Talk:Illegal immigration to the United States/Archive 10

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More "illegal immigrant crime porn"-style content

The editor E.M.Gregory has added yet another case of an individual undocumented immigrant who committed a crime to the article (Murder of Eliud Montoya), and the case is also used a source for the absurdly trivial statement "Illegal immigrants sometimes employ and economically exploit other illegal immigrants".[1] It of course does not need to be stated that illegal immigrants employ and exploit each other, just as we do not need to specify that legal immigrants also employ and exploit undocumented immigrants, or that US-born natives also employ and exploit undocumented immigrants, or that naturalized citizens also employ and exploit undocumented immigrants. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 15:50, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Additional "illegal immigrant crime porn"-style content[2] was added to the article: An undocumented immigrant was arrested for a misdemeanor and spent 10 hrs in custody. This undocumented immigrant was not turned over to ICE because California law prohibits this. The undocumented immigrant later participates in a drive-by shooting. The sheriff's office claims that the shooting would have been prevented if only the immigrant had been turned over to ICE and deported. This is WP:UNDUE and trivial, and falsely suggests (in a violation of WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV) that sanctuary city policies are linked to crime when every study on the topic shows that they are not. Of course, every crime committed by someone in the US would have been prevented if the individual in question had not been in the US. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:14, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Snoogans misstates the details of the 2018 Tulare County spree shooting, a perfectly WP:COMMON type of illustrative link. WP:OWN reminder. E.M.Gregory (talk) 16:24, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

• Feel free to add details of the outrageous exploitation of illegal immigrant workers, who committed the Murder of Eliud Montoya because he was going to report them for exploiting illegal immigrant workers. The murderers housed illegal workers in a shabby trainer park and siphoned off their wages for an amount totaling $3.5 million. This is an excellent example of the exploitation of illegal alien workers, used in an approproate manner in the appropriate section of the page.E.M.Gregory (talk) 16:20, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
• Purdue chicken would be a good addition to that section. Which could also link to Tyson Foods#Employment of illegal immigrants.E.M.Gregory (talk) 16:20, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Economic impact of illegal immigration

The introduction to the page paints illegal immigration as unanimously positive for the American economy. However, illegal immigration is harmful to low-wage workers and other labor that competes with illegal immigrants.

Illegal immigrants increase production by supplementing the labor force, increasing competition for labor, and lowering the cost of goods. This benefits the economy by better allocating labor resources and increasing consumer surplus through lower cost of goods. But the labor that illegal immigration competes with does lose out, as competition in their professions' increases.

The introduction should point this out. Illegal immigration has a net negative economic impact on labor that competes with it in the American economy.

• concur the social science research on this is under-covered on this page.E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:21, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Sources

Too long

Page is far too long. Suggest that seceral sections would be better handled as separate pages, with brief summaries and hatnotes here.E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:21, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

• User:Snooganssnoogans. In keeping with the style of the page, which is to hatnote many section to break out articles due to length, would you be interested in helping condense subhead Illegal immigration to the United States#Relationship between illegal immigration and crime by moving some of what we have here to some of the material now on this page to new page Illegal immigration to the United States and crime, where it can be expanded?E.M.Gregory (talk) 16:28, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

• Content can usually always be trimmed and be expressed in clearer and more concise ways. However, I don't see any noticeable problems with the Illegal immigration to the United States#Relationship between illegal immigration and crime sub-section. And certainly, no content should be removed just to put it in Illegal immigration to the United States and crime, which is just a FORK full of 'illegal immigrant crime porn' content that you created earlier today when you weren't allowed several weeks ago to fill this article with that content or create a 'illegal immigrant crime porn' category.[3] That FORK will end up getting deleted. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:40, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Gang activity section

There's a sub-section about gang activity that's sourced to testimony from heather mac donald (no expertise on immigration or crime), CIS (renowned for its shoddy research intended to highlight the harms of immigration), a dead Wash Ex link and a primary source FBI report. We already have a sub-section that summarizes the research on the relationship between immigration and crime. The 'gang activity' sub-section should be deleted. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 00:02, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Heather MacDonald was quoting reports from the FBI and Justice Department studies. Those are both reliable sources.Exzachary (talk) 00:22, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Heather Mac Donald is not a reliable source, and should not be cited for her interpretation of what FBI and Justice Department data say. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 00:28, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

The link to the FBI.gov page is in the article: https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/national-gang-threat-assessment-2009-pdf Exzachary (talk) 00:33, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Relationship between illegal immigration and crime

This subsection requires work: it is not a discussion about the relationship between immigration and crime but illegal immigration and crime. Yet much of this subsection merely provides evidence that there is no relationship between immigration and crime. I have tried to improve the section by adding clarity at the start, but this has been reverted. I therefore appeal to editors to help improve this section - by all means include material that examines the relationship between immigration and crime, but make sure that it is clear that this is not addressing the central issue of the subsection. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Birtig (talk • contribs) 19:21, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

It is valid to mention both studies of immigration in general (legal and illegal) and illegal immigration specifically. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:20, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

This article isn't about legal immigration but illegal immigration, so no reason to mention the legal immigrants. Dream Focus 16:06, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

• The outline is obviously

(a) adding illegal immigrants increases crime overall, and

(b) studies say it is less than a proportional number of native-born citizens would, and

(c) some caveats about data or counterclaims.

(d) some complete tosh - speculations more illegals would decrease crime rates, that CA says adding more drivers did not increase accidents, blaming IRCA of 1986, etc. “Found no evidence” does not mean anything anyway, it means found no evidence to look at.

Could cut out the bottom half of the section to turn down the tosh percentage I think. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:57, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

WP:OWN issues

Snooganssnoogans, you have been the principal editor of this page for several years, but this does not mean that you can elimate content because you WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT. Please read WP:OWN.E.M.Gregory (talk) 16:07, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

I have provided policy-based justifications for the removals, and started talk page discussions, as well as alerted you to your edit-warring and that this page has a DS warning. Despite all of this, you have failed to adhere to WP:BRD and continue to edit-war your content in the article. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:16, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

The WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT accusation is rich given than you basically cop to holding a WP:FRINGE position and say that your edits are intended to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, which in this case is to fill the Illegal immigration to the United States article with "illegal immigrant crime porn" content because the academic research on illegal immigration and crime doesn't show what you want it to show.[4] Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:34, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Trying to wedge reports about crimes by undocumented immigrants is WP:COATRACK at best. EvergreenFir (talk) 19:46, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

The fact is that "illegal immigrants" are less likely to commit crimes than legal residents.There is no reason to challenge that reality with bogus research papers or examples of illegal immigrants who committed serious crimes. TFD (talk) 23:37, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

That is not exactly what was said, and is not the only view ... and it’s the considered opinion and study outcome, not a “fact”. Overstatement seems to make the actual results unreliable. Markbassett (talk) 04:02, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

"Trying to wedge reports about crimes by undocumented immigrants is WP:COATRACK at best." I agree, but we might have enough material for a spin-off article. Are there reliable sources which study this topic? Dimadick (talk) 17:53, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Citation does not prove claim

Hi all

The following claim is made in the second paragraph "Research shows that illegal immigrants increase the size of the U.S. economy, contribute to economic growth, enhance the welfare of natives, contribute more in tax revenue than they collect, reduce American firms' incentives to offshore jobs and import foreign-produced goods, and benefit consumers by reducing the prices of goods and services."

