More fun with numbers: illegal immigration

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

If you listen to politicians from the Party of Hate (fka the Arizona Republican Party) tell it, illegal immigration in Arizona is a biblical-size disaster comparable to a swarm of locusts overruning the state.

This is how the big lie technique of propaganda works. If you keep telling the lie over and over again, even credible news sources will eventually report it and then people will begin to believe it is true.

Once the lie has legs, people believe whatever they want to believe and fact checking does little to change their made-up minds. But I will try again anyway.

The Washington Post reports today Illegal immigration to U.S. down almost 67% since 2000, report says:

The number of illegal immigrants entering the United States has plunged by almost two-thirds in the past decade, a dramatic shift after years of growth in the population, according to a new report by the Pew Hispanic Center.

Between 2000 and 2005, an average of 850,000 people a year entered the United States without authorization, according to the report released Wednesday. As the economy plunged into recession between 2007 and 2009, that number fell to 300,000.

The sharp drop-off has contributed to an 8 percent decrease in the estimated number of illegal immigrants living in the United States, from a peak of 12 million in 2007 to 11.1 million in 2009, the report said. Of the 11.1 million, 8.9 million came from Mexico and other parts of Latin America. Virginia, Florida and Nevada were among the states with steepest declines in their populations of illegal immigrants.

* * *

Douglas Massey, a Princeton University sociologist who studies migration, said the recession and lack of jobs are major factors in the decline of those entering the country illegally.

* * *

Massey said other likely reasons for the decline include an increase in law enforcement and deportations, and enactment of stricter legislation against illegal immigrants. He also pointed to more guest-worker spots, from 104,000 in 2000 to 302,000 in 2009 — allowing more immigrants to come to the United States legally.

* * *

Although an earlier Pew study pointed to signs of fewer illegal immigrants in recent years, the new report reveals the first statistically significant reversal in the growth of the population in the past 20 years, said Jeffrey Passel, a senior demographer at Pew.

So why are politicians from the Party of Hate claiming that Arizona is being overrun with illegal immigrants like a swarm of locusts, when we are not, and Arizona is suffering from an out-of-control crime wave (blaming illegal immigrants, of course), when we are not, and there are headless corpses in the desert, when there are not? Because they need a scapegoat to demonize and to blame all of the state's ills on to distract voters' attention from their own gross incompetence in office and fiscal irresponsibility in destroying the economic health of this state. They are entirely lacking any moral character. God may forgive them their sin one day, but the voters of Arizona can hold them accountable now.

Credit: Original photo azcentral.com, and David Safier for knowing how to work the program.