Lost For A Generation?
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In the midterms, thanks to their open association with anti-Hispanic racists like the Minutemen, the Republican party has lost considerable ground with the Hispanic vote. Much like the black vote, the Hispanic population is more socially conservative than the white vote, but while the black vote tends to vote more on economic and civil rights issues – staying largely with the Dems – the hispanic vote was more willing to be wooed (and was in ’04). But the GOP has a problem. It’s white "redneck" base (their words, not mine) is not exactly pleased with all these brown people in their country and because it isn’t socially okay anymore to rail against blacks (well, maybe in Tennessee it is) the Republicans made a concerted effort to attack Hispanic Americans.
This has not worked out well. Hispanics now outnumber blacks, and while they are not yet as politically networked and activated it is only a matter of time (ask LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, for instance). In seeking to pander to its base, the GOP may have given up a huge, vital part of the future voting constituency in America.
This clearly means Tom Tancredo should run for President.
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© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
Oliver!
Your blog rocks! It would seem that the election of Trent Lott as “minority whip” will do little to enfranchise voters of color at any time in the near future. After the last six years I just don’t understand how anybody can identify with the GOP unless they belong to the richest 1% of the economy. Well, I guess if you are exclusionist, judgemental or bigoted you may support Republicans but nobody would ever admit that.
Are democrats for the rule of law Ollie?
So why are they willing to support illegal aliens?
I have never met a liberal who “supported” illegal aliens. I know many who believe throwing up a Berlin-esque wall on the border and proclaiming “Mission Accomplished” is myopic in economic and enforcement terms. Comprehensive immigration reform needs to look at the established incentives for crossing the border, a plan for what to do with those who are already here, and how we will replace those workers once they are removed.
Democrats are for the rule of law and more signficantly they believe in using the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as a foundation to build those laws upon. Perhaps we should be asking Ollie, considering how many Republicans are under or facing indictment, if Republicans are for the rule of law?
Pedro, where in Oliver’s post is the word illegal? Hispanic =/= illegal. You do know that, right?
What Red said.
I think most democrats are for the rule of law, but our executives must be wise and judicious about how the laws are enforced.
For instance, to combat illegal gun ownership, an amnesty day will get more illicit firarms off the street than a comprehensive house-to-house search would. Lot cheaper too.
You see, when you automatically equate hispanic people to being “illegal” they ain’t gonna vote for you.
Tom Tancredo ’08.
I’m gonna support the grass roots draft team.
Ollie what percent of illegal aliens in this country are hispanic?
The WaPo misses something — Mel Martínez is a Cuban. Cuban-Americans have always voted Republican. Other Hispanics have tended to vote Democrat, though again, as 2004 showed, they do not have a strong tendency here.
I was surprised in 2004. I knew Rove had targeted Hispanic voters, but I didn’t think his outreach would work, given the schizophrenic nature of Republican immigration policy (Bush/Corporatist Republicans: Come here and work for peanuts! Tancredo/Xenophobic Republicans: Wall off the border and send the wetbacks back!) I thought their outreach to Jewish voters would do better. Well, Jews voted Democrat at the same rate (as 2000)without a Jew on the Democrat ticket (as 2000) and every other demographic voting Republican more, while Hispanics voted Republican much more. I’ll give Karl Rove credit where credit is due. Going after Hispanics in 2004 gave him the election.
Can’t find an answer that suits you Ollie?
You see, when the facts are that the VAST majority of illegal aliens are hispanic, one doesn’t “automatically” assume it, it is actually a fact. You know, facts, something the liberals still have a hard time wrapping their atrophic little cerebrums around…
And yet hispanic doesn’t automatically equal illegal alien. Why is this so hard for you to understand? Its the same as seeing “black” and assuming someone is a criminal and not a brain surgeon. No wonder the only vote you guys have reliably left is the “redneck” vote.
Well of course you are right Ollie….but 99/100 it does.
Again, the facts are the facts. When I see a hispanic guy standing in front of the parking lot of home depot, yea, I don’t think brain surgeon….but neither does any other sensible human being.