I removed citation 3 as it does not address the effects/impacts of illegal immigration specifically, rather it deals with immigration generally. My edit was reverted on the basis that the study deals with legal and illegal immigration. This is precisely my point - the citation is unable to support the claim regarding illegal immigration specifically.

It is essential that any claim is directly supported by a reference. This citation does not support the claim made and should therefore be removed Birtig (talk) 16:56, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

I agree. The article is only about illegal immigration, so no reason why people would shove in things including legal migration unless they were trying to mislead people. Dream Focus 16:58, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

I have reverted his reverting of you removing that. I read through the link and its about legal migration. Obviously the government decides how many people can get in, and that helps the economy, it a controlled amount of how many can handle, and also if they are legally here they can legally be hired and pay taxes. It has nothing to do with illegal immigration at all though. Dream Focus 17:03, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

The notion that this 642 page state-of-the-art review of the academic research on immigration does not cover the specific economic impact of illegal immigration is completely false, and it is beyond me why editors who can't be bothered to read a cited source are making claims as to the contents of that source, and going so far as to edit-war the source out of the article. The body of the article literally quotes segments of the NAS report on the economic impact of illegal immigration. You should self-revert immediately, and stop making unsubstantiated claims. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 17:19, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

What sort of editing oversight does National Academies Press have? Do they publish anything sent to them, or just those of a certain political view they agree with? I'm not finding the answers on their website or Wikipedia article. Are they a reliable source? Dream Focus 17:37, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

(ec) The economic and fiscal impact of illegal immigration is covered in many places of the NAS report. You can simply ctrl+F "unauthorized", "undocumented" or "illegal" to find the content. In the future, I suggest you actually read the source rather than make brazenly false claims about what it contains / not contains. User initially asked me to substantiate that the report covered illegal immigration. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 17:38, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Searching around shows a lot of different things. A lot to sort through. Please point to where exactly the claim is made, instead of just stating you are certain its in there somewhere. Dream Focus 17:54, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Which claim do you want substantiated? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 18:00, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

I would be grateful if you could provide a quotation that directly supports the claim "Research shows that illegal immigrants increase the size of the U.S. economy, contribute to economic growth, enhance the welfare of natives, contribute more in tax revenue than they collect, reduce American firms' incentives to offshore jobs and import foreign-produced goods, and benefit consumers by reducing the prices of goods and services." If that is contained within the book that is cited, then the article would be improved if you could substitute it for the present reference. Thanks Birtig (talk) 19:35, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Pages 194-195 substantiate part of the sentence. I do not have the time to re-read this report to find all the other parts. This report along with the other cited sources substantiate the whole sentence. Are you admitting that you did not read this source even though you made brazen claims about what it contained / didn't contain? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 19:41, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Of course I didn't read the entire book - I shouldn't have to. The synopsis of the book provides no indication that the book is relevant to the subject of this article, let alone provides any support to the claim made, so the reference should identify the relevant page to help any reader who wished to check for themselves. (Ideally, an actual quotation being provided would be a considerable help.) Birtig (talk) 19:58, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Of course, reports by NAS are reliable. If you're unfamiliar with NAS, you can start your reading here[5]. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 18:00, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

These are the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Research Council. It is as blue chip as a source can be.E.M.Gregory (talk) 11:17, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

ummm but Engineering and Medicine are not RS qualifications on this topic, nor is the text particularly notable or to the point nor specific to a page within several hundred some part is sort-of similar? ... Perhaps the particular author of that part would be worth a cite, but it’s out at the moment and seems better to leave out. Markbassett (talk) 04:21, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

What an absurd comment. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 10:34, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Novels? films?

There must be some notable ones addressing this topic. I added Deadly Voyage, but there must be other notable movies and novels. Not just documentaries.E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:18, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

What about Born in East L.A. (film)? TFD (talk) 13:35, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

evidence that illegal immigration increases the rate of crime

I propose that the phrase "There is no evidence that illegal immigration increases the rate of crime in the United States" be removed. It's a logical fallacy, since illegal entry into the US is a crime by itself. 73.121.228.133 (talk) 03:16, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Counterpoint: The fallacy is all yours, as only illegal ENTRY is a crime, and the overwhelming majority of undocumented immigrants do not enter illegally, they enter legally and then overstay their visas, which is emphatically NOT a crime; it only allows for a civil case to be made. Civil matters are, by definition, not criminal matters. Therefore, the overwhelming majority of undocumented immigrants are not automatically criminals, because illegally IMMIGRATING (not ENTERING, but IMMIGRATING) is not a crime. I propose this section be resolved.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.145.95.151 (talk) 23:09, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Well, I think the answer may lie in the fact that the remedy to an overstay (deportation and temporary banishment) is not exactly civil in nature. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.78.11.150 (talk) 04:54, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

The 2017 Annual Report of the US Sentencing Commission has statics about federal crimes, and they include information on citizen vs. non-citizen crime rates. It's worth taking a look at that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:600:9500:3180:A83F:2FE7:68AD:A6F0 (talk) 06:02, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

It says that 40.7% of all offenders were non-citizens. But that is not helpful because most non-citizens were charged with illegal immigration. Also, there is no breakdown between legal and illegal immigrants. And many of the non-citizens are non-immigrants - they're smugglers, tourists or aliens extradited to the U.S. And it includes non-citizen nationals from American Samoa. TFD (talk) 06:30, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Actually, dig deeper [6] : there were 66873 cases covered in the 2017 report. Of these, 19220 were immigration offences - either illegal re-entry or alien smuggling. Interesting that a significant number of those charged with illegal re-entry had their sentences increased due to also having non-immigration related convictions. Therefore these figures do support the view of a significant rate of criminality among those caught and charged with illegal re-entry.Birtig (talk) 14:51, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

No, it proves that a high percentage of people charged with immigration offenses have non-immigration related convictions. The fact they have non-immigration related convictions is the reason they are charged with immigration offenses. First, it's usually the way their immigration status was discovered and secondly, the government is more likely to charge people with immigration related offenses it they have been convicted of non-immigration related offenses. Otherwise law abiding undocumented workers are almost never charged with immigration offenses. In 2018, of 8,531 "criminal aliens" arrested, the majority (4,502) had prior convictions for illegal entry.[7] Bear in mind since most criminal cases are dealt with at the state or local level, you would have to include them in your comparison of criminality. Furthermore, policy requires that any interpretation of statistics must be sourced. TFD (talk) 16:41, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

In the United States criminal aliens committed 504,043 Drugs offenses, 404,788 traffic violations, 213,047 assaults. 125,322 larceny/thefts, 120,810 fraud/forgery/counterfeiting, 115,045 burglaries, 94,492 weapons violations, 81,710 motor vehicle thefts, 52,384 disorderly conduct, 42,609 robberies, 25,064 homicides, 14,788 kidnapping, 2,005 arsons between the years 1954-2010. 90% of the crimes were after 1990.Disciple4lif (talk) 17:13, 30 March 2019 (UTC)Disciple4lifDisciple4lif (talk) 17:13, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

