Bigotry, Ignorance and Arizona’s New Law

Bigotry, Ignorance and Arizona’s New Law
(An Immigrant's Take on SB1070)

Arizona law SB1070 will go into effect on 29 July 2010, unless one of the numerous challenges that have been filed against it is upheld. The law's aim is to:

"make attrition through enforcement the public policy of all state and local government agencies in Arizona. The provisions of this act are intended to work together to discourage and deter the unlawful entry and presence of aliens and economic activity by persons unlawfully present in the United States."

The sixteen page document does not explain the reasons for wanting to accomplish such a feat; however, the proponents of this law have made their points disturbingly clear as to why it is a good idea to not have these so called persons unlawfully present. Though I am certain there are some who have their own unique reasons, the majority of the proponents have some or all of the following reasons:

The crime rate is much higher due to undocumented aliens.
The undocumented aliens take away jobs from legal workers.
The undocumented aliens get paid, but do not pay taxes.
The undocumented aliens use medical and educational services for which they do not pay.

Before I delve into these points, I would like to confess that I am biased against this law-to-be. I think it is prejudicial, short-sighted and against the economic interests of the USA. I too am against having undocumented aliens in the country, however, I believe that we need to be humane and understanding. We need to treat these people with dignity and respect and not as common criminals. Having stated my bias, I will let you be the judge as to whether I am honest in the information I am going to present.

The crime rate is much higher due to undocumented aliens:

The first question which comes to mind regarding all the reasons that these people have against the undocumented aliens is how they know these claims are correct? How do they know if the crime rate is higher due to undocumented aliens (here, of-course, one has to disregard the misdemeanor crime of being an undocumented alien - otherwise 100% of them would be criminals). How do they know that undocumented aliens do not pay taxes. Is this all based on some Bush-like gut feeling that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or is there some real intelligence behind this?

Turning this question to acquaintances that are both for and against the bill resulted in a wide variety of answers: crimes are generally committed by those who are poor or without any resources - and these undocumented aliens are more likely to be poor; drugs come from Mexico (no they don't, they pass through Mexico for consumption in the US); Mexicans are always getting into trouble (bigotry); I heard that over the news (sheep mentality); and let's not forget my favorite - well, it's just obvious (intellectual laziness). Even some people who are against this bill seem to believe that the problems listed above are true at least to some extent; showing how well propaganda does its job.

I did not provide a quip for the very first answer about poor people being more likely to commit crimes, because it defies a short response. First of all, it is simply not true that poor people commit more crimes. Perhaps we hear more about them because of the fact that they are the more ordinary crimes, but much bigger and serious crimes are committed by the rich. The millions and billions of dollars that are stolen by the rich have much more of an impact on the lives of ordinary people. If these monies were not stolen and instead were used for public good, the quality of life for all would improve considerably, just as the quality of life would improve if the other types
of crimes, such as pick-pocketing, theft, burglary, etc. were eliminated or reduced.

Lets look at the crime aspect of this issue. According to the Department of Homeland Security; the violent crime rate in Arizona in 2008 was 0.477%, while in 1998 the rate was 0.578%. During this time Arizona's undocumented alien population grew by 70%. The number of violent crime in Arizona dropped by almost 1,500 from 2005 to 2008 and the number of property crime dropped by 8,000. Again the population of undocumented aliens increased during this time.

But the crime rates dropped all over the USA during this time, not just in Arizona. The trend toward a lower crime rate started in the early 1990's and has continued up until 2008 (the latest year for which the statistics are available). The rate for violent crime fell from the height of 0.76% to 0.45% and for non-violent crime from 5.1% to 3.2%. Looking at these numbers it seems that the rate of crime dropped much more steeply in Arizona than other states in the nation, which was accompanied by a much higher increase of the population of undocumented aliens in Arizona compared to the rest of the nation. And hence exactly the opposite of what the proponents of this law are saying.

Lets look at the prison population. Starting in 2000, the percentage of inmates in state prisons who were non-citizens was 4.6%. This number remained pretty much the same for the next five years. During this same time the undocumented alien population in the USA was around 4%. Here there is a higher rate of non-citizens in prisons than the actual population percentage. But before you say aha!, let me point out that the 4.6% rate is for non-citizens and hence it includes legal and undocumented aliens. The non-citizen population is around 12% (11.7% in 2003). So from these numbers it is clear that the prison population in state prisons is much less represented by undocumented aliens. This despite the fact that the non-citizens will not have as much protection provided by our legal system as citizens would and hence would tend to have a higher conviction rate.