Do you have to give up reason to join the democrat party?
I hope more Republicans think like you so hispanics vote even more for the Democrats, a party that doesn’t think they’re vermin.
How do you get from “I don’t like illegal aliens” to “hispanics are vermin?”
It never ceases to amaze me how much you are willing to race bait.
If we don’t take care of this problem pretty quickly, we ARE going to see serious backlash. With something like 70% of outstanding felony warrants consisting of illegal aliens in LA, and billions being spent on illegal aliens healthcare…the electorate is going to wise up really quickly.
“With something like 70% of outstanding felony warrants consisting of illegal aliens in LA …”
Please enlighten us pedro. What is the significance of this statistic in your mind?
Ollie,
Idiots like Dr. Pedro don’t want to understand the truth. They will never see past their bigotry and that’s why I pity them.
The Minutemen will be marginalized by ’08 and the GOP will be rendered a footnote in American history by ’12.
Keep up the race baiting, Dr. Pedro. It empowers Latinos like me to vote Democrat.
Oliver says:
And yet hispanic doesn’t automatically equal illegal alien.
Pedro responds:
Well of course you are right Ollie….but 99/100 it does.
Pedro thinks 99% of Hispanics in this country are illegal aliens? Incredible!
Not really.
Oh, and Pedro? It’s the DEMOCRATIC party.
robbie why does my opposition to people breaking our laws make me a bigot?
No wilbur, but 99/100 ILLEGAL aliens are hispanic…
Paul if 70% of outstanding warrants for felonies are illegal aliens, don’t you think that is significant in terms of cost of law enforcement? Isn’t it significant that a large number of illegal aliens are felons, beyond the lawbreaking they do when they enter this country illegally?
Nimrod, we whupped your ass in the revolutionary war so we wouldn’t have to be lecture by officious brits about our form of government…..so why don’t you toodle off to a test match or something…
“Isn’t it significant that a large number of illegal aliens are felons, beyond the lawbreaking they do when they enter this country illegally?”
Okay. Stop and think for a second. You haven’t given any numbers, you gave a percentage, so from that satistic as you presented it there’s no way of knowing how many illegal aliens make up that 70 percent. There could be 100 outstanding warrants in Los Angeles County which means that only 70 of them would be illegal aliens.
There’s also no way of knowing what that number is in relation to larger illegal alien population or whether that number is particularly high or not in relation to other populations. So you really have no grounds on which to be so outraged.
It also says nothing about costs becuase you have no idea how many crimes it represents. Do felonies who flee cost the system more than felonies who are caught?
What that statistic, as you presented it, does say is something rather unsurprising and unremarkable which is that when illegal aliens commit felonies in this country they have a high probability of flight back to their native country. I don’t think that’s a very surprising fact.
No wilbur, but 99/100 ILLEGAL aliens are hispanic…
Sure that’s what you claim you meant…now, but you said that 99/100 of hispanic people are illegal aliens, and even if you didn’t intend to say that, we KNOW deep down that’s what you really feel.
Hey, do you think we could get some middle-class hispanic taxpayers together to hold up a banner saying “Halp up Paydrow, weer ileegal!”
Dr. Pee uses a Hispanic name here to show his respect and support for al Hispanics, right..?
Why, I think I saw our good Hispanic Dr. Pedro standing like a Doctor in front of Home Depot just a couple hours ago!
70% of outstanding felony warrants are for illegal aliens, Dr. Pee? Please tell us where you got this info, and how it was figured.
Some relevant questions:
1. Is it a felony for an illegal just to be in LA? Could this be the “felony warrant outstanding” be not for a violent crime but for simply existing in this country?
2. A “warrant for arrest” does not meant the person was CONVICTED. Under our Constitution, they are still innocent, but you and Tancredo and whoever else uses this “statistic” is using it to mean “CRIMINAL”. Sort of like you and the Bush Adminstration use “detainee” and “terrorist” interchangeably when you talk of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and torture.