If undocumented are not documented how do we know who it is that are committing crime? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1017:B809:F234:2D7F:30DC:305B:E383 (talk) 16:39, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Because NIBRS? EvergreenFir (talk) 03:17, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Statistics

Is that an RS? Looks good to me and provides a lot of relevant data. One thing I noticed was that the number of "240,000 illegal immigrants convicted of crimes" (during which period of time?) currently on the page is apparently incorrect. Based on this additional source, such numbers appear for the number of administrative arrests of illegal immigrants (just because they were illegally in the country?) during 8 years from 2004 to 2012, based on overestimated data ("Data in Table 6 should be interpreted with caution, particularly when it comes to Secure Communities, because..."). I just removed this for now, but anyone is welcome to look at these numbers and fix it. My very best wishes (talk) 23:13, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

The report you link to is about all aliens who commit crimes ("criminal aliens"), not just aliens who are illegally in the country. The U.S. has about 47 million legal immigrants compared to 11 million illegally in the U.S. TFD (talk) 20:15, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

American Children born to undocumented immigrants

I am new to Wiki Contribution so I appreciate everyone bearing with me as I learn. I agree that this page is very unbalanced. I made some changes that talk about how children of undocumented immigrants actually get federal benefits as they are not US citizens and I think that is worth including to provide more context to the debate. Dy3o2 (talk) 05:16, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

I propose adding information under the 'children' section that talk about how children born in the USA to undocumented immigrants are entitled to federal benefits. I think it provides significant context to the issue of illegal immigration and hasn't been written about on the page. Dy3o2 (talk) 05:25, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

The changes you made introduced some editorializing language, and used sources selectively to emphasize a specific perspective while downplaying another perspective which was also supported.

Both the FactCheck source and the Economist source demonstrate mild skepticism to the idea that Trump's rhetoric is the sole driving factor. The Economist specifically challenges the claims indicated by the FactCheck article ("If such an effect did exist, it appears to have been short-lived"). They both acknowledge that it could be, but neither presents it as an undisputed fact. Both also specifically emphasize that year-by-year, apprehensions have been declining since at least since 2008/2009, and peaked in 2000. Democrats have also pointed this out, and have also claimed credit for this, as several sources point out.

Saying that "experts have attributed..." is fine for a source, but not so good for Wikipedia. This is WP:WEASEL wording, since Wikipedia doesn't say which experts are saying this. The FactCheck article does explain this (Michelle Mittelstadt of the Migration Policy Institute) but the Wikipedia article wouldn't necessarily be the place to provide that level of detail for this one recent fact. Words like "harsh" are also a form of editorializing, and the source doesn't say this was about the campaign specifically. I'm also concerned that the Economist source is mildly misleading, for reasons that we don't need to get into now, but something more recent would be useful. These numbers are not a secret, so if this is significant, we should be able to find something more substantial than this brief and out-dated factoid, so we can provide a bigger picture.

If sources are not talking about this in a larger context, that's a good sign this is undue, or at least recentism.

As for "federal benefits", present reliable sources which specifically document how this is significant to the topic. Again, if sources do not explain how this is significant, we cannot use primary sources to imply that it's significant anyway. We need sources to do this work for us. Grayfell (talk) 05:47, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

@Grayfell: thank you for educating me on how my words may be an editoralization, but it does seem that the page is overwhelming not neutral and editoralized to make illegal entry seem to be a net good and dismissing any valid, notable consideration and data that deviates from that view. Folks are dismissing valid studies because they dont agree with the conclusion presented. There is a FAIR study I cited (I even cited the rebuttal from CATO institute) that talks about how American children of undocumented immigrants get benefits. FAIR includes that cost in determining financial impact of illegal immigration but CATO says its not right to do that but admits the cost is there. But the point is there is a notable cost associated that is not even mentioned on the wiki.Dy3o2 (talk) 06:06, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Neutrality in Wikipedia does not mean even-handedness between opposing views, but giving weight to opinions based on their acceptance in reliable sources. The Center for Immigration Studies which you use for example is considered an anti-immigration hate group by the SPLC and the accuracy of its facts has been repeatedly questioned in reliable sources. So it cannot be used as a source for facts in articles and its views deserve little if any attention, per fringe. TFD (talk) 06:53, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

SPLC is not without its own controversies in who it labels hate groups. They have an agenda and a POV as do all humans, that why I appreciate wikipedia's attempt to fight bias. Just because someone disagrees with illegal immigration does not make them a racist, or a person filled with hate. I am also not advocating for evenhandedness, but I am advocating for sharing more information, especially when the data is relevant and more importantly, accurate. FAIR and CATO both agree that children born to undocumented immigrants are using federal benefits and are on opposite ends of the debate Dy3o2 (talk) 07:05, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Again, neutrality does not mean even-handedness between opposing views, but giving weight to opinions based on their acceptance in reliable sources. It doesn't matter that the SPLC may be wrong and the CIS right, but the degree of acceptance their views have in reliable sources. SPLC views are considered mainstream while CIS views are considered fringe. FAIR is also a designated hate group, while the CATO institute is only considered to be reliable for its own opinions per Wikipedia perennial sources. As an example of how fringe views are presented, some people believe the moon-landing was faked and that is mentioned in the moon landing article, in my opinion too much. But it is not given anywhere near the same weight as the view prevalent in reliable sources. TFD (talk) 08:49, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Desperate need of updating to stats

Under the heading "Profile and demographics: Illegal entry", it states "There are an estimated half million illegal entries into the United States each year. Illegal border crossings have declined considerably from 2000, when 71,000–220,000 migrants were apprehended each month, to 2018 when 20,000–40,000 migrants were apprehended." This is laughably out-of-date information. In the month of May 2019 alone, there were 132,887 apprehensions at the US-Mexico border. source The month before, there were 98,977 source. Does anyone have any input into updating this? Bricology (talk) 20:08, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

False information with a primary source that contradicts it

This quote:

"Research shows that illegal immigrants ... contribute more in tax revenue than they collect".

References a document (source 2) written for congress which explicitly states:

"Most available studies conclude that the unauthorized population pays less in state and local taxes than it costs state and local governments to provide services to that population".

It further states that only about half of illegal immigrants pay any federal taxes.

Statements in this article pervasively use statistics for legal immigration as if it were the same as illegal immigration.

If anyone bothered to read that primary source they would find that it says illegal immigration DOES have a net COST on the US.

