperately needed to prevent the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs across the border. This is Carla Provost, Border Patrol Chief.

https://www.upi.com/Border-Patrol-chief-urges-senators-to-support-border-wall/6061544661131/

https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/401535-full-interview-trumps-new-border-patrol-chief-carla-provost-talks-support-for

Her opinion does not stand up to any scrutiny - and there is no factual based evidence in either of those articles that support the building of a border wall.

There are however two very interesting quotes in that article:

1.

the DEA has found that the cartels transport the bulk of their illicit goods over the southwest border through legal ports of entry."

So according to the DEA - a wall is not going to stop the 'bulk' of these illicit drugs into the USA as the majority come through the front gate anyway.

2.

Durbin who also noted that fentanyl mostly comes from China through the mail.

Trump is always banging on about Fentanyl - but why doesn't he spend a few billion screening mail packages from China? It would be multiple times more effective - how come his war on drugs is working around an ineffective and over-expensive barrier. It makes no sense to any reasonable thinking person.

Carla Provost keeps harping on an ability to impede and deny - but its been proven to be an ineffective tool in the fight so far - upgrading technologies would be far more effective.

Could you share some of the research you are referring to?

I already did - see the CATO institute (Koch brothers funded!) link I posted previously.

Others include:

Wiley online library.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...745-9125.12175 (fee required to fully view)

Despite substantial public, political, and scholarly attention to the issue of immigration and crime, we know little about the criminological consequences of undocumented immigration. As a result, fundamental questions about whether undocumented immigration increases violent crime remain unanswered. In an attempt to address this gap, we combine newly developed estimates of the unauthorized population with multiple data sources to capture the criminal, socioeconomic, and demographic context of all 50 states and Washington, DC, from 1990 to 2014 to provide the first longitudinal analysis of the macro‐level relationship between undocumented immigration and violence. The results from fixed‐effects regression models reveal that undocumented immigration does not increase violence. Rather, the relationship between undocumented immigration and violent crime is generally negative, although not significant in all specifications. Using supplemental models of victimization data and instrumental variable methods, we find little evidence that these results are due to decreased reporting or selective migration to avoid crime. We consider the theoretical and policy implications of these findings against the backdrop of the dramatic increase in immigration enforcement in recent decades.

American Immigration Council

https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/criminalization-immigration-united-states

Between 1990 and 2013, the foreign-born share of the U.S. population grew from 7.9 percent to 13.1 percent and the number of unauthorized immigrants more than tripled from 3.5 million to 11.2 million.
During the same period, FBI data indicate that the violent crime rate declined 48 percent—which included falling rates of aggravated assault, robbery, rape, and murder. Likewise, the property crime rate fell 41 percent, including declining rates of motor vehicle theft, larceny/robbery, and burglary.

Another CATO institute one here focusing on Prison numbers

https://www.cato.org/publications/immigration-reform-bulletin/criminal-immigrants-their-numbers-demographics-countries#full

CONCLUSION
Legal and illegal immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than natives. Our numbers do not represent the total number of immigrants who can be deported under current law or the complete number of convicted immigrant criminals who are in the United States, but merely those incarcerated. This report provides numbers and demographic characteristics to better inform the public policy debate over immigration and crime.

US Journal of Youth an Justice - focusing on young immigrants

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10964-013-0045-z

Collectively, this study offers the first investigation of whether immigrants, conditioned on being adjudicated, are characterized by persistent offending. Results show that first generation immigrants are less likely to be involved in serious offending and to evidence persistence in offending, and appear to be on a path toward desistance much more quickly than their peers.

There are literally 100's of these studies - Walter Ewing who is a senior researcher told USA today:

"There's 100 years of data from all different sources that all point in the same direction," Walter Ewing, senior researcher at the American Immigration Council, told USA Today. "If you don't believe one study, there's 10 more behind it that say the same thing."

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/08/22/mollie-tibbitts-murder-reignites-debate-over-immigrant-crime/1060792002/

[SkStu]

Her opinion does not stand up to scrutiny? She is the HEAD of the Border Patrol services!! Please. I hope you realize how close-minded that type of response makes you appear.

There is nothing in anything that you pasted up there that talks about the effectiveness of a wall which is what your post implied and what our exchange was related to (hence the articles I sourced on the need for and benefits of a wall). Your quote below:

...building a wall according to all known research will do little to help make America Safer

I admit that it is worded in such a way that I may have misunderstood what type of research you were talking about - I clearly expected this purported research to be related to the effectiveness or not of border walls. But looking at what you have sourced it is broadly making an argument that "immigrants = good, not bad" which is not at all the substance of my position and not something I am all that interested in arguing against - because I tend to agree, notwithstanding that a handful are very bad.

My point is that the wall would prevent illegal immigration and force people (good people and bad people) to migrate legally. It would also prevent *some* (some = gross - "bulk") drugs from crossing the border. These are irrefutable facts. And, as someone who is resolutely opposed to completely open borders, I think that these outcomes are very important.