And, uh, no alien detainee is going to come back for a trial date if they’re going to be DEPORTED for being arrested in this country. Bingo, add another datapoint to your “statistic”. Liar.
Regardless of how you feel about illegal immigrants, you cannot ignore the strain these individuals are placing on our infrastructure. Our roads, jails, schools and hospital emergency rooms are overflowing. Taxpayers are footing the bill. Something needs to be done before we bust at the seams. We can’t allow migration into our contry to be a free for all.
In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide in the first half of 2004 (which totaled 1,200 to 1,500) targeted illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) were for illegal aliens.
–The Los Angeles Police Department arrests about 2500 criminally-convicted deportees annually, reports the Los Angeles Times.
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/mac_donald04-13-05.htm
Over 50% of all medi-cal births are to illegal aliens, and in 1994 over $213 million dollars was spent in california delivering so called “anchor babies”….
http://www.jpands.org/vol10no1/cosman.pdf
Careful Rounds….according to Ollie and his echo chamber, you are a racist to even mention the cost.
You’re also an idiot for looking at the percentage of outstanding warrants and then writing this:
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that that statistic doesn’t suggest in any way shape or form the total number of illegal immigrants who commit felonies. Apparently, it does take a conservative hack to suggest that it does.
I also find it interesting that MacDonald does not source her statistics. Indeed, she writes
here:
And a simple google search for the stat just brings up references to MacDonald’s article.
And
here, apparently, is why:
How exactly, pedro, if there were only 518 homicides in Los Angeles in 2004 could there have been 1,200-1500 outstanding felony warrants for homicide? And if MacDonald was adding up all previous years, why did she not state that in her article? Maybe it’s because she’s a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. Hmmm, a study from a conservative think tank is full of shit? No wonder no real reporter would ever cite such a stat. Just leave it to another alum from a conservative think tank to claim that as “liberal bias.”
So to recap, Pedro, not only did you read the meaning of the statistic wrong, the statistic itself is highyl suspect.
Just how much of a hack idiot do you have to be, pedro?
Ha Ha ha hah!!!
Dr. Pee, busted again. I think it should be a “felony” to quote ANYTHING from Heritage, AEI, and any other right-wing “think-tank”.
As many debates here have shown us, the SOP for these is to get a mission from a right-wing hack to support a particular agenda, and the busy worker “scholars” begin to pull a case together. Then they feed the news releases to our wiling MSM and PRESTO!
Quotable “statistics”, at your service.
Works great as kool-aid for the base, don’t it?
What a joke.
facts kiddies, facts.
Because YOU couldn’t find any documents disproving the numbers, doesn’t mean the numbers are bad.
In medicine, we have a saying…”if you don’t take a temperature, you can’t find a fever”…and in classic leftist fashion you can’t see that.
The lefties won’t ALLOW anyone to keep statistics on illegal alien felons, cause they KNOW what that data will show. You then use that as an argument that the current data, taken from other sources, is somehow invalid.
Go look up “Circular logic” somewhere and you will see how arguing that you “don’t have data” from people who WON’T ALLOW IT TO BE COLLECTED will fit that description…
“Because YOU couldn’t find any documents disproving the numbers, doesn’t mean the numbers are bad.”
Jesus, pedro, don’t you think a senior fellow at a think tank has an obligation to source her facts? At the same time, her stat flies in the face of other stats that the LAPD does keep, like the number of actual homicides in 2004. Her number for outstanding homicide warrants in 2004 is up to three times higher than the total number of homicides in that year. MacDonald offers no explanation for the discrepancy. Why didn’t MacDonald either source her “fact” or explain how it was derived?
And it’s not just me who can’t find the stat. Kinda Chavez couldn’t find it and she called the LAPD to confirm it. They told her they couldn’t because they don’t keep that information.
It is not circular logic to point out that the LAPD does not record the immigration status of felons. If the LAPD does not keep those statistics, for what ever reason, how could they give it to MacDonald with any hope of accuracy?