Pops0451 (talk) 14:41, 6 July 2019 (UTC)Pops0451

The first sentence of that report: "Over the past two decades, most efforts to estimate the fiscal impact of immigration in the United States have concluded that, in aggregate and over the long term, tax revenues of all types generated by immigrants—both legal and unauthorized—exceed the cost of the services they use." Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:58, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

But the text in this article incorrectly reflects the source. TFD (talk) 16:02, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

I added the disputed template to the statement in the article based on this. Page 3 of the 2007 Congress Paper indeed states that: The tax revenues that unauthorized immigrants generate for state and local governments do not offset the total cost of services provided to those immigrants. Most of the estimates found that even though unauthorized immigrants pay taxes and other fees to state and local jurisdictions, the resulting revenues offset only a portion of the costs incurred by those jurisdictions for providing services related to education, health care, and law enforcement. Although it is diffi-cult to obtain precise estimates of the net impact of the unauthorized population on state and local budgets (see Box 1), that impact is most likely modest. --Pudeo (talk) 11:31, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Curiously the study is correctly referenced later in the article: Illegal immigration to the United States#Fiscal effects. Small but negative effect. --Pudeo (talk) 11:34, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

What you're talking about is the impact on state and local tax revenue, which ignores federal tax revenue. The report is very clear that the overall impact is net beneficial. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 11:48, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

I did not get that far. It might be helpful to clarify this in the footnote. TFD (talk) 15:37, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

That is not what the report says. Only if you mix in the tax revenue collected from legal migrants can you hide the losses cause by illegal immigrants. Dream Focus 12:08, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

• There is no possible reason to mix in the contributions by legal immigrants with the numbers concerning illegal immigrants. The article is about illegal immigrants only. That same study says "Most available studies conclude that the unauthorized population pays less in state and local taxes than it costs state and local governments to provide services to that population." This same issue came up before with crime Talk:Illegal_immigration_to_the_United_States/Archive_9#Sections_dealing_with_legal_immigration_rather_than_illegal_immigration. It seems that some wish to hide the negative impact of illegal immigrants by mixing in their stats with the legal ones. Dream Focus 12:20, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

The statement near the beginning of the article, "There is scholarly consensus that illegal immigrants commit less crime than natives", is wrong. Though many scholars have expressed their own biased opinions on the matter, there is, in fact, no consensus. Statistics from the United States Sentencing Commission, an independent agency of the judicial branch of the United States government reveals the opposite conclusion to that made by the cited "scholars." Stuart M Klimek (talk) 18:06, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

I agree. It should say politifact says something, but doesn't link to any actual government stats saying they aren't available. If there is any credible place listing actual numbers anyone ever finds, please link to it. These aren't "scholars" they are a website run by a few people claiming to be unbias and fair. Dream Focus 19:09, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Illegal vs. undocumented (again)

I know this has come up before, yet it never appears to have been totally decided. It appears that Wikipedia has chosen to use the term "illegal immigrant" to refer to people not authorized to be in the US, yet many users, including IPs, continue to change "illegal" to "undocumented" without an explanation and sometimes edit summary. "Undocumented" appears to be a politically correct made-up term used by immigration activists that doesn't explain the actual status of being in the US illegally; visa overstays are one of the top causes of illegal immigrant status; people who enter the country legally but overstay their visas are not "undocumented." Like it or not, the term used in US code is "illegal alien". If anyone thinks this should be moved to "Undocumented immigration to the United States", they may request that, but that failed back in September 2015 by an overwhelming margin. Until then, we need to settle whether or not it is okay to change every use of the word "illegal" in the article to "undocumented." Bneu2013 (talk) 01:54, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

(1) Illegal alien is a pejorative and to what extent it is used in legal code, its use in legal language is not the same as in conventional use (the term does not refer to all illegal immigrants). It's just a pejorative term that racists are fond of. Unsurprisingly, RfCs on the subject have ruled against its usage.[8] (2) Undocumented immigrant is perfectly fine and is used in a lot of style guides. (3) Undocumented immigration =/= undocumented immigrant. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 02:27, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Agree. AFAIK the term "illegal immigrant" is used in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 to refer to aliens who have committed felonies, but in no other U.S. legislation. TFD (talk) 02:57, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

"Illegal alien" is not used in the article. I was referring to the fact that many users, including IPs, continue to change "illegal immigrant" to "undocumented immigrant" without an explanation. This RfC did not rule that "illegal immigrant" is inappropriate, and encourages its usage over "illegal alien." There does not appear to have been a consensus about whether or not "illegal immigrant" should be changed to "undocumented immigrant." All I know is that consensus seems to have been reached to use "illegal immigration" in the title. It is true that some people consider "illegal immigrant" to be offensive, and this is documented at illegal immigration#Terminology. However, Wikipedia is not censored, and it does not appear that the term "illegal immigrant" has been ruled to be offensive to the point of being vulgar. Bneu2013 (talk) 04:12, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Correction - "illegal alien" was used once in the article. I have changed it to "illegal immigrant." If I shouldn't have done that, please let me know. Bneu2013 (talk) 04:30, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Contemporary style guides say that the term undocumented should be used. The description "illegal" is increasingly seen as offensive and should be avoided per "Contentious labels". Note no one refers to their employers as "illegal." TFD (talk) 16:46, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Update - we need to get this settled once and for all. Has a consensus yet been reached to use the guidelines of the NYT, AP, etc? An administrator recently changed multiple uses of "undocumented" to "illegal," admitting that it is less PC, but still clearer. This article does appear to have a pro-illegal immigration bias, and largely ignores many common aspects of the subject, including terminology. Bneu2013 (talk) 00:29, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

They have documents on some of them, so they are not undocumented. You are right as to why certain people want to eliminate the word "illegal" from what they are called. Its ridiculous really. Look at the article name for Healthcare availability for undocumented immigrants in the United States. Healthcare isn't available without some documentation on them, so the name makes no sense at all. Dream Focus 04:10, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

I changed the terminology in order to conform to what is used in reliable sources. We don't want people to say "yes the media says undocumented but Wikipedia says illegal." TFD (talk) 04:56, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Different sources use different terms. Its best to be encyclopedic and use one that actually makes sense. We are an encyclopedia, not a political correct bias news source. If the official legal term is "illegal alien" might as well use that, be better than calling people "undocumented" when you have documents on them. Dream Focus 05:07, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

There is no official legal term. The term "illegal alien" is used once in the USC and it refers to undocumented immigrants who have committed non-immigration related felonies. So that leaves us with the terminology used in mainstream media and academic writing - which is undocumented immigration. TFD (talk) 05:42, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

I have asked Wtmitchell, who recently changed most instances of "undocumented" to "illegal", to weigh in on this. TFD, your recent revert of Wtmitchell was not only disruptive, but your rationale in the edit summary does not appear to have been settled via consensus, and only appears to be a fabrication for WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Please do not make this change again until consensus has been reached. Bneu2013 (talk) 06:39, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Wtmitchell here. I am reluctantly responding to the request above to join this discussion. I try to keep my role as an administrator separate from my role as an editor, and I want to stress that I am joining this discussion as an editor, not as an administrator. I would like very much to see the issue being discussed here resolved, but I have faint hope that it will be. I think that there are those on both sides who will argue their position interminably and who will refuse to join or to abide by any consensus which does not reflect their position.

I made the edit mentioned above by Bneu2013, changing instances of undocumented to illegal here, to the Illegal immigration to the United States article, with the edit summary: (Revert. "illegal" is less confusing than "undocumented" in an article titled "Illegal immigration to the United States". Less PC, but also clearer.) I did not and do not intend that edit to be the opening salvo in a campaign to make similar changes throughout related WP articles. I think that would require a consensus among editors which is unlikely to be achievable.

Personally, I see the term undocumented immigrant as a euphemism for the term illegal immigrant. I think that WP:EUPHEMISM should apply here, and that the euphemism should be avoided. I think that there is little chance of that happening.

