The Quote Below—More Misinformation from the Media
“More than half of Americans say there’s an ‘invasion’ at the southern border, according to a new NPR/Ipsos poll, part of a broader decline in support for immigrants overall.
“The poll also found that large numbers of Americans hold a variety of misconceptions about immigrants — greatly exaggerating their role in smuggling illegal drugs into the U.S., and how likely they are to use public benefits, for example — as false and misleading claims about immigration gain traction.
“Republicans are more likely to hold negative views of immigrants. But the poll found they’re not alone in embracing increasingly extreme rhetoric around immigration. . . . Republican leaders are increasingly framing the situation as an ‘invasion.’ Immigrant advocates say the word has a long history in white nationalist circles, and warn that such extreme rhetoric could provoke more violence against immigrants. . . .
“Similarly, more than half of Republicans say immigrants are ‘more likely’ to use public assistance benefits than the native-born population. . . . Less than a quarter of Republicans correctly identified that statement as false.” — A Majority of Americans See an ‘Invasion’ at the Southern Border, NPR Poll Finds, Joel Rose, NPR, 8/18/22 [Link]
Fact Check of Above Quote: The writer of this piece, Joel Rose, doubts that “invasion” is the proper word to describe the surge of illegal aliens across our southern border. The Border Patrol gauges the level of illegal immigration by the number of illegals it apprehends. This fiscal year (2022) marked the highest level ever at 1.8 million. Many of these were released, and many others crossed the border without being apprehended. An invasion need not involve military action. A definition offered by the Britannica dictionary is “the act of entering a place in large numbers especially in a way that is harmful or unwanted.” Given the size of the alien influx, and the fact that most Americans don’t want it, the word “invasion” seems appropriate.
Rose maintains that Americans are “exaggerating” the extent that illegal aliens are involved in drug trafficking. This claim may come from an NPR report which maintained that drug cartel operatives do most of the trafficking rather than ordinary illegal aliens. If that was true in the past, it is not true now, says Andrew Arthur at the Center for Immigration Studies. As the flow of deadly fentanyl into the U.S. has risen, he argues, the cartels have increasingly drafted the ordinary border crossers to transport it.
Rose simply is simply wrong when he says that immigrants aren’t more likely than natives to use public assistance. Here are the relevant statistics provided by the Center for Immigration Studies: “In 2018, 49 percent of households headed by all immigrants — naturalized citizens, legal residents, and illegal immigrants — used at least one major welfare program, compared [with] 32 percent of households headed by the native-born.”
National Public Radio receives public money, but it rarely supports the views of American taxpayers who would like secure borders and a more reasonable level of legal immigration. This article is typical of NPR.