It is, however, circular logic to argue that the lack of such information proves your claim. That’s what you’re arguing.
Can I give you stat that is sourced and which you can verify by independent means? Here it is:
The link is in my comment above.
Go look up the date in the 200 census pedro. It’s there. You won’t find MacDonald’s “stat” anywhere but in MacDonal’s article.
Of course you are now completely ignoring the fact that you totally misread the meaning of the stat by asserting that it was evidence that “a large number of illegal aliens are felons.” It shows no such thing. Idiot.
“Because YOU couldn’t find any documents disproving the numbers, doesn’t mean the numbers are bad.”
You know, I didn’t even notice this. Pedro, you moron, I couldn’t find any separate, independent source that CONFIRMS/PROVES her numbers. The only place that stat shows up is in her article or in references to her article.
But I did find independent information that CONTRADICTS/DISPROVES her assertion: the total number of homicides in 2004 was only 518. But she claims there were upwards of 1500 outstanding warrants for homicide in just the first half of 2004. That’s a huge fucking discrepancy if MacDonald’s warrant figure refers to 2004 warrants and 2004 warrants alone.
Of course she referring a cumulative total of outstanding homicide warrants, how many years is she referencing? If LA averages 518 homicides a year, that means at a minimum MacDonald is talking about the three years previous to 2004, but only if EVERY murder suspect skipped town three years running. Even if its six years, that would mean 50 percent of all murder suspects skipped town in Los Angeles. The LAPD has its problems but it isn’t that bad a police force, and murder suspects aren’t generally that smart. If 50 percent of all murder suspects escaped justice don’t you think that’d make the news at some point? Of course it would.
Naturally, the only reason it didn’t is because of the vast left wing media conspiracy out to hide the role of illegal immigrants in Los Angeles homicides. What a joke.
And you say you don’t use media bias as an excuse. You are truly an idiot, pedro.
But she claims there were upwards of 1500 outstanding warrants for homicide in just the first half of 2004.
That alone is enough to make me wonder about her numbers. How on earth do you match up “outstanding warrants” with a half-year?
Warrants outstanding would be a discrete number as of a fixed date, not an accumulation over time. Warrants issued is a number you can accumulate.
On the mark, frame.
Again, the fact that you can’t actually ask these simple questions to the person writing them doesn’t disprove anything, regardless of how many breathless posts paul makes.
So, what do you make of this number:
Of the 1,070 reported homicides in Los Angeles County in 2000, 448 were gang-related. The percentage of gang-related homicides more than doubled from 1980 to 2000.
- Scott Carrier, Coroner’s Office; Wes McBride, LA County Sheriff’s Department
That being the case, and since McDonald DID’NT specify the number of years those warrants were collected…(what IS the statute of limitations on murder kiddies?), the 1500 number doesn’t look quite as unreasonable.
And Professor Ruben gives us some other CONFIRMATORY numbers to work with, by using the same twisted lefty logic: There are less illegal aliens in prison BECAUSE THEY SKIP TOWN BACK TO MEXICO! Leading to huge numbers of WARRANTS for their arrests.
Kiddies, that is called “logical reasoning”, look it up…
QED
The kool aid drinker just can’t let it go.
Pedro brings in County murder numbers but MacDonald told Chavez that she got her number from the “LAPD fugitive warrants section.” LAPD doesn’t patrol the County, the Sheriff’s department does.
Does MacDonald expect us to believe that someone in the LAPD is giving out county numbers that not even the County keeps?
And Pedro, even if you want to use County numbers, it’s still a hugely distorted and misleading stat. There were 1,038 homicides in LA County 2004 according to the LA coroner. If there were 1500 outstanding warrants in just the first half of 2004 that means her number must include previous years to make any sense. But if that’s the case how many years back does she go? 3, 5, 10, 15?
The statistic gets less and less shocking the more years included which is probably why MacDonald neither 1) sourced her statistic 2) explained how she derived it.
