The.Crazy.World.We.Live.In.

la—serena:

jocecavanaugh:

I find some of these stats hard to believe. I hope they’re not true, because if they are, we are in big trouble. Probably beyond what we can fix.

First, no human being is “illegal”, and second.. oh god I can’t even because I’m laughing too hard. Also keep in mind that (as it is a huge misconception) undocumented workers are not eligible to receive government benefits unless they have a child that is a U.S. citizen.

1. Stats from the AFDC in 2007 revealed the following breakdown of food stamp distribution among ethnic groups: 39.9% Black, 38.8% White, 15.7% Hispanic, 2.4% Asian, and 3.3% listed as “Other”.
2. Regarding warrants on undocumented residents: this rumor comes from an opinion/editorial writer named Heather MacDonald and is often misquoted. MacDonald goes on to say that “officers” told her about these warrants, but conceded that factual data on this statistic could not be found in official reports.
3. There is a comprehensive list of specific jobs occupied by immigrants provided by the Center for Immigration Studies (a conservative organization which advocates stricter immigration laws) which is available here to view. You also must realize that the amount of undocumented immigrants who do work in agriculture, construction, household maintenance, etc are just that - undocumented. Many immigrants shy away from the gathering of statistics because they fear being caught and deported. Jobs that immigrants partake in also rest on seasonal availability. Regarding the statistic on welfare - that figure jumps up and down so often it’s difficult to get an accurate count, but when it is high it is due to undocumented parents receiving benefits for their U.S.-born, citizen children.
4. As of 2009, the percentage of children born to Hispanic parents in California was 51.3% - this number includes all parents who identify as Hispanic, both with and without proper documentation.
5. This statistic first appeared on facebook. We can take that as its “legitimacy”, or we can dig deeper. HUD Occupancy Requirements include that the applicant must be a U.S. citizen or legal resident on work permit, green card, etc. If an undocumented immigrant were to live in HUD housing, it would need to be through another immigrant who had legal papers. 
6. A child does not need a Social Security number to attend high school. K-12 school personnel cannot legally ask for an undocumented student’s paperwork. As for the 39% number, no traces of an accurate count can be found.
7. The 75% claim on LA’s Most Wanted list is nearly impossible to verify, because the public is allowed to view a list that includes only the ethnicity of a wanted person, not their immigration status.
8. Heather MacDonald’s op-ed piece comes up again in relation to undocumented immigrants’ gang involvement. There is no definite way to even begin to estimate this number, due mostly to gang secrecy laws. 
9. This number is also difficult to verify. It is true that companies such as contractors and agricultural farms prefer to hire undocumented workers because they can get away with not paying them a full salary. There’s a lot more that’s been done on this subject than I have room to get into here.
10. This is so ridiculous I can’t even. Say an immigrant is here using a false document. That immigrant will still pay into Social Security (even though they will never receive the benefits from it). They will still pay taxes shaved right off the top of their paycheck, taxes to federal and state and local branches of government. But say someone is here without documents at all. They don’t walk into Wal-mart and say “I don’t want to pay full price, so I’m going to pay half because I don’t want to pay the taxes.” Immigrants - everyone, for that matter - pays taxes on everything from food to gasoline to condoms and cough drops and the keyboard I’m typing this on, so if you want to start pointing fingers, do it at the government, not the ones trying to escape from the policies that are killing them.

Could not have responded better myself @La—Serena

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Source: guns-and-humor