Legally, as far as I can see (I'm not a lawyer), the term (whichever one) is generally used in WP to apply to one of three classes of persons: overstayers, illegal entrants, and illegal re-entrants. This CNN article explains that pretty well, I think. It says roughly:

• overstayers are persons that enter the country legally every day on valid work or travel visas, and end up overstaying for a variety of reasons. It explains that overstaying is not a violation of federal criminal law, but is is a civil violation that gets handled in immigration court proceedings.
• illegal entrants are persons who enter into the US without the approval of an immigration officer. It explains that such illegal entry is a federal crime, a misdemeanor offense that carries fines and no more than six months in prison. It links this copy of 8 U.S. Code § 1325. Improper entry by alien.
• illegal re-entrants are persons that have been deported from the US and who then returned to the US without permission. It explains that such illegal re-entry is a federal crime with different tiers of accompanying prison time. It links this copy of 8 U.S. Code § 1326. Reentry of removed aliens.

There's a Wikipedia article on Title 8 of the United States Code. That Title covers Aliens and Nationality; see here. Chapter 12 of Title 8 covers Immigratation and Nationality, and Section 1101 of that chapter is a list of relevant definitions.

• Section (a)(3) there defines the term alien to mean any person not a citizen or national of the United States.
• Section (a)(13) there defines the terms admission and admitted with respect to an alien. As far as I can see, overstayers would be aliens who had been lawfully admitted into the U.S. but illegal entrants and illegal re-entrants would not. (I've just invented the term lawful admission, which is not defined § 1101. I'm sure that this term has been used elsewhere, but I've just [re-]invented it for use here.)
• Section (a)(15) there defines the term immigrant to mean every alien except an alien who is within one of several classes of aliens described there in excruciating detail. I don't think the classes described there pertain here, so we're concerned with persons legally described as alien immigrants or immigrant aliens -- specifically, a subcategory of those persons who are either overstayers, illegal entrants, or illegal re-entrants.

• Section (a)(15)(B)(iii) describes a class of immigrant aliens which I think fit those I've termed overstayers prior to the expiration of their temporary lawful admission to the U.S. Once the term of their temporary admission expired, however, I don't think those persons, overstayers, can properly be described as lawful immigrants. (lawful immigrant being another locally [re-]invented term)

We're looking for a collective term which describes the subclass of immigrant aliens who are either overstayers, illegal entrants, or illegal re-entrants, and I think that a variant of the terms I [re-]invented earlier (lawful admission and lawful immigrant) might help. Those variants would be: unlawful admission, and unlawful immigrant. I hesitate to further complicate this discussion by suggesting the term unlawful immigrant as a third alternative term to be argued about, but there it is. Comments? If this localized discussion leads to a consensus (unlikely, in my humble opinion), perhaps this ought to lead to a proposal at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style and/or at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:33, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

From an article in MSNBC (8 April 2013): "Associated Press style book announced it was banning the phrase [illegal immigrant]....Before the AP’s shift, other groups dropped the I-word including ABC News, HuffPo, the Miami Herald, and Fox News Latino. Now The New York Times is considering a shift in policy. NBC News’s preferred term is undocumented rather than illegal because it’s more neutral." "‘Illegal’ immigrants? No: an action can be illegal, but a person isn’t." (8 April 2013) The New York Times now uses undocumented worker. Meanwhile the term illegal immigrant has come to be seen as derogatory and inaccurate. Contentious labels says that value-laden labels should be avoided.

The CNN article btw does not use the terms illegal entrant or re-entrant but refers to illegal entry and re-entry. In fact the article, "Are undocumented immigrants committing a crime? Not necessarily" refers to these people as undocumented immigrants. Furthermore the majority of undocumented immigrants are overstayers, and entered the country legally.

Language usage changes and what was acceptable at one time may become dated or derogatory. While we should not lead in rejecting terms we find racist or sexist etc., we should follow the usage in reliable sources.

Also, Wtmitchell has explained the position of administrators well. Whether or not someone is an administrator is not relevant to their participation in the discussion or their editing of the article.

TFD (talk) 15:52, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Some news sources don't use it, while others still do such as the Washington Times [9], Fox News [10], New York Post [11], CBS Los Angeles [12], and many others. Dream Focus 19:07, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

That proves my point. According to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, the Washington Times "is marginally reliable, and should be avoided when more reliable sources are available. The Washington Times is considered partisan for US politics, especially with regard to climate change and US race relations." "Most editors consider Fox News a partisan news organization, and defer to the respective guidelines for these types of sources. Editors are advised to exercise caution when using Fox News as a source for political topics, and to attribute statements of opinion." "There is no consensus regarding the reliability of the New York Post. The New York Post is a tabloid newspaper with high circulation, and most editors prefer more reliable sources when available." So highly partisan sources of dubious reliability prefer the term "illegal immigrant."

CBS, unlike ABC and NBC, allows both terms.[13] A quick check of the CBS LA site shows they use undocumented about one third of the time. I am watching CNN and they are talking about "undocumented immigrants."

So the great majority of mainstream sources use the term undocumented, while illegal appears mostly in anti-immigrant sites. So unless we want to appear to be pushing an anti-immigrant agenda, we should follow the lead of reliable sources.

TFD (talk) 19:08, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

There are a lot of other reliable sources out there that use one term or another. I don't think anyone has looked over every single media source and calculated which ones use which phrase. I just listed some of the first page of results that popped up from a Google news source. Claiming everyone who still uses the term illegal immigrant believe in a certain thing, is ridiculous. They are not "undocumented", that's stupid, call them illegal, unlawful, or "unauthorized immigrant." I see a government website using [14] Unauthorized Immigrant and Unauthorized Residents. What term is officially used by the immigration department? Dream Focus 10:54, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

The US government does not have an "immigration department" It used to have an Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), but that agency ceased to exist on March 1, 2003. Its immigration functions were transferred to a new agency, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS). The USCIS appears to use both terms.

The USCIS has a Glossary web page at https://www.uscis.gov/tools/glossary. Neither of these terms is defined there.

TED mentioned above the term "illegal immigrant" being used in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 to refer to aliens who have committed felonies. This USCIS web page, which quotes the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, uses the term illegal immigrant twice in describing a congressional finding; once in reference to "incarcerating documented illegal immigrant felons" (which confuses me) and once in reference to "incarcerating illegal immigrants" That congressional finding seems to be H. Rept. 104-828 - ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION REFORM AND IMMIGRANT RESPONSIBILITY ACT OF 1996, 104th Congress (1995-1996).

I'm not sure that information brings us any closer to consensus here, but I thought it might be useful to mention it. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:04, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

@Wtmitchell: : you meant @The Four Deuces: (= TFD), not TED. TED (talk) 12:20, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I would like to endorse the view above by user:Wtmitchell. “Undocumented immigrant” is a vague euphemism subject to a number of inaccurate interpretations. When an undocumented immigrant receives a state driver’s license, is he no longer undocumented?

No doubt many in this situation dislike the adjective “illegal,” because of the stigma in our society against things illegal. But feelings do not change facts.

