Read the studies. Look at the facts. Make a comment that includes a measure of reason. Then, your comments might be worth a response.

I’m not running and hiding anywhere. I’m just bored with the repetition of the same old tired diatribes and shibboleths on this thread. Look for me elsewhere … on other threads and other blogs. You won’t find me here again but you won’t find me hard to find.

P.S. Webster’s defines amnesty as the act of an authority by which pardon is granted to a large group of individuals. I challenge you to find any place in which I have advocated that anyone receive a pardon for past immigration violations. The path to legalization that I support requires sanctions in the form of fines for anyone who has violated immigration laws (as well as payment of any back taxes owed). That is not amnesty. Just as it is not amnesty when a person voluntarily pays a fine upon receiving a summons for a misdemeanor.

Run and hide just like the typical liberal when faced with facts.

First off, you say you do not support amnesty, then you say if we legalized illegals even more would pay taxes. Well, how exactly does that work out? Is it something like I voted for the bill before I voted against the bill? Or, what does is mean?

How do the millions upon millions of illegals that line up for work in parking lots across the Nation pay taxes?

The fact is if Virginia was not a good place for all to live, those that felt it was not, would not move here in the first place, or move out, that is not happening at all. If you look at the articles this week in both the Washington Times, and the COMPOST, it shows immigration is fueling the growth here in Virginia. So, what do you have to say to that(nothing of course because you ran like a typical liberal).

It is so sad to see someone who supposedly has enough faith in their position to run and hide. No, make that funny. HA HA HA.

I am not advocating amnesty nor is the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform for which I served for a time as Virginia coordinator … favoring a path to legalization that involves stiff penalties for prior violations of civil immigration violations isn’t “amnesty” anymore than our current system here in Virginia that allows people who commit traffic infractions or misdemeanors to respond to a summons by volunteering to pay a fine to redress their violations of our laws.

I do love when an advocate states that facts don’t matter and that generalized statements from anecdotal reports are more reliable evidence of what’s happening.

Of course, if I were to take the same tack, and argue that “out here in the real world” discrimination is occuring and hate is spreading to adversely affect the lives of all immigrants (regardless of lawful status) based on the reported experiences of many people I know who are ethnic, language, or racial minorities, you and your colleagues would attack me for playing the race card, etc., etc. and tell me that’s not happening simply because you don’t want to believe that this is the predictable and real effect of the inhospitable rhetoric of many in your “movement”, regardless of your intent.

See, e.g., criticism of those who discounted the recent study of racial profilling as not producing data in synch with their real world experience:
http://www.newsadvance.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=LNA/MGArticle/LNA_BasicArticle&cid=1173352642032&c=MGArticle

The shrill emotionalism of your rejection of research and science is typical of someone who knows that an injection of truth and fact into the debate will undermine their ability to continue to spread and provoke fear with ill informed rhetoric and rumor mongering.

Parse the studies, say why the research isn’t valid or might be biased if you don’t agree with the conclusions.

As a friend of my often said, “a man not shackled by the truth can win any argument.”

’nuff said.

I care not a whit about what studies are done that might say that some illegal aliens are having taxes withheld. The anecdotal evidence that we’re constantly confronted with would indicate that many have engaged in identity fraud, or outright theft, or are being paid cash under the table and not paying taxes.

When “studies” are wildly at odds with personal experience, they don’t tend to hold a lot of weight with folks. It’s sort of like having “climate models” used to provide evidence of man-made global warming in studies, or touting that a collection of gynecologists and psychologists have all agreed that human-induced global warming is settled science. So may of these “studies” aren’t worth being printed on toilet paper, and it’s getting tiresome to hear about them.

We tend to live in the real world, amidst real problems while suffering real consequences. Your “studies” don’t change those realities.

It is interesting that the data show that a significant percentage of criminal aliens in jail/prison are there for using false ID or for violating immigration laws rather than for murder or other violent felonies. I have never sought to defend anyone’s “right” to steal identities or to forge documents, quite to the contrary. Obviously, a significant number who do so are being caught, prosecuted and convicted as they should be.

