>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>But the worst about illegal immigrants is that many turn to drugs and gangs. And then we pay for them through the prison system.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Do you have any evidence for this statement? Of course, it turns on what you mean by "many," so we probably need to define that term. So when you say "many immigrants," what percent do you mean? Once you answer that, where's your evidence?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Tamar
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>What is it with you that you take words out of context? I said "illegal" and you conveniently omitted it. I sent you a link for the documentary about the drugs and illegal activities of illegal immigrants. Did you check it? By the way, I watch a lot of Mexican tv (I speak very good Spanish and understand it well) programming where they show many programs about drugs and gangs of illegal Mexicans in both USA and Mexico. Maybe you should learn Spanish and start learning from the source <g>.
>>>>>>>And last I DID not say Mexican when I was talking about illegal immigrants. It was brought up by someone else. To me, illegal is NOT legal; Mexican, Russian, or any other.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Sorry, I didn't actually mean to omit "illegal"; I knew that's what we were talking about. However, I'm not going to watch a documentary to get the evidence. (I watch probably fewer than 1% of the videos people point me to. Video is slow; reading is fast.)
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>If what you say is true, there should be articles based on actual studies to prove it. Point me to an article or two that has actual statistics based on something other than someone's political opinion.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>But first, what does "many" mean in this context? What percent of illegals would have to be involved with drugs and gangs for you to consider it "many"?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Tamar
>>>>>
>>>>>Didn't you recently recommend here to watch a documentary on the PBS? So you watch pattern is very "selective."
>>>>
>>>>Yep, it absolutely is. Watching any kind of video takes a lot more time than reading the equivalent material, so I'm picky about what I watch. (And fwiw, I had recommended the book the documentary was based on long ago.)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>When you hear on the news that "many" people died as a result of a natural disaster and you find out that 20 or 30 people actually died, are you questioning the news media for the accuracy of their statement.
>>>>
>>>>I do sometimes stop and think about that stuff. We hear about a "terrible tragedy" where a few people died, but pay little attention to, say, famines where millions die.
>>>>
>>>>>You simply choose to ignore an outrageous bigoted statement made in this thread. And yet you are stuck on analyzing what is "many." I am sure any one can Google for on-line facts about number of criminal activities of illegal immigrants. In my view, even if 1% of the illegal immigrants are involved in the criminal activities, it is too many, given the number of illegals entering the country every day.
>>>>
>>>>Okay, so 1% is your definition of "many" in this context. Great, now can you show me evidence that 1% or more of illegal immigrants are involved with drugs and/or gangs?
>>>>
>>>>Also, following on Mike's point, would it make a difference to your view of this if the rate of drug and gang activity among illegals turned out to be lower than in the general population? lower than in the portion of the general population at the same economic level? (I'm not suggesting that either of those is true, just asking whether your view on the subject is contextual or not.)
>>>>
>>>>Tamar
>>>
>>>I see that for you 20-30 people who died as a result of natural disaster is just a "few" people.
>>
>>Not what I said. Certainly not what I meant. I was just pointing out that things are relative. For example, if only 20-30 people died as a result of, say, a magnitude 8.0 earthquake, we'd probably call it a miracle. OTOH, if 20-30 people die due to a single traffic accident, we think of it as a tragedy.
>>
>>>
>>>You keep avoiding the facts. All illegal immigrants are illegal; that is, they already broke the law of this country. And if do no think that many of illegal immigrants turn to drugs or gang activities, you have your head in the sand.
>>
>>No, I keep asking for facts. This discussion wasn't about whether illegal immigration is illegal. You asserted that "many" illegal immigrants turn to drugs and/or gangs. I asked you what you meant by "many" and for evidence that your assertion was true. You have indicated what "many" means to you in this context, but you haven't produced any evidence that in fact, that many illegals are involved in drugs or gangs. Given that one reasonable estimate (one I hear in the media a fair amount) of the number of illegal immigrants is 12 million, you're talking about 120,000 people. Can you provide any evidence that 120,000 or more illegal immigrants are involved in drugs or gangs? (I guess we also need to define what we mean in the case of drugs. Were you suggesting individual use of illegal drugs, or involvement in distribution of drugs?)
>>
>>Tamar
>
>http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/29/border-states-dealing-illegal-immigrant-crime-data-suggests/
>
>Here are the two paragraphs:
>
>But a comprehensive study released late last year from the Center for Immigration Studies cited federal law enforcement data showing that illegal immigrants made up a disproportionate share of the state prison populations in California and Arizona.
>
>In 2004, the year when the data was most recently available, 12.4 percent of California prisoners were illegal immigrants, as compared with an estimated 6.9 percent of the state population. In Arizona, 11.1 percent of the prison population was undocumented, compared with 7 percent of the overall state population. In Texas, the percentage was also slightly higher in the prisons than it was statewide.
>
>Is this not many????

It certainly suggests that illegal immigrants get sent to jail in higher proportions than others. It doesn't tell us anything about how many people that is*, nor whether they are convicted and jailed at higher rates because they're illegals. Nor does it address your specific assertion about drugs and gangs.

* A quick Google search produced that the total prison population of California for 2004 was 164,346. 12.4% of that is 20,379. A different article (http://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/bjs/pjim04.pdf) gives me 31,631 for Arizona for 2004, so 11.1% is 3511. Your Texas info doesn't give us a percentage to work with, though I did see that Texas had a total prison population higher than California's.

Ah, this is useful. The same article says that the total # of non-citizens (without distinguishing legal from illegal) was 91,789, and in fact, that for Texas, the non-citizen number was 9,048. (The same article disputes the 12.4% illegals figure for California, though, showing 10.9% total non-citizens. However, these are specifically mid-year figures, so that could maybe account for the difference.)

Of course, these numbers are all crimes, not drugs and gangs. Flip side: these are only those caught and imprisoned.

So lots of interesting data. Nothing to specifically back up your assertion.

Tamar