Professor Rubén Rumbaut of UCI alerted me a few days ago to a great Frontline story that aired on PBS two nights ago. I wasn't going to be able to watch it, so I "taped it" or "DVR'd it" (actually, it just gets recorded on my cable box somehow or another). If you haven't already watched it, it is a must-see, and here are some highlights from the show's webpage:
* 11.3 million is the current estimate of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S.
* 5 million is the number of those that are supposed to be protected from deportation by President Obama's executive actions (never mind that President Obama is sometimes called deporter-in-chief--see below).
* 11.8 billion is the number in dollars that undocumented immigrants contributed in state and local taxes in the US in 2012.
* 104 billion dollars is the amount it would likely cost to deport all 11.3 million undocumented immigrants.
* negative 6.4 percent is the probably decline in the economy of the US that would result from deporting them all.
* 1.2 trillion dollars is the amount of decrease in the national debt that could be occasioned by immigration reform.
* 403,563 is the number of undocumented immigrants deported under the Obama administration, allegedly due to the lack of Congressional action on comprehensive immigration reform.
* 5 billion dollars is the amount the US government is spending each year on deportations.
* 5.1 billion dollars is the amount likely required to secure the 1,300 miles of our 2,000 mile border with Mexico that is not currently secured.
* 40 is the percent of new eligible voters between now and 2030 who are likely to be Hispanic. Hispanics currently favor candidates in the Democrat party, so you can see why Republicans are not happy about this.
My son, Professor Greg Weeks of UNC Charlotte, will be talking about some of these issues--especially the last one--next week at Charlotte's Museum of the New South for an event they call "NUEVOlution". Be there, if you can.
No comments:
Post a Comment