A Correction for Ann Coulter on Immigration
On Ricochet podcast #101, which you should absolutely stop whatever you're doing to listen to right now and no I am not exaggerating, Peter Robinson and Ann Coulter have a no-holds-barred debate about Mitt Romney. But in the process, in response to a query from Peter, Ms. Coulter made a few comments about immigration statistics which I think need correcting.
When Peter posed the question of "what do you do about the immigrants who've been here for a very long time," Coulter mostly responded by dismissing the problem as an outlier. She did so with a pretty fiery comparison - equating it to a scenario of asking an abortion opponent about what you do with a situation of rape and incest - before moving on.
Now, I'm skeptical of a lot of data about illegal immigrants because, well, it's a bit difficult to assess. But as far as such data goes, the folks at Pew do a pretty thorough job. They estimated recently that two-thirds of illegal immigrants have been here for more than a decade.
Of the total, Pew found that 35% of illegal immigrants have been here for more than 15 years. And only 15% have been here for less than five years (this is the area where I think their estimate is questionable, as that would likely be the population more difficult to track; on the flip side, the economic downturn of the last four years has almost certainly slowed traffic in this direction).
The overall point is that a long-term illegal immigrant is not some outlier, but actually a significant portion of the population. For comparison, given Ms. Coulter's line: rape and incest abortions account for roughly 1% of abortions each year, according to the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute. Whatever your position on illegal immigration, this is a sizable number of people who would have to be removed from communities they've inhabited for quite a long time indeed.
Ultimately, I still maintain that the United States doesn't have an illegal immigration problem; we have a welfare state problem.
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Aug '10
Re: A Correction for Ann Coulter on Immigration
I am firmly with you on the "No Immigration problem, but welfare state problem."
Dec '10
Re: A Correction for Ann Coulter on Immigration
So am I. But what is going to happen first? Some sort of reform of our immigration policies, or an abolition of the welfare state?
Since immigration reform is lower-hanging fruit-- assuming one thinks the same way as the American people-- we have to answer the question: What do we do with the people who have been here for 20 years?
Dec '10
Re: A Correction for Ann Coulter on Immigration
Is there any data on how many of the long term illegals are on the teat? If the number is high then we have a dual problem of the welfare state (which we have anyway) and the inability to stop importing the poor. We have enough of our own. If nearly all of these people are integrating and contributing as much as they can outside of legal citizenship then our immigration problems are of a different sort.
Jan '11
Re: A Correction for Ann Coulter on Immigration
The data are not current. But Julian Simon's work should be taken at face value. And the current data might have remained pretty stable.
Edited on Jan 16 at 12:24pmJan '11
Re: A Correction for Ann Coulter on Immigration
From 9:38 to 9:49, Coulter makes an astonishing comment. Does she really believe that many women (girls) would claim to be raped (or, as she said, raped by their father) in order to simply abort their babies? Wouldn't there have been a criminal report filed in any of these case that would be easy to reference? And in the case of rape by a father, wouldn't a criminal charge with a children's protective services agency be immediately completed upon discovering a pregnancy and the pregnant girl reveal the graphic nature of what happened? This is a pretty careless comment by Coulter, isn't it?
Dec '10
Re: A Correction for Ann Coulter on Immigration
I think the Dream Act is, by definition, an indicator of multi-decadal illegal residence. Otherwise, why would college tuition be an issue at all?
Having grown up overseas, I am particularly bothered by the sense of entitlement as it applies to persons that have broken the law the longest. When you have seen the lines at our consulates, every day, wrapping around blocks and representing people that are attempting to immigrate legally, you don't have much sympathy for the line-cutters.
Re: A Correction for Ann Coulter on Immigration
Absolutely fascinating--and I wish I'd had this material at my command when the irresistible Ann and I were mud wrestling. Hm. Maybe next time, Ben, you and I can tag-team.
Dec '10
Re: A Correction for Ann Coulter on Immigration
Now that would be worth the price of admission!
Oct '10
Re: A Correction for Ann Coulter on Immigration
What do we do with all of the illegal immigrants? To me , that's like asking this question during Prohibition: if we legalize alcohol, what are we going to do with all of the bootleggers?
Dec '11
Re: A Correction for Ann Coulter on Immigration
Ben Domenech:.....
Ultimately, I still maintain that the United States doesn't have an illegal immigration problem; we have a welfare state problem. ·
Why can't we have both? The reason why people like Ann Coulter get mad is because by bringing up that a large number of people have stayed here for "a very long time"(who dictates that by the way) you imply that it is too cruel to remove the people who have been here for "a very long time". So should the issue of Immigration be dismissed entirely? Should we only allow the people who have been here "a very long time" to stay and if so who decides how long that is?
She or others arguing this issue should say something like"Just because the people before us failed to be successful in dealing with this issue, doesn't mean that we have to follow in their footsteps."(They will probably say it more gracefully, but that is my two cents.)
Feb '11
Re: A Correction for Ann Coulter on Immigration
Ben (or anyone else),
Have you looked at the methodology?
First, raw numbers are based on surveys of 55,000 households per month for a year except March when 80,000 are surveyed. So a total 685,000 households per year are surveyed. There are 112 million households.
Then, "The legal resident immigrant population is estimated by applying demographic methods to counts of legal admissions covering the period from 1980 to the present, which are obtained from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration Statistics and its predecessor at the Immigration and Naturalization Service." So error upon error.