The mix is somewhat different in federal prisons due to the nature of crimes. For example, illegal immigration is a federal crime and hence one would suspect that more of those undocumented aliens will be incarcerated in the federal prisons. And that turns out to be the case. But again before you say aha!, lets look at the numbers. this number is misleading—as a good number of non-citizens are residents or other non-citizens with valid visas like student, B-1 and so forth and therefore it does not really reflect the undocumented alien population. The combined rate of prisoners (both in federal and state prisons) was 6.4% in 2005 which was down from 6.8% in
2000. During this time, the number of undocumented aliens increased in the USA.

The percentage of non-citizens who are incarcerated in federal prisons is much higher than their total population percentage in the US. The percentage of inmates in federal prisons who are non-citizens was 20% in 2005. This has been dropping from 27% in the year 2000 to 24% in 2001. Now the rate of non-citizens is about 12% and hence it seems that a higher percentage is incarcerated. But the problem with this number is that it is for non-citizens and it does not break down the undocumented and documented aliens. Further, this number also includes people incarcerated due to being in the USA for immigration violations; which I stated earlier that I will be disallowing (it is akin to stating that if guns were made illegal, then only criminals would have guns).

There are those who have claimed that undocumented aliens could be terrorists. All of the 9/11 hijackers were in the USA legally.

After this law was passed, numerous police chiefs, including the Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck. ("Laws like this will actually increase crime, not decrease crime") And Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villasenor; have expressed how this law will undermine the trust between the Hispanic community and the police; and how the Hispanic population will be hesitant to cooperate with the police and will be less likely to come forward and provide information to the police.

There is an old saying about statistics; There are lies, damn lies and statistics - in that particular order. The data above shows clearly that there is no correlation between a higher crime rate and the population of undocumented aliens. However, Lou Dobbs; bigot extraordinaire and the original angry-white-man; has used the same data to claim the exact opposite. There are plenty of other studies out there which twist the data to show that there is some correlation between the increase in crime with undocumented aliens. I can't disprove them all by citing these above numbers, specially when I did not even do these above studies myself, but am just quoting from other sources. However, I think the majority of the people who claim that there is an increase in crime associated with undocumented aliens; have not done their home work and hence are just spreading a rumor at best and are being bigots at worst.


Undocumented aliens take away jobs from legal workers:

It seems obvious that if there were a job to be done, and if no undocumented aliens were there to do it, then legal workers would be doing it; as after all the work has to be done. The crops have to be picked, the ditch has to be dug, etc. There are studies that state that the undocumented aliens have a negative impact on the lower stratums of society; mostly on the poor black population, but there is also a positive impact on the middle class.

Lets look at a particular low end job; something in construction or agriculture. This is where the majority of undocumented aliens are working. They certainly provide a ready force for the employer who can pay them less than what a legal worker is willing to accept and hence they tend to reduce the overall wages. The estimates are that the impact is about 7% reduction for the poorest 10% of the work force. There is a corresponding profit to the rest of society as they get the services and products at a reduced rate. Further these undocumented aliens also contribute to the economy. They eat and consume. They buy clothes, and some even take their children to some amusement park when they can afford it. All of these contribute to the local economy.

There are some jobs which would not exist if the low end wage earners were not available. Take for example a home owner who wants some brush cleaned up in his back yard or have the lawn mowed every other week. He can and would do this himself, but if the price were low enough he would prefer to watch his favorite team play instead of sweating out in the yard. However, if the cost is too high, he will certainly do this himself. Thus a job is created just because the wage is low enough for it.