You yourself totally misread the statistic as meaning that “a large number of illegal aliens are felons.” You did this because 1) your an idiot and 2) because MacDonald designed the presentation of her numbers, wherever she got them, to appeal to idiots who hate illegal aliens.
Is there a problem with illegal aliens fleeing justice back to Mexico? I’m sure it happens a lot but is it an epidemic? MacDonald wants you to think so but her statistic is practically meaningless without any more information than MacDonald provides. But the stat, as she presented is, served it’s purpose, it went viral in right wing idiot circles with dipshits likes Pedro reading it and concluding that “large numbers of illegal aliens are felons.”
You have yet to explain how you arrived at that conclusion with all your “logical reasoning.”
Can I also add that MacDonald didn’t present the fact as derived from “logical reasoning” based on her research. She presented it to Chavez as a specific fact supplied to her by the LAPD. A fact that the LAPD couldn’t possibly have because it doesn’t record the data required to derive it.
So the “fact” itself is unverifiable and, at best, totally misleading based on the other information available. That, however, won’t stop pedro from going on and on and on like Dugger unable to accept the truth about crime rates. It’s just classic right wing idiocy in all its glory.
Here’s some other stats for you pedro that you can actually find at the LAPD
website.
In 2005 there were 487 homicides in Los Angeles city and 464 arrests for homicide. That leaves 23 outstanding homicide suspects. In 2004 there were 518 homicdes and 474 arrests for homicde. That leaves 44 outstanding homicide suspects. In 2003 there were 517 homicdes and 439 homicide arrests leaving 78 outstanding suspects.
Granted these numbers are a little off because a suspect might have more than one victim but just taking these three years we can estimate that the LAPD probably avergae 50 or so outstanding homicides every year. Now if that’s true then MacDonald’s outside number 1500, woudl have to represent 30 years worht of outstanding homicides warrants, that’s assuming that in every homicide without an arrest there is also a suspect, which is unlikely.
Paul, you heap logical fallacy upon logical fallacy to try to disprove or discredit these numbers, but your very statements are telling.
Answer me one question..
Do you hate illegal immigration?
pedro, that’s a non response.
What logical fallacy?
While you’re at it, please explain the logical reasoning behind your conclusion that a large number of illegal aliens are felons based on MacDonald’s stat.
Pretty much the first sentence I posted Paul….
In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide in the first half of 2004 (which totaled 1,200 to 1,500) targeted illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) were for illegal aliens
1200 murderers and 15000 felons seems like a lot to me…
Now answer my question paul…
Do you hate illegal immigration?
First of all, pedro, your “first sentence” didn’t include any numbers, it was a percentage without context. Here’s what you wrote:
Only later did you add numbers. Now we know that those numbers are misleading because you give no time frame for them but let’s take them on face value. On its own, 15,000 is indeed a large number of felons. But that’s not what you initially wrote. You wrote:
That’s a totally different claim. For this statement to have any meaning you have to compare the 15,000 to the total population of illegal immigrants in Los Angeles City , County or State, wherever the hell MacDonald says she’s getting her “facts.”
According to the LAPD there were 15,503 aggravated assualts in Los Angeles City in 2005. That sounds like a lot of assaults. But can you use that number alone to assert that “a large number of Angelenos are violent”? Not with any intellectual honesty because the Los Angeles city is home to 3,694,820 people.
How many of those people are illegal immigrants? According to the Rand Corporation, illegal immigrants make up 12 percent of Los Angeles’ population (you can find that stat
here, in an interesting article about the low impact of immigrants on Los Angeles’s health care system). That’s 443,378 adult illegal immigrants.
Now if we take your 15,000 felons number and compare it to this total, that means that’s just 3 percent of the population have outstanding felonies. Is that a high percentage?
Last year there were 2.1 million people in the US prison system. The US population just topped 300 million. That puts the percentage of US citizens in jail last year around .8 percent. That would make the 3 percent figure for the illegal alien felons seem really high wouldn’t it?