“Illegal immigrant” is the clearest and most accurate phrase to use for people residing in the country without the legal right to do so. Legality is the crux of the whole matter, and the issue makes no sense without the legal/illegal dichotomy. Certainly, we would not be discussing granting them legal residency if their residency were not currently illegal. Thanks. Plazak (talk) 21:54, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 October 2019

Robertacullem23455 (talk) 12:19, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

All of your data is wrong. Yes there are many, way many more than you say. Yes they contribute to the economy like you say but there is billions and billions spent on the ones that dont or cant or wont. So hmm is it logical?

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Philroc (c) 12:21, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

POV issues

Page is problematically unbalanced. It devoted intense attention to the positive aspects of illegal immigration, but includes little or no discussion to negative impact of illegal immigration. At points this becomes absurdly imbalanced. Illegal immigration to the United States#Harm to illegal immigrants is not balances by consideration of negative impacts of illegal immigration. Illegal immigration to the United States#Attacks on illegal immigrants is covered, but violent crimes committed by illegal immigrants are not. Article needs some serious NPOV improvement.E.M.Gregory (talk) 23:57, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Wrong, there's an entire section devoted to illegal immigration and crime.[15] Snooganssnoogans (talk) 00:01, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

• LOL. Illegal immigration to the United States#Relationship between illegal immigration and crime is a POV subhead that lists ONLY studies that support he POV immigrants are notably law abiding. While theis is teh majority position within social science scholarship, a a NPOV section would list reliable scholarship with findings that problematize this POV.E.M.Gregory (talk) 00:16, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

• The comment above does a good job of demonstrating how spurious the NPOV complaint is. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 00:28, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

• I agree that an any article that argues that immigration has no negative crime impacts is necessarily framed by the fact someone at some point must have argued the contrary. These sources should be cited for NPOV. Also, agree that blue-linked citations are WP:COMMON. XavierItzm (talk) 11:47, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

• "I agree that an any article that argues that immigration has no negative crime impacts is necessarily framed by the fact someone at some point must have argued the contrary." ??? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 11:51, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

User:E.M.Gregory Well it does lack NPOV representing all significant views. I would recommend start by thinning the fluffier propaganda of paragraph 2, the not particularly iconic quotes, and maybe some of the para 1 cites that are not BESTSOURCES from lines with over 4 cites on them. Then let’s talk about what are the top 10 kinds of thing in Google prominence and see what’s missing ? Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:48, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

There is a great example of POV imbalance in the '2018 zero tolerance policy' where it misrepresents the information in the link it goes to which directly contradicts it. It implies the forced separation policy was created by Sessions rather than years earlier in the first Obama administration. This is a political argument from the American left which does not reflect reality.ArtichokeHerder01:12, 8 April 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by ArtichokeHerder (talk • contribs)

I have not edited this article for nearly half a decade. And I must concur with the opinion stated by @E.M.Gregory:. This article is terribly unbalanced and reads as a page advocating more of the subject of this article, rather than a neutral/balanced representation of the subject with the same weight given to the pros and cons of the subject. But given that this article is within the political arena, count me as unsurprising, given the effort by potentially well meaning editors to improve content on Wikipedia that advances the bias presented/favored in reliable sources. As such it is not keeping with the pillar of neutrality.--RightCowLeftCoast (Moo) 00:43, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

From reading the article, I believe this to be a bias of the reader issue. Immigration, by all metrics, is a good thing. If you personally believe it is not, then you will believe this has POV issues. The problem is the metrics, the actual numbers, the facts, actually display a strong net positive for immigration. As a Centrist, I can understand issues with immigration, such as increasing crime rates or limiting immigration when unemployment is high. But both unemployment and crime rates are at near historic lows, which bumps in crime rates attributed to hate crimes (often against immigrants). (source: https://www.voanews.com/usa/hate-crimes-major-us-cities-rise-fifth-year-row-data-show Also, bias of source: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/voice-of-america/ note: least bias designation). I have found this to be a common complaint among the heavily biased and so I reject the claim of POV issues out of hand as stated, all evidence, studies, and facts generally point to immigration being a good thing. If you believe it is not, than you have a POV issue. If you accept facts, logic, reason, and studies, it is overwhelming a positive thing. This is the current problem with the debate, being reflected here with a claim of "POV issues". The logical conclusion that immigration is objectively good is just not considered by people who subjectively disagree with the practice in general. -Kirkoconnell (talk) 18:25, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Kirkoconnell, this article is about illegal immigration, not immigration. One of the problems with it, and with your response here, is mixing them is statistics and in narrative. This article as it currently stands is biased propoganda for illegal immigration. As in many other political issues, Wikipedia articles are now a collection of biased cherry picking from "reliable media sources", and differs substantially from reality. This article does not advance education, it only convinced me that I have to look for correct info elsewhere. --Itaj Sherman (talk) 10:47, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Illegal immigration is still immigration. People are still coming, people coming to any Western country has been proven, statistically, to be a positive thing. So articles showing it to be positive are, again, hardly adnormally biased. They could, in fact, just be true. My point still stands, although I am from Nova Scotia. And here, we have the most beautiful and rare horses that were shipwrecked on an island; the island was once nicknamed "the Graveyard of the Atlantic". The next time you want to split hairs, at least let me give you one from one of those Sable Island horses so when you are sounding foolish, at least you can be stylish. -Kirkoconnell (talk) 13:03, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

"Illegal immigration is still immigration." Illegal immigration and legal immigration are both subsets of immigration. We have an article about illegal immigration precisely because it is not just the same as legal immigration. It is not acceptable for statistics about 'immigration' to be used to support or reject claims regarding this subset of all immigration. Birtig (talk) 21:46, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Conflating legal immigration with illegal immigration denigrates the very purpose of this article. Information here should be sourced to specifically illegal immigration statistics. I disagree that it's the reader who is biased. A NPOV article shouldn't have to make an argument good or bad to begin with. You argue it's objectively good. I argue that heart surgery is objectively good. The article on cardiac surgery doesn't at any point even attempt to argue. In fact it only contains a section on "risks" and none on how many lives have been saved. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiac_surgery This is what a NPOV article should look like. One example from this article that presents very clear bias

"A 2017 study found that California's extension of driving licenses to unauthorized immigrants "did not increase the total number of accidents or the occurrence of fatal accidents, but it did reduce the likelihood of hit and run accidents, thereby improving traffic safety and reducing costs for California drivers"

This not only demonstrates that illegal immigrants were committing disproportionately higher numbers of hit and runs (which is a crime, not merely a safety issue), it leads one to understand in states where they aren't given driver licenses, this increased criminal behavior continues, in fact it makes that very argument. "providing unauthorized immigrants with access to driver's licenses can create positive externalities" But there is an even greater significance to this line and demonstrates the overall bias of this article and many of the sources cited. Because they are "undocumented" their criminality is necessarily harder to report, catalog, or prosecute. The fact that illegal immigrants are undocumented in many facets, suggests that in all of those situations there are circumstances where they might commit a crime to avoid being caught for not having the documents in the first place. That very point is being argued, as I cited. Yet every other sentence and paragraph asserts there's zero negative legal issues. Hit and runs aren't mentioned again anywhere, even though this very sentence proves illegal immigrants commit more hit and runs when not licensed. Only 12 states allow illegal immigrants driver licenses. This means in 38 states they are committing more hit and runs. As per this very article. But it's not mentioned anywhere. That is bias. That is POV. Your arguments here prove POV. Because I don't even need to introduce new sources to prove the bias in interpretation of the sources already provided.