Then step 3: "Then, having estimated the number of legal and unauthorized immigrants in the March CPS Supplements, we assign individual foreign-born respondents in the survey a specific status (one option being unauthorized immigrant) based on the individual’s demographic, social, economic, geographic and family characteristics." More errors on errors on errors.
Feb '11
Re: A Correction for Ann Coulter on Immigration
Then step 4: "The final step adjusts the estimates of legal and unauthorized immigrants counted in the survey for omissions. The basic information on coverage is drawn principally from comparisons with Mexican data, U.S. mortality data and specialized surveys conducted at the time of the 2000 Census (Bean et al. 1998; Capps et al. 2002; Marcelli and Ong 2002). These adjustments increase the estimate of the legal foreign-born population, generally by 1-3% and the unauthorized immigrant population by 10-15%."
So then they publish numbers (without error bars!!!!)
Then they have numbers for different years, take differences and assume they've been here for x years.
You may have confidence in this methodology, but frankly it's pretty Mickey Mouse!
Re: A Correction for Ann Coulter on Immigration
I wonder why no Republican candidate has proposed the following:
"Ronald Reagan allowed for amnesty in exchange for a promise from Congress that the borders would be sealed. Congress did not hold up their end of the bargain and illegal immigration worsened. In my administration, we will try the reverse solution. We will seal the borders first. When that job is completed, we will turn our attention to the individual situations of those we find to be here illegally."
Oct '10
Re: A Correction for Ann Coulter on Immigration
It wasn’t simply length of stay that Ann was talking about! She was commenting on the Gingrich example, which Peter cited: long-term residence (25 yrs, Gingrich used), stable employment, zero criminality, kids who behave similarly ... the illegal family that turns out to be comprised of model citizens sans citizenship.
What’s Pew got to say about that demographic? Ann is justified in analogizing this with the number of teenage girls pregnant by a father’s rape. Her point was: don’t let the issue get sidetracked and subsumed by events which rarely if ever apply—that plays into your opponents' hands. Keep your eye on the 99% problem and make politicians address that instead of distracting you with problems of near-zero statistical significance. That is, unless you just enjoy losing debates and elections.
You are stretching for something with which to bash Coulter. Only, get in line ... this happens every day of her life. She’s misquoted, taken out of context, vilified, tried and convicted in the kangaroo court of public opinion. Why Ricochet needs to model that behavior remains a mystery to me, but it won't surprise her one bit.
Edited on Jan 16 at 3:02pmRe: A Correction for Ann Coulter on Immigration
I think Ben missed the point -- the point is: how do we stop the illegal alien hordes from overwhelming us? He's looking at it as a zero sum game. But in ten years there will be yet more illegals who have been here for ten years and many multiples more if we keep giving them soft amnesty (not deporting them, not enforcing e-verify, red cards, in-state tuition, drivers licenses, welfare, public schooling, etc., etc etc). As Romney recognizes, the problem is that we're creating "magnets" that will increase the problem. By contrast, the number of women who want to have abortions every year is relatively static at around a million. That's why the girl impregnated-by-her-father is an apt comparison: it's a red herring sob story intended to distract from the main question on the table. The pro-abort ladies want free legal abortion, so they make us answer the girl impregnated by her father; the pro-slave labor group wants lots of illegal aliens they can underpay while making the rest of us subsidize their cheap labor with welfare payments, social services etc, so they demand that we answer the question about the hard-working church-going family man illegal who's been here for 25 years and saved a drowning puppy. They're both hiding what they don't want to tell us: what they really want is lots of illegal immigration and lots of abortions.
But perhaps one of your vdare people would like to respond.
Edited on Jan 16 at 3:21pmDec '10
Re: A Correction for Ann Coulter on Immigration
I'm with Tommy: secure the damned border first! After that we can have a conversation on what to do with all those here still. Is a fence the answer? Not in my opinion. In some areas a fence would be sufficient, but it's a long border with many geographical variances. For all of his screwiness, Perry is right about how best to secure the border. Build the fence where it makes sense, but other methods where they will provide the most benefit at the best cost.
Re: A Correction for Ann Coulter on Immigration
Ann Coulter, Special Guest: ... But in ten years there will be yet more illegals who have been here for ten years and many multiples more if we keep giving them soft amnesty (not deporting them, not enforcing e-verify, red cards, in-state tuition, drivers licenses, welfare, public schooling, etc., etc etc). As Romney recognizes, the problem is that we're creating "magnets" that will increase the problem. ... · Jan 16 at 3:19pm
Edited on Jan 16 at 03:21 pm
Ann, you also mentioned on the podcast that if we did enforce the e-verify program, the issue of deportation would largely solve itself as many of those here illegally would self-deport, thus exposing the question, "how would you deport all those people?" as another red herring.
And to echo His Majesty, The King Prawn, seal the border first.
Re: A Correction for Ann Coulter on Immigration
I always knew Ann was a closet Ricochet devotee! She can't resist a good conversation with smart folks.
Sep '10
Re: A Correction for Ann Coulter on Immigration
Is Ann a guest worker, then? Shouldn't she get a red card, or something? More to the point: how do we stop these undocumented commentators from overwhelming us?
Just kidding. Welcome, Ann.
Sep '10
Re: A Correction for Ann Coulter on Immigration
By the way, I enjoyed the debate between Peter and Ann. Let's have her on the podcast more often, if possible.
Alas, I have nothing substantive to add to the debate, as I have a lot of work (grading, class prep) I still need to do. That's my excuse, anyway.