But then again, the number of US prisoners is for a single year and we don’t know who many years the 15,000 felons you cite covers. It could be comprised of outstanding warrants going back 30 years.
What if we compared the total number of prisoners in the US prison system over the last 30 years to the current population. What do you think the precentage of jailed Americans would be? Probably a hell of a lot higher than .7 percent.
The piont being pedro is that the numbers you are throwing out are next to meainingless without supporting context. And yet you blindly charge off declating that larger numbers of illegal aliens are felons without a shred of valid evidence to support your claim. None whatsoever.
But you also claimed that “billions” are spent in health care costs on illegal aliens. But here’s what the Rand Corporation (in the article above) actually found:
You see pedro, when you add it up, and your numbers aren’t total bullshit, all your left with is a bunch of empty, race baiting rhetoric. You’re a total moron.
Paul I yank your chain a lot..so in all seriousness, you are correct. If we were talking about RATES of something, we need the denominator. However, I am referring to a large NUMBER not a ratio. I guess my point is, these people are here illegally, and if we did something to keep them out, we would have 1500 or whatever less murders.
Same with the medical numbers. As a proportion of the healthcare dollar, it isn’t huge, but what WOULD be an ok number? You complain about the lack of health insurance and care, and I tell you we can reap back millions of dollars of healthcare by preventing illegal immigration…
How can you argue against that, unless you are pro-illegal immigration? If that is the case, I guess the conversation is over…but I for one would rather have my tax dollars spent for needy americans first.
Certainly glad to hear you’re not going to go the Dugger route. That’s never leads anywhere but a massive headache …
That said, large numbers outside of their context are not a sound basis for social policy.
MacDonald used her statistic as part of an article about an ilegal immigrant “Crime Wave.” That kind of language is highly inflammatory and if it’s put in the service of draconian immigration policies then we’ll only serve to make a manageable problem much, much worse.
Speaking off the top of my head it’s the difference between antagonizing people who might help us by turning the border into a militarized zone and building relationships with them through better cross-border law enforcement cooperation so that we can catch more fugitives.
Getting back the $1.1 billion that illegal immigrants cost the $88 billion health care industy is not going to solve the problems of health care in this country and it won’t stem the tide of illegal immigrants who are coming here for work anyway. What youwill end up with are millions of people in this country who don’t have any access to healtch care at all and that will be even worse for everybody.
At the same, a guest worker program that addressed health care concerns could go along way toward reducing that $1.1 billion.
There are too many people out there trying to demagogue this and other issues with bullshit numbers and reactionary rhetoric. Smart choices begin with smart information.
Large numbers ARE a basis for social policy in some cases, like murderers for instance. If we can stop one murder by simply enforcing laws ALREADY ON THE BOOKS, seems like a worthwhile proposition.
What is possibly wrong with enforcing our laws, whether by using a fence to protect them from being broken in the first place?
And to quote a great man…
“A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you are talkng about real money!”
“If we can stop one murder by simply enforcing laws ALREADY ON THE BOOKS, seems like a worthwhile proposition.”
If you think shifting federal money from urban law enforcement (put a million cops on the street) to border patrol (put a million federal agents on the border) will reduce the number of illegal aliens who are fugitive felons go for it. But I bet you’d see a comensurate rise in regular old domestic crimes because of the reduction in local law enforcement.
Of course maybe if we weren’t wasting billions every week, you know, real money, in Iraq we could do both …
How about just letting local cops run INS checks on perps they already have?
The LAPDs Special Order 40 exists for a reason: To help ensure that illegal immigrants who are crime victims without fear of being deported. It’s a measure designed to discourage those who would prey on illegal immigrants who might not look for police protection if they were afraid of being deported as well.
If the rule needs to be adjusted so that it isn’t also, ironically, protecting criminals as well that makes sense but such changes need to be made with due consideration for the order’s original intent:
http://www.lacity.org/oig/Special_Order_40_708061_v1.pdf
Check out this
post at Patterico for more info on new changes in the implementation of the order and what I consider a failry reasonable conservative response to the issue.