There is an argument that these undocumented aliens fill some jobs which Americans are just not willing to take; mostly in low end, low paying jobs. Just the other day I heard a passionate speaker on the radio who had rhetorical questions and asked which job? He continued and stated that Americans clean their own homes, they work in their own yards, they wash their cars, they do all sorts of jobs and hence to him this argument was vacant. This being a right-wing radio station, where the fair and balanced means right is balanced with neo-rights and hence there was no counter response provided. I did wonder as to how many Americans did I ever see at the Home Depot parking lot looking for any odd job. From my personal experience, I have never ever seen an American there. Not even a black American. Yes, Americans do all sorts of jobs, but they do it for a certain price. Not below that. These undocumented aliens are willing to take those jobs which no one else will. And they do them at much lower cost and provide the rest of us with an economical benefit.

There are studies which claim that there is close to no net effect on jobs due to undocumented aliens. They do take jobs at the lower end, but they in turn create jobs by consuming. Jorge Borgas, Kennedy School of Government at Harvard; states that in actuality the average American's wealth is increased by just under 1% because of illegal immigration.

The undocumented aliens get paid, but do not pay taxes:

That certainly is true in the case of the undocumented alien who is getting paid in cash for doing some menial task for some home owner or some small business employer. But the majority of the employers only hire someone (even if they know he/she is illegal) if they can provide a social security number. A vast majority of the undocumented aliens are on regular payroll and get their taxes taken out of their paychecks. This is not only payroll federal taxes, but also Medicare and state taxes. Just the Social Security taxes are estimated to be at $7 billion per year. Not chump change. Payroll, Medicare and state taxes are on top of that.

There are some who argue that in actuality as these aliens earn very little, they do not pay that much in taxes and in actuality they file for earned income credit and get extra money back from the government. I wonder from what planet they get their logic. These are undocumented aliens. They are afraid of the government. They do not file for taxes. They do not have a real Social Security number. They are using someone else's number. They do not file to get a refund back or to get earned income credit. Those sorts of frauds are better left for the real white collar rich professionals.

The reason the undocumented aliens pay little in taxes is because they make very little. And in reality if they were legal, they would get all of that refunded back to them. But of-course they can't file for taxes and so the government gets to keep all of that and we as society benefit from it. The federal government gets extra from them, the state government gets extra from them and the Medicare gets extra from them.

The undocumented aliens use the medical and educational services for which they do not pay and hence are a burden on the rest of the society:

I would agree that some of them do. However, I would temper that the cases of abuse are just way too overblown. The undocumented aliens do not have health insurance or employer paid benefits. They do not get paid if they do not work. Hence they do not go to hospital unless they have to. And then they return to work soon as they can so that they can earn money. Certainly there are those who abuse the system and I have heard enough anecdotal stories. But they are by far the exception and not the rule. One only has to use common sense and logic to see that the undocumented aliens can't afford to go and be sick.

I personally know of quite a few doctors who see nothing but abuse from the undocumented aliens and hence their view of undocumented aliens is very negative. I think that there are certain segments of the society who see one side of an issue due to their personal involvement and despite the fact that they are quite intelligent (such as doctors); they just fail to see the big picture. Their view is too skewed by their own personal experience. However, I think if one were to just apply logic on this and note that undocumented aliens just can’t live on getting medical attention at a hospital. They have to feed themselves and others and hence must work. Hospitals give them medical treatment, but do not pay for rent, food or clothing. They have to return to work at their earliest opportunity, even before they are really ready and able to go back; to earn a living.

Here I am not trying to pick on doctors, but rather trying to prove the point that one’s perspective is skewed by one’s personal experience. I happen to know quite a few doctors and the majority of them expressed the opinions as stated above. But of-course that does not prove that all doctors think that or even a majority of them think that, and I used the doctors in this example just to prove that particular point.

Further the costs of treating undocumented aliens is off by light years. The treatment which the hospitals are required to provide is in the emergency room for emergencies. This cost is based on full charge that the hospital lists for emergency services. So a bandage is listed at perhaps few hundred dollars which in fact costs the hospital few pennies. The same goes for all of the other associated costs. Yes, one can look at the cost of what the hospital would have charged but there is no sane insurance company or citizen who would pay that amount and what the cost to us the tax payers is not what the hospital would charge, but rather what the hospital actually paid. And that cost is off by factor of thousands.

It is certainly true that the children of the undocumented aliens use the education system and hence are an added burden on the society. Most right wing estimates put this cost of education for K-12 children of the undocumented aliens at $12 billion. That is a huge number and this is the low side of the number. I saw at least one number from a right wing congressman‘s office which put the figure at $29 billion. Lets see how and from where does this number comes from.