I do dispute your assertion (without factual predicate) that every immigrant who works here without authorization is not paying taxes; in fact, many are:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/14/politics/main549153.shtml
http://www.reason.org/commentaries/dalmia_20060501.shtml
http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/04/11_tonessb_illegal/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18077009/
http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/business/05immigration.html?ex=1270353600&en=78c87ac4641dc383&ei=5090taxes.asp
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=881584
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/04/13/news/state/13_17_204_12_07.txt
http://www.ilctr.org/news/pdf/imm_taxes_use_of_welfare.pdf
http://www.vahcc.com/news_policy.html
http://www.gbpi.org/pubs/garevenue/20060119.pdf

And, if we secured our borders and offered a path to legal status for those who are already here, many more would become taxpaying legal residents/citizens and contributors to the economy … benefitting us all.

Note: This is the last time I will post on this comment thread.

Claire

Why don’t you respond to my posts?????

What is a person of “color” I guess I am an ethnic person, but I guess not one of the special ones that you want to protect.

Your BS about ethnic minorities (whatever that might be) having a harder and harder time here in Virginia is just that. If anything it is getting easier. There are more opportunities then ever before for all people living in the Commonwealth.

Though to stay in “business” you have to conjure up all of these “difficulties” that minorities have. You will never admit things are going good for “ethnic minorities”.

I suppose the fact we do have tens of thousands of illegals, “ethnic minorities living in the State, sort of says just the opposite of what you are pushing-life must be pretty good for them, why else would they have come here?

Though, I do not disagree that illegals of every ethnicity should have it rough here.

What do you think of an illegal who uses stolen identity? Does not pay taxes, works here? They may not be in the criminal system, but that should be a reason to not count them as a criminal.

Many folks are pretty upset, and rightly so, that anyone in the U.S. is dying at the hands of those who aren’t supposed to be here in the first place. They’re also very disturbed that in many cases these criminals have had previous interactions with law enforcement prior to them taking lives which might have allowed law enforcement authorities to determine their legal status and have them deported prior to the tragedies they’ve caused. When citizens know that they would suffer sever penalties for the minor infractions they’re charged with, but that illegal aliens seem to so easily escape the consequences of their unlawful actions, it gives the appearance that there’s one set of rules for citizens, and a significantly less stringent set of rules applied to illegal aliens.

How many folks have I spoken with who reported that illegal aliens charged with driving without a license are given a slap on the wrist, Caucasians are given heavy fines, and African Americans are given jail time? At least a dozen. Whether this consistently reported impression is actually what happens is still to be determined, which is why I haven’t talked about this much, but there’s a perception that appears legitimate that equal protection of the law just isn’t happening. Based non their personal experiences, there’s a lot of people believe that illegal aliens are “more equal” than citizens. Until their experiences change, no amount of statistics are likely to change their opinions.

55,322 arrests (not convictions?) among 12,000,000 to 20,000,000 undocumented people means that somewhere between 5 one thousandths of 1 % (.005%) on the high side and 3 one thousandths of 1% (.003) on the low side of undocumented people in the United States have been arrested and that 68% or more two-thirds of those are in jail for immigration violations?

Nope, I’m not, because, among other things, the study makes clear that the report is a snapshot estimate of criminal aliens incarcerated as of December 27, 2003 and the study states clearly:

” Results of our analysis pertain only to our study population [the unique inmates identified as being in prison on December 27, 2003]. Results cannot be generalized to all illegal aliens that may have been arrested and therefore cannot be interpreted as representing arrest or offense rates for all illegal aliens. ”

This means that we cannot infer and do not know anything about the prison population now, nor do we have data to compare this report to the general rate of arrest/incarceration of criminal citizens/legal residents in a snapshot taken the same day or since.

That’s not to say that we should not be concerned about there being 55,000+ criminal aliens in our prisons on any date, we should, or that we shouldn’t want to be sure that all of those convicted of crimes will be deported when their sentences have been served, we should.

It is to say that we should be careful to state accurately what the data represent, use caution in deciding what conclusions we draw from the data and apply some restraint in using such limited data to bolster overstated and undersupported arguments.

To Legal2 … of course I have a stake in the immigration issue, both personal and professional. My husband is a Latino who, even as a Puerto Rican, native born US citizen and former member of the US Coast Guard, has been asked “how long have you been in this country” and subjected to other forms of discrimination simply because of his surname and accent. My niece and namesake is half Chinese. I don’t want her growing up in an America in which she will be regarded with suspicion or distaste because of her mixed heritage. Whether it is your experience or not, whether it is anyone’s intent, it is my personal experience that the climate in Virginia for Latinos and other ethnic and language minorities is becoming more hostile regardless of the lawful status of the persons involved.

