Finding Sources

Jenosavel

My mother is one of those people who forwards every single email she ever gets on to me, and I'm one of those people who compulsively must refute bad information when I see it. Thus she's come to rely on me as her truth-o-meter in forwarded emails, and with the American primaries in fully swing, I've found myself constantly doing write-ups on Obama's history or why all muslims in America shouldn't be rounded up and shot.

Normally I do alright with finding good reliable sources about the net (it helps that I'm a habitual lurker of D&D), but this last email she's sent me has be wanting to throw my hands up in despair and just stop right now.

It's regarding immigration, and that is a subject I'm having quite a hard time finding reliable information on. While some of the points in the email are so blatantly false that they're easy to debunk (illegal immigrants costing us $22 billion in welfare, or the snopes link which refutes itself), others require playing the "my source says, your source says" game with numbers. Everyone knows that that can go back and forth forever unless one has a strong understanding of each source's history and bias, and thus I'm going to turn to you folks and ask you to lend me your bits of knowledge.

What are some good sources of information regarding immigration, both legal and illegal? Which sources should I avoid? If you've heard any of these arguments before and know a good way to clarify them, I'd be grateful.


Here's the monstrosity she tossed my way:

*Subject:* Fw: WHAT COSTS MORE PER YEAR THAN THE IRAQ WAR?



Illegal Aliens Cause Massive Cuts For US Seniors
December 4, 2007
http://rense..com/general79/seniors.htm
I hope the following 14 reasons are forwarded over and over again until they are read so many times that the reader gets sick of reading them. I have included the URL's for verification of the following facts:

1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year. http://tinyurl.com/zob77

2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens. http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens. http://www..cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English! http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.html

5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare and Social Services by the American taxpayers. http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html

9. $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two-and-a-half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html

11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border. Homeland Security Report. http://tinyurl.com/t9sht

12. The National Policy Institute, "estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period." http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf

13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin.. http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm

14. "The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States". http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml

Total cost is a whooping... $338.3 BILLION A YEAR!!!
If this doesn't bother you then just delete the message, but on the other hand, if it does raise the hair on the back of your neck, then forward it.

Snopes is provided for doubters:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/bankofamerica.asp
http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/socialsecurity.asp
Social Security Change For 2008
The United States Senate voted to extend Social Security Benefits to Illegal Aliens beginning in 2008. The following are the senators who voted to give illegal aliens Social Security benefits. They are grouped by home state. If a state is not listed, there was no voting representative.
Alaska: Stevens (R)
Arizona : McCain (R)
Arkansas : Lincoln (D) Pryor (D)
California : Boxer (D) Feinstein (D)
Colorado : Salazar (D)
Connecticut : Dodd (D) Lieberman (D)
Delaware : Biden (D) Carper (D)
Florida : Martinez (R)
Hawaii : Akaka (D) Inouye (D)
Illinois : Durbin (D) Obama (D)
Indiana : Bayh (D) Lugar (R)
Iowa : Harkin (D)
Kansas : Brownback (R)
Louisiana : Landrieu (D)
Maryland : Mikulski (D) Sarbanes (D)
Massachusetts : Kennedy (D) Kerry (D)
Montana : Baucus (D)
Nebraska : Hagel (R)
Nevada : Reid (D)
New Jersey : Lautenberg (D) Menendez (D)
New Mexico : Bingaman (D)
New York : Clinton (D) Schumer (D)
North Dakota : Dorgan (D)
Ohio : DeWine (R) Voinovich(R)
Oregon : Wyden (D)
Pennsylvania : Specter (R)
Rhode Island : Chafee (R) Reed (D)
South Carolina : Graham (R)
South Dakota : Johnson (D)
Vermont : Jeffords (I) Leahy (D)
Washington : Cantwell (D) Murray (D)
West Virginia : Rockefeller (D), by Not Voting
Wisconsin : Feingold (D) Kohl (D)
SEND THIS TO ALL YOU KNOW. THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES NEEDS TO KNOW THIS INFORMATION, UNLESS THEY DON'T MIND SHARING THEIR SOCIAL SECURITY WITH FOREIGN WORKERS who didn't pay in a dime.
LET US SHOW OUR LEADERS IN WASHINGTON "PEOPLE POWER" AND THE POWER OF THE INTERNET. IT DOESN'T MATTER IF YOU ARE REPUBLICAN, DEMOCRAT OR INDEPENDENT! KEEP IT GOING!!!!

fuelish

Well #2 and #3 are from a what I would consider to be a "front" for anti immigration dude John Talton. That does not mean they are wrong but bias could be an issue.
#5 Whooptishit. If you are born in the US you are a US citizen. Does not matter who you parents are or where they come from.
#7 Federal prison hold people waiting to be deported
#s 1,2 and 8 are all looking at the same thing(Welfare,WIC, etc.). And one and two combined equal way more than the value in eight.
Most of the items listed are linked to a transcript from a talk show. The "facts" came were just heresay, not linked form un biased reports.
The whole thing is so full of holes it would be hard to root all of them out without hours of searching. Which is not really helping you.