This goes to the core argument of the issue. This article admits it too. That the very nature of being undocumented leads people to commit certain crimes they otherwise would not have. While this article takes the POV argument that this should mean legalizing (that term is also used in this article in exactly this context, proving my point) another POV argument is that this should be justification for deportation. If we want a NPOV article, then neither socio-political ambition should be given undue weight (currently one is presented as the sole option) but should instead focus on facts (such as being undocumented necessarily includes increased criminality in certain aspects, not just cherry picking violent crimes). J1DW (talk) 20:20, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

J1DW, perhaps you read what you expected it to say into that article snippet rather than what it does say. The snippet says that giving licenses to illegals was seen to reduce the likelihood of hit-and-run accidents and you appear to be arguing, contrarily, that the likelihood would increase. The snippet was taken from this study, and it is clear from reading the study that it is saying that the cause of the reduction in the likelihood of hit-and-run accidents resulted from California’s Assembly Bill 60 (AB60). Another, clearer, snippet from the study is "The rate of hit and run accidents increased from the pre- to post-AB60 period in counties that issued few AB60 licenses. However, these increases are markedly reduced in counties where many AB60 licenses were issued."

However, there is what appears to be a serious a problem with the snippet. The study also makes it clear that AB60 "explicitly prohibits using the new license to consider an individual’s immigration status as a basis for a criminal investigation, arrest, or detention", and that this, in the view of the study, is the reason for the reduction. The article reports the study's finding without reporting the study's conclusion regarding the reason for that finding. It could be argued that, by that omission, the article begs a conclusion that the reduction came about for other reasons. That would be a serious a POV issue if done intentionally, but it might have been done unintentionally by someone looking to cherrypick support for a POV argument. It's less serious that way, but it's still a problem. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 10:09, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Describing a body peer-reviewed research as "researchers argue"

We should not frame findings from a large body of literature as "researchers argue".[16] We should also not add one line to the sentence claiming that "the expected effect on per-capita income is disputed" when the only source for it is a non-peer reviewed paper by George Borjas, who is a fringe figure in the economic literature on immigration.[17] Snooganssnoogans (talk) 20:45, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

You removed my edits after I didn't respond to the talk page over Thanksgiving weekend... Nice. Trench warfare here we come:

"We should not frame findings from a large body of literature as "researchers argue"." Why should we not frame them that way? If a large number of researchers advance arguments about something why should we not say "researchers argue?" Given many professional researchers don't agree it would be misleading to pretend as if the these finding are unanimous.

"non-peer reviewed paper by George Borjas" Many of the papers cited in this article are not peer-reviewed. Might it be that because this paper includes findings different than many cited on this page that you felt the need to remove it? What evidence do you have that Borjas is fringe? On what grounds do other immigration economists dismiss his work, if they do in fact find him fringe? His papers are widely cited, he is from a well known university, etc. We need a warrant for this claim. CoyoteKaramazov (talk) 23:43, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

These are not "arguments" by researchers, but findings from a large body of literature. The content in the lead is not derived from single working papers, as your changes to the lead were. And Borjas definitely holds a minority view and has received substantial criticisms for his research, which goes against most other research on immigration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_J._Borjas#Mariel_boatlift_research. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:36, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I have reverted Edit5001's edits - they do not have consensus, misrepresent sources, and directly contradict the cited sources - specifically changing the claim regarding tax revenue. The cited sources specifically discuss that illegal immigrants contribute more in taxes than they receive in services, and Edit5001 changed the text to contradict what the citations support. Not acceptable. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 15:01, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

To directly quote the first cited source, which is from the US government and thus the most credible; "Most available studies conclude that the unauthorized population pays less in state and local taxes than it costs state and local governments to provide services to that population." Edit5001 (talk) 15:08, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

That source is more than a decade old, and creates a misleading inference - it fails to account for Social Security contributions, etc. which also provide a net benefit (illegal immigrants can't collect on Social Security or Medicare, but pay billions of dollars in payroll taxes). I have included a more recent source which discusses this in some detail. Again, when you make major changes to an article, you have a responsibility to gain consensus for those changes when objected to. The fact that you don't like that requirement is irrelevant. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 15:20, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

You are misrepresenting the source[18]. The source clearly says that on the whole, illegal immigrants pay more in taxes than they take in services: "Over the past two decades, most efforts to estimate the fiscal impact of immigration in the United States have concluded that, in aggregate and over the long term, tax revenues of all types generated by immigrants—both legal and unauthorized—exceed the cost of the services they use... The impact of unauthorized immigrants on the federal budget differs from that population’s effect on state and local budgets primarily because of the types of services provided at each level of government and the rules governing those programs." The snippet you quoted is specifically about state and local taxes (which do not count other taxes), and you conveniently removed the relevant last part: "Most available studies conclude that the unauthorized population pays less in state and local taxes than it costs state and local governments to provide services to that population. However, those estimates have significant limitations; they are not a suitable basis for developing an aggregate national effect across all states." Snooganssnoogans (talk) 15:22, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

When it says "immigrants—both legal and unauthorized" it's talking about the combinationof legal and illegal, not illegal immigrants by themselves. It says in the very next sentence; "However, many estimates also show that the cost of providing public services to unauthorized immigrants at the state and local levels exceeds what that population pays in state and local taxes."

It may not be suitable for developing an aggregate national effect across ALL states, but what's certain is that it's true in many states. This is what the source says and to completely ignore it is insanity. I'm open to some form of sentence that includes both of our concerns. Edit5001 (talk) 15:32, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Native-born residents also generally consume more in state-level benefits than they pay in state-level taxes - states rely heavily on large transfers from the federal government to fund many public services such as Medicaid. So that's not different than the rest of the population - if we were to call it out, we'd have to qualify it by saying that so do native-born residents. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 15:36, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Overall, immigrants’ tax contributions cover 93 percent of their publicly provided benefits; compared with 77 percent for native workers. New Findings on the Fiscal Impact of Immigration in the United States, by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, published June 2017. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 15:39, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

The issue is native born residents being within the United States isn't a matter of debate or something we have control over - they're citizens and that's that. Conversely, allowing illegal immigrants to enter or remain here is something we DO have control over. That's why illegal immigrants taking in more state benefits than they return is worth noting in an article about them.

And the study you're citing is covering ALL immigrants, not illegal immigrants, so it's not applicable to this. Edit5001 (talk) 15:42, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

If it's worth noting that illegal immigrants don't pay as much state taxes as they receive in state benefits, it would also be worth noting that this doesn't make them different from the rest of the population. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 15:46, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

You need a valid source to make that comparison because the one you cited talks about ALL immigrants, not illegal immigrants. If we don't have exact numbers for both sides we can't claim they're similar. Edit5001 (talk) 15:51, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

I have plenty of sources which state that native-born residents, on average, receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes. Like the Dallas Fed paper cited above. It is notable that, with one exception, every generation, immigrant and native, at every level of government, consumes more in public benefits than they contribute in taxes. (The one exception is first-generation immigrants at a federal level.) This is, of course, because taxes do not cover all of the nation's costs and the federal government is borrowing large sums each year - Because the nation is running a sizable deficit, the entire public represents a net cost on average. So a sentence stating "As is also true for native-born residents, illegal immigrants generally receive more in state-level benefits than they pay in state-level taxes" would be acceptable. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 15:58, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

I suppose that sentence is fine but I must emphasize that you should understand there's a huge difference between people who are US citizens, born here, and whose presence is protected by law, and illegal immigrants who the government has a sizeable amount of control over the population of.

