Illegal Immigration: Science is MIA

Living here in rural San Diego, migrant workers are a part of everyday life, yet I must admit I know little about the issues. After reading about proposed immigration reform and all the mass protests, I decided that I needed to become educated. Gathering data is one of the key parts of scientific method.

As it turns out, this was not an easy task. Not only are opinions all over the map, but the supposed facts are as well: Illegal immigrants are just hard working people doing jobs no one else wants or they are hard working people taking jobs away from US citizens or they are just plain criminals robbing us blind.

A quick review of what I have seen and read locally points mostly to the first case, with a bit of job-taking also happening. Mostly what I have seen the local Hispanics doing is the gardening and farm work which no one else wants to do. About the only place I have seen any competition with Anglos has been in installing sprinkler systems: I once saw a couple of young white guys installing one in my area, otherwise it has all been Hispanics. Crime? In twenty years of living here and hiking in the empty hills around my house, I cross paths with Hispanics living out there almost daily. The worst “crime” I have seen is drunken weaving on their way home. On the other hand, I see people doing 100MPH on the freeway almost every week. Which is causing more problems to others? Theft is also a problem here. Every week I read about break-ins at local business, schools and homes. When the police finally catch up with the thieves, guess what? Not once in twenty years have I read that the criminal was an illegal immigrant.

Another piece of information is the protests themselves. Everything I have read indicates they were completely peaceful. This hardly sounds like this demographic is violence prone.

On the other hand, I have to admit that illegal immigrants are criminals by definition: they are here illegally. The local ones also seem to be mostly living in illegal camps rather than renting homes. But as far as I can tell, this is the extent of their criminal behavior around here. I wish all criminals were like this.

I suppose the next question is what sort of immigration reform is needed, who will benefit and who will pay. I will try to get to this (in a scientific manner, of course) in the next day or so.