There are no, let me repeat no; statistics which tell us how many undocumented alien children are in the US school system. There are statistics which tell as what the average cost per child is and there are statistic telling us the total number of children, but no survey or census for actual number or even close estimate of number of undocumented aliens’ children. In a report to the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, the General Accounting Office submitted a report in 2004 titled “Undocumented Alien School Children: Issues in Estimating State-by-State Costs”. The report details efforts of the GAO to try to get some hard numbers for the number of undocumented alien children in schools. The report starts with the statement; “Current Government information is not sufficient to directly estimate the state by state costs of educating undocumented alien school children.” It goes on to point out that “State and local areas record data on school enrollment and on costs but not on immigration status.” And that, “the Department of Homeland Security developed State-by-State estimates of the undocumented alien population, but the estimates do not break out age group and are subject to methodological limitations.”

The GAO sent the request for information to 22 different states for estimates of their costs of undocumented alien children. Three states responded. Texas used a non-governmental organization (details not provided) to get a number of undocumented alien children under the age of 18 and then multiplied their average cost per student. Note here that this estimate by the non-governmental organization is for the number of children under age 18 and not of the estimate of the number of children actually going to school.

Pennsylvania used the estimate from Department of Homeland Security of the number of undocumented aliens in their state and then assumed that about 10 to 18 percent of this number would be school aged children and used an upper and lower limit and multiplied this with the average cost per student.

North Carolina used voodoo magic or at least they did not bother to tell GAO as to what method they used. And as I noted above the rest of the states did not bother to reply.

So where are these right wingers getting this number of $12 billion or $29 billion? Well I am sure stumped. Even if it is $12 billion, still the total amount of taxes which are taken from the payroll, social security and Medicare are higher than that and hence there is a net benefit to our society. But the real point here is that these right wingers have no basis for their figures. They are just making them up.

Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR - I am surprised they did not add balanced in here somehow as well) suggest that Arizona’s cost of illegal immigration exceeds $2.7 billion annually. Six years ago, the organization put that cost at about $1.3 billion. Hmmm. OK, based on what? Just saying so don’t make it so.

Another right wing web site has this to say, “The calculation of the number of children of illegal aliens in the K-12 public school system indicates that more than 15% of California’s students are children of undocumented aliens, as are more than ten percent of the students in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Nevada, and Texas. More than five percent of the students are the children of undocumented aliens in Florida, Georgia, Kansas, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, and Washington.” Based on What? Yes, based on some gut feeling. But the real bigotry is shown by including the US Born children of undocumented aliens in the cost totals! Come on now. If you are born in the USA, then you are a US Citizen.
Right? You can’t even pretend to include that child with some undocumented alien statistic.
But never mind that. Lets see how we can inflate the numbers and never mind the fairness.

I certainly think that the undocumented aliens should not be here. We have laws in this country and if we just let anyone just trample them by walking across the border, then where will this stop? However, throwing the book on some poor hapless but hardworking person who is trying to improve his/her lot in this world is not the kind thing to do.

There should be some mechanism for converting the undocumented aliens status’ to legal residence where they can become part of the society. We should also come up with proper mechanism to discourage future waves of these undocumented aliens . Instead we should encourage ways to bring more educated aliens to the USA so that they can contribute to our society and make us richer; not just financially but also with their cultures.

Having said that; there are certain other problems with the bill which need to be addressed. I think the bill is the wrong way to go about fixing this problem; which as I outlined above has been blown way out of proportion by the ignorant and the bigot. Treating fellow humans with this sort of random stopping and asking for papers is not part of a civilized society. This is more like I-got-in-and-I-am-closing-the-gate-behind-me. Yes, all of us, unless you are Native American; are immigrants and their off-springs. Some of you got here on the Mayflower and the others took the June or perhaps July or even later boat. And I ask you to have a heart. Just like you or your forefathers left their homelands to find better for their children; these undocumented aliens are trying to do the same as well. And no, the people in Mayflower did not come with some special green card or other sort of legal papers. Remember the Thanksgiving tradition? Perhaps we should consider extending that tradition not just by eating turkey in November, but rather by offering a chance to these hard-working aliens.