It is no secret (to anyone who knows me or has seen me quoted with the tagline “advocate for immigrant organizations”) that I get paid to advocate on behalf of immigrant organizations; the more than 3,000 people who have viewed my blogger profile know that as does anyone who looks up registered lobbyists on the state’s website. I choose my paid work carefully to reflect my passions and beliefs so there is congruence between the personal and professional here and in other work I do.

In implying criticism of me for having a “stake” in the issue, are you saying that Greg L. and others posting here don’t have a “stake” in the immigration issue? [by the way, how much is Greg L. getting in his tip jar or for advertising on this blog (number one conservative blog …), the traffic to which has increased as he has chosen to emphasize the immigration issue?].

In criticizin me about some repetition of arguments or points, are you saying that neither you nor Greg L. have ever rehashed or perseverated about a point or an argument? That dog won’t hunt.

I acknowledge repeating arguments from time to time in comments on this blog (and on others) largely because I don’t know that a person reading one set of comments has ever read any of the blog or the comments posted before. So, regular readers might see some repetition from me, as they do from you. That just the way it is out here in the blogosphere where some of us are actively trying to educate.

Now, how about these stats that are said to show that crime has gone done 40% in Loudoun county while the immigrant population has increased and that crime is lowest among undocumented aliens?

http://www.loudounforce.org/?p=45#more-45

The community does respond when crime gets out of control or when they have had enough of an issue.

Again, think about DUI crackdowns, child molestation crack downs, gang crackdowns. All of those crimes or issues at one time or another were not taken as seriously as they should have been. Not anymore. So, attacking illegal immigration is nothing new when it comes to outrage among the community.

OH, by the way, working in the United States while here illegally is a crime, not paying taxes is a crime, ID fraud is a crime. I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

Offense: Immigration;
Number: 12,694;
Percent: 68%.

Offense: Drugs;
Number: 3,978;
Percent: 21%.

Offense: Unknown;
Number: 1,183;
Percent: 6%.

Offense: Weapons, explosives, arson;
Number: 251;
Percent: 1%.

Offense: Fraud, bribery, extortion ;
Number: 185;
Percent: 1%.

Offense: Burglary, larceny, property crimes;
Number: 95;
Percent: 1%.

Offense: Assault;
Number: 41;
Percent:

Results in Brief: How many and what type of criminal offenses were they
arrested for?

For our study population of 55,322 illegal aliens:

* They were arrested for at least a total of nearly 700,000 criminal
offenses, averaging 13 offenses per alien.

* About 24 percent were drug offenses.

* About 21 percent were immigration offenses.

* About 15 percent were property-related offenses such as burglary,
larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and property damage.

* About 12 percent were for murder, robbery, assault, and sexually
related crimes.

* The remaining 28 percent were for other offenses such as traffic
violations, including driving under the influence; fraud—including
forgery and counterfeiting; weapons violations; and obstruction of
justice.

Results in Brief: What states were they arrested in?

For our study population of 55,322 illegal aliens:

* Eighty percent of all arrests occurred in the following 3 states.

California: 58 percent.

Texas: 14 percent.

Arizona: 8 percent.

See the study here, don’t read filtered information. That way you learn on your own:
http://www.gao.gov/htext/d05646r.html

“The 55,322 illegal aliens studied represented a total of 459,614 arrests – some eight arrests per illegal alien;

Their arrests represented a total of about 700,000 criminal offenses – some 13 offenses per illegal alien;

36 percent had been arrested at least five times before.

‘While the vast majority of illegal aliens are decent people who work hard and are only trying to make a better life for themselves and their families, (something you or I would probably do if we were in their place), it is also a fact that a disproportionately high percentage of illegal aliens are criminals and sexual predators,’ states Peter Wagner, author of a new report called “The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration.” ‘That is part of the dark side of illegal immigration and when we allow the ‘good’ in we get the ‘bad’ along with them. The question is, how much ‘bad’ is acceptable and at what price?’ “