The essence is that citizens are a necessary cost and illegal immigrants an unnecessary cost. Edit5001 (talk) 16:07, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Except that's not what economists and demographers say - rather, illegal (and legal) immigration is helping to keep our population young and increases the size of the labor force, avoiding the population aging and stagnation that's now afflicting countries such as Japan. More younger workers are required to subsidize aging generations, notably Baby Boomers, who now consume far more benefits than they produce, and due to inflation and other factors, have paid into the public welfare system far less than is required to support their later life. That is to say, a 25-year-old illegal immigrant working in construction is paying payroll taxes which help fund the Social Security payments and Medicare benefits of a 75-year-old native resident. When Miller and other seniors worry about “losing more and more benefits” to support unauthorized immigrants, they selectively omit a crucial point: U.S. citizens are the beneficiaries of some of the taxes unauthorized immigrants pay out. Overwhelmingly, unauthorized immigrants are not. [19], which cites several studies of the massive positive benefit that illegal/undocumented immigrants provide to Medicare and Social Security, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 16:11, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

None of that addresses the point I just made to you. Aging Baby Boomers are a necessary cost to state governments - we can't deport them or keep more of them from entering the US, they're citizens. The drain on state governments that illegal immigrants pose, meanwhile, is unnecessary. They could be kept out or removed if the law was enforced. Edit5001 (talk) 16:18, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Again, the long-term value of an immigrant (illegal or legal) is economically and demographically positive. Table 2 shows that in dynamic, long-run scenarios, the present value of the net fiscal impact of immigration is typically positive and can be quite large. If we assume that an additional immigrant does not increase spending on public goods, which is a reasonable assumption, a new immigrant represents a positive fiscal contribution with a net present value of $259,000. (Dallas Fed) It's literally the reason the United States isn't becoming Japan - a declining, aging nation that doesn't have enough young workers to support their elderly. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 16:22, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

We've established that illegal immigrants take in more in benefits at the state and local levels than they return in. You can argue they increase GDP and make huge mega-corporations very happy (as they displace native workers, might I add) but this doesn't discount the drains we've already established they pose.

Also, if we're going to talk about the US's demographic destiny, it'd make a lot more sense to implement policies that make native people here have more kids than to import millions and millions of foreign people from entirely different backgrounds and cultures. Edit5001 (talk) 16:30, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

People of Hispanic "backgrounds and cultures" have been a part of American culture since at least the moment we chose to buy Spanish Florida in 1819 with the Adams-Onis Treaty. Never mind annexing Texas and forcing Mexico to cede California, New Mexico, and what would become Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. There has been a substantial Hispanic population in the United States ever since. Suggesting that Hispanic immigrants are from "entirely different backgrounds and cultures" than ours is factually wrong. I mean, it's certainly easier for someone from Mexico to integrate into our country than someone from, say, Japan or Russia.

Besides, literally every non-Native American person in the United States is descended from immigrants who arrived in recent human history - many of them "illegally" - the Pawnee, Miwok, Cherokee, and Sioux certainly didn't invite Europeans across the Atlantic. African-Americans were largely brought over in chains against their will, so they get a pass. The rest of us? Maybe we should be self-deporting back to the Old World. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:15, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

There's a world of difference between Hispanics who were native to the land that would become the United States and Hispanics from Central/South America and to equate the two is, frankly, absurd. And criminal data at least does not support the theory that Hispanics integrate more easily into American society than, say, Japanese at all. For example, in 2018 Hispanics accounted for 27% of all rape suspects, well over-represented in their share of the population. East Asians meanwhile are utterly underrepresented in all crime categories.

Fun fact, as of 1680 less than 5% of the New England colonies were of African descent. The colonies were started, built, and organized by Europeans. But anyway, we're way off subject now, so I'll end this particular discussion here and just add the line we agreed on. Edit5001 (talk) 18:49, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

"most Americans oppose illegal immigration"

The line "many opinion polls show most Americans oppose illegal immigration and view it as a problem"[20] is sourced to one Rasmussen poll. Furthermore, the poll asks whether illegal immigration is a serious problem, not whether they oppose illegal immigration. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 20:41, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Adjust the wording then, rather than deleting the addition entirely. I think the overall point of what he added is a good inclusion. Edit5001 (talk) 14:23, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

It's not incumbent on someone else to fix an edit which massively misrepresents a source. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 14:58, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Nothing was massively misrepresented, and by refusing to cooperate at all you demonstrate your inability to work with other editors to reach a valid consensus. Edit5001 (talk) 15:13, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

That’s ridiculous, and should likely be retracted. It would be different if your claim had any substance to it. You’ve been registered for about three months, with just a few hundred edits, and you’ve had a rather tumultuous start. NorthBySouthBaranof has been an editor here for nearly seven years, with tens of thousands upon thousands of contributions. Clearly they can work with other editors. Stick to content, and don’t make broad statements impugning other editors, especially when such a statement is not only flat-out subjective, but even demonstrably false.

And for the record, Snooganssnoogas is absolutely correct. That’s clearly misrepresentative of what the source actually says. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 22:57, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

I adjusted the language in a way more fitting to the numerous sources I added to the citations of the claim. If you think the wording could still be improved, please suggest it, but the sources are well represented and correct in what I just added. Edit5001 (talk) 19:05, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Adding photographs of famous illegal immigrants

Per these RS, the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Salma Hayek, and Michael J. Fox violated immigration laws.[21][22][23][24] I think it would be good to add photographs of normal people who, in their own words, violated immigration laws. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 23:13, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Do not agree. These aren’t normal people, they are rich celebrities. It would actually lead to more of a misunderstanding of the illegal immigration issue as the three you mentioned were technically illegal for a short period of time while their paperwork was being cleared. In the case or Arnold, he wasn’t illegally present, he just wasn’t allowed to work a second job while here. Also, consider how you’d respond if someone suggested posting mugshots of criminal illegal immigrants. It’s just best to leave it out to remain unbiased Dy3o2 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:40, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

• That would be cherrypicking good examples and ignoring the bad examples of criminals that were also illegal immigrants. There is no reason to have pictures of people at all unless you are trying to bias people's opinion on the subject. Wikipedia is neutral. Dream Focus 18:01, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Do we have sources which list these folks as illegal immigrants? Volunteer Marek 18:06, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

opinion polls

Can be cherry picked and are undue for the lede. Other edits by same account are original research [25]. Volunteer Marek 18:05, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

I find that preposterous. A lot of the information in this article can be cherry picked - crime rates, economic impact, etc. Yet they're stated in this article as if they're fact. Yet opinion polling, the least controversial of all, is what you're going to say is cherry picked? I think you'd have a hard time finding any polls that show a majority of Americans either favor illegal immigration or don't think it's a problem. Edit5001 (talk) 23:32, 24 December 2019 (UTC)