Prejudicial Bill:

Besides the mostly false accusations of the negative impact of undocumented aliens, I believe this bill is prejudicial. The bill states that the police have the right to stop anyone with reasonable suspicion and ask for their papers. The law clearly states that the police is not to use race in this process. But there is no other mechanism provided for identifying the undocumented aliens. The police is not going to be stopping a blond-haired, blue-eyed white person, regardless of the fact that he is a Swede who is here illegally (here I pick on Swedes as everyone in Europe picks on them - and they are quite good natured about it and actually pick on themselves as well.) But the chances of anyone with brown skin of getting stopped and getting asked for papers are much, much higher. That is prejudicial; plain and simple. There is nothing in the bill which will provide some special training to the police officers to make the identity of undocumented aliens on some factor other than the color of their skin.

There are those who say so what if one gets stopped and asked for papers; Just produce them and move on. True that maybe but what of the person who happens to be out jogging and just does not feel like carrying his papers or has forgotten to carry them? Certainly he can prove that he lives at such and such place, but he has to go through the hassle based solely on the color of his skin. What about the cop who happens to have his own agenda against undocumented aliens or against people with brown skin (Oh, yes, they certainly exist and if you are denying that, then you live in some parallel universe of lily whites). This law gives this type of cop a license to abuse and mistreat certain segment of the society, mostly the brown skinned folks. Right now, there is a no-fly list. There are names on there which are there erroneously. These persons are unable to have those names removed from the list. The process is closed and secretive and no one knows how their names got on the list but now they are stuck. This sort of heavy-handed one-sided bureaucratic problem will be created for others of brown skin in the state.

I am certain there are people out there who believe that is a small price to pay to get rid of the undocumented aliens. And I am willing to bet that a large majority who say that are white skinned and a large majority who will not agree with this are not of the white skin. There are actually plenty of surveys which state exactly the same. So it occurs to me that the people who are not going to be effected by the troubles of this law care much less about how this law will effect others. It reminds me of the odd example which I read somewhere as to why our country is not a democracy but a republic. Because if we were a true democracy, then 51% of the populace could vote to make the other 49% of the populace their personal slaves. Luckily in our republic the rights of the minorities are protected and a large majority, not even 99% can vote to make the other 1% suffer the consequences of some law which the majority thinks benefits them.

One other excuse I have heard is that there are undocumented aliens in Mexico; from El Salvador or Honduras, etc. and that the Mexicans treat them worse than we treat the undocumented aliens here in the USA. Like two wrongs would make it right? And if we think they treat them bad then by definition we think it is not good of them to do that, then why are we doing a bad thing? Should not we behave better than the others?

Let me try and put the shoe on the other foot. I would think the much bigger problem in the USA and in the World is bigotry (just humor me for a minute, I will come to the point presently.) And I think we would be willing to pay at least the same price for getting rid of it or curing the people who exhibit this bigotry; just as the people of brown skin have to pay as per this bill. So let me propose that whenever anyone goes in to Walmart or shops on Amazon.com for white sheets, the FBI gets to do a background check on the person to see what sort of prejudicial past he has or if he/she has any connection to Ku Klux Klan. Now FBI will not be able to discriminate based on skin color, and will have to check on someone with black skin just the same.

I know the chances of getting a black skinned person caught in this will be rather slim and most white people will think it is a sham to even state that the law is for all; regardless of the color of the skin. I think most white skinned people will find this sort of law rather insulting and now I would ask, how does it feel? It is exactly the same if the police were to stop me and ask me for my papers.

In reality, there are plenty of white skinned people who are against this law; some 30%. And I am proud of them. I do want to ask the other 70% to look in the mirror and if a little bit of ignorance or bigotry stares back, then see if you can get rid of it. And if my words seem harsh, well wear them if the shoes fit.

Written by Major (Retired, USAF) Shiekh, an airline pilot, concerned citizen and brother to Dr. Irum Shiekh of Progressive Films. He has a Masters degree in Mathematics. He writes occasionally on topics of concern to our society. He lives near Los Angeles. Mr. Shiekh can be reached at: spervaiz@aol.com

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All Present in the Universe of Guns

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