Republican presidential candidate
Donald Trump deserves credit for forcing all 17 Republican candidates to talk
about the social costs of illegal immigration, but it is not “Trump’s issue.”
We will be making a fatal mistake if we let the media discuss it that way.
As Ann Coulter has pointed out, this
is the most critical issue of the 2016 race because this is the issue that will
define whether or not there will even be an American nation recognizable as the
“home of the free and land of the brave.”
But illegal immigration is not “Ann
Coulter’s issue” any more than it is “Tom Tancredo’s issue.” It is America’s
issue — not only because it will define America in the 21st Century but because
it also defines American elections and who will be voting in elections in 2020
and beyond. It also illuminates the power of the mainstream media to keep
issues off the national stage.
Think of illegal immigration this
way: If the liberal media can keep illegal alien crime out of the “kitchen
table debate,” they can keep any issue out of the debate. And they will if they
can get away with it. For those reasons, illegal immigration is much more than
an issue of public policy; it is the poster child for media malpractice.
The media’s attempt to suppress
public awareness over illegal alien crime and the effects of illegal
immigration on American workers’ jobs and wages is nothing less than censorship
on a massive scale. We need to start talking about it in those terms and hold
the media accountable for the lack of ethical standards.
The mainstream media – including,
sadly, major segments of the presumably conservative media, like the Wall
Street Journal — are working overtime to keep the American public and the
American voters in the dark on the scope of illegal alien crime. The murder of
Kate Steinle in San Francisco exposed only the tip of a massive iceberg, and
the media establishment is desperate to avoid dealing with the iceberg
underneath.
Let’s look at a few numbers. You
haven’t seen them in the New York Times, Atlanta Constitution, or the Miami
Herald, nor have they been featured on NBC Nightly news or CNN. So, the average
American is blissfully unaware of them.
•Between 2008 and 2014, 40% of all
murder convictions in Florida were criminal aliens. In New York it was 34% and
Arizona 17.8%.
•During those years, criminal aliens
accounted for 38% of all murder convictions in the five states of California,
Texas, Arizona, Florida and New York, while illegal aliens constitute only 5.6%
of the total population in those states.
•That 38% represents 7,085 murders
out of the total of 18,643.
That 5.6% figure for the average
illegal alien population in those five states comes from US Census estimates.
We know the real number is double that official estimate. Yet, even if it is
11%, it is still shameful that the percentage of murders by criminal aliens is
more than triple the illegal population in those states.
Those astounding numbers were
compiled by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) using official
Department of Justice data on criminal aliens in the nation’s correctional
system. The numbers were the basis for a presentation at a recent New Hampshire
conference sponsored by the highly respected Center for Security Policy. You
can view the full presentation here:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/08/08/illegal-alien-crime-accounts-for-over-30-of-murders-in-some-states/
The federal Bureau of Prisons
category “criminal aliens” includes legal immigrants who have been convicted of
serious crimes, but over 90% of incarcerated criminal aliens are illegal
aliens, so it is reasonable to use these numbers as a close approximation of
the extent of illegal alien crime.
Similar data is available at the
state level if state officials have the desire to look for it. The Texas
Department of Public Safety reports that between 2008 and 2014, 35% of the all
murder convictions were illegal aliens—averaging 472 murders each year from
2004 to 2008.
Do you know the numbers for your
state? Does your congressman, Senator, or Governor know those numbers? Of
course not. If you are afraid of the answer, don’t ask the question.
There is widespread public ignorance
of illegal alien crime in every state because the mainstream media does
investigate such matters. Why? Because they do not want the public to think
about such things. The media, from the Associated Press down to the Main Street
News, does not even allow the phrase “illegal immigrant” to appear in print.
So, the numbers are out there in the
criminal justice system and correctional institutions, waiting to be compiled
and published. State attorneys general and state legislators could access the
data if they were interested, and so could the media, but they don’t. In fact,
in Colorado in 2006, the state legislature passed a law ordering the state
Attorney General to compile accurate data on the costs of incarcerating illegal
aliens and send a bill for reimbursement to the federal government. The state
AG sent the feds a bill for only half the real costs — the cost of inmates in
the state prison system and not the costs imposed on taxpayers by an equal
number of inmates in county jails across the state.
The US Department of Justice’s
Bureau of Justice Programs publishes an annual report on the State Criminal
Alien Assistance Program, a report that includes data on the number of criminal
aliens incarcerated each state prison system and each county jail. It takes some
prodigious digging to find the data, but it is there.
But our mainstream media, our
self-described guardians of the First Amendment, consciously avoids the effort
and declines to put a public spotlight on the problem or demand public scrutiny
and public accountability. Why?
The answer is that public debate on
the problem of illegal alien crime does not serve the progressive political
agenda. The issue is swept under the rug and anyone who raises it is called a
racist.
This is media malpractice of historic
proportions, and publishers and editors are the unindicted coconspirators in
those 7,085 murders.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/08/08/illegal-alien-crime-accounts-for-over-30-of-murders-in-some-states/
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