Illegals: But they're here doing jobs we won't,...

one has to be careful what one takes from a study. Yet, it is arguable that 29% percent of the Fed. prison population being illegal immigrants does highlight a clear and significant cost to society.

That there are 11 million illegals in the country, that there are 300 million people in the US, and that the norm for percentage of illegals in custody is 29%, then it means a certain percentage (unknown) of 3+% of the population is comitting at least 29% of the jailable crimes.

As noted in my other post in this thread, I am skeptical of the percentage of illegals in custody is 29% claim. Even if it is accurate, the assertion is that it applies to people under the control of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, not to inmates as a whole. I have not found any fully reliable numbers regarding the actual proportion of overall prison inmates who are illegal aliens. The numbers I did find suggested that the 29% rate is wildly inaccurate.

The fact that somebody reported a 29% statistic somewhere and has been widely quoted does not establish it as fact. Also, as I have already noted, estimates of the number of illegal aliens in the US are not terribly reliable, and they range as high as ~6%.

of illegals or is it 29% of felons in jail are illegals?

Not quite either of those, but closer to the ''29% of felons in jail are illegals''

The actual claim I've seen elsewhere was that 29% of inmates controlled by the federal bureau of prisons are criminal aliens. I would guess (but don't know) that inmates controlled by the federal bureau of prisons are all felons, but they may not be representative of the overall population of people in 'jail' since there are also people in state facilities (usually called 'prisons' I think) and local facilities (usually called 'jails' I think). Furthermore, the statistic I've seen is actually not that 29% of the prison population are illegal aliens. The claim I've seen is that 29% are aliens (legal or otherwise) who were convicted of a crime (presumably a crime other than illegal immigration).

I don't think anybody has claimed that 29% of illegal aliens are incarcerated or are felons, at least not under current law.

One other twist. I wonder how many illegal aliens are currently being detained pending deportation and who 'controls' them? I believe most are under the control of the INS rather than the Bureau of Prisons but I'm not sure, and that may be relevant to the alleged 29% statistic.

Here are a few numbers.

The numbers in your link show a total 'criminal alien' population of a bit over 200,000. Compare that with a total incarcerated population of roughly 2 million. Using those numbers the number of 'criminal aliens' is a bit over 10% of the prison population. Note, though, that these 'criminal aliens' include both legal aliens and illegal.

I think I may have finally figured out the 27% or 29% or whatever proportion of 'criminal aliens' under Bureau of Prisons control. In an NCIC report I found that for 2004 there were 178,512 Federal prisoners (about 10% of the total US prison population, less than 10% if you include prisoners in jails). Of that number, 48,708 were 'criminal aliens' and 129,804 were US citizens. That gives a result of 27% Federal prisoners were 'criminal aliens', not all of whom were illegal immigrants.

What that means is the Federal prison population is NOT representative of the prison population as a whole. Even though the Federal population is ~27% 'criminal aliens' the total US prison population is only about 10% 'criminal aliens' (using numbers from that same NCIC report for the number of prisoners and a Census Report for the denominator).

My conclusion is that the people who are throwing around the factoid about 27% (or 29%) 'criminal aliens' started doing so more because of its shock value than because of its relevance to the US crime rates or its representativeness for the US prison population overall. That is especially true when the 27% or 29% statistic is represented as applying to illegal immigrants.

I have to admit that the statistics I found suggest a higher rate of crime among non-citizens than among citizens. If 'criminal aliens' represent 10% of prisoners but the immigrant population is about 8% of the the US population (from an immigration report I linked in one of my other posts in this thread) then there are proportionately more criminals among the immigrants than among the population at large. That is not surprising, and it presents some challenges for law enforcement, but it does not look like the dire situation for the nation as a whole that some of the rhetoric would suggest.

For some states, mostly the one on the US-Mexico border, the situation is clearly different from the US as a whole. I really cannot comment on how severe that problem is.

Do you mean like burglaries and such??? Just teasing you

The 29 percent figure may well be too small. The Federation for American Immigration Reform cites the 29% number in this report, but references Federal Bureau of Prisons statistics from 2003! Intrestingly enough, in this House of Representatives paper from Dec 2005, Footnote 4 references a report that set the percentage of illegals in Federal prison at 23.5% as of 30 Jun 2003. Perhaps the figure grew that much in 6 months - or maybe both figures underreport the reality?

This Urban Institute report from 2000 shows that the scope of the problem has just exploded in the last 5 years.

More troublesome than that may be the explosion in Hispanic street gangs of unprecented violence and savagery, many related to the activities of illegals. While the four US - Mexican border states (CA, NM, AZ and TX) still have the worst of this, it's spread so far that here in Indiana, the State Police and Indiananapolis Police Departments saw fit to warn about one such criminal organization, this one of Salvadoran origin: Meet MS-13. And, the number of Salvadorans crossing the border is increasing.

Even more troubling is recent revelations that the Mexican government is actively supporting all this through the use of their military to escort illegals (and maybe druggies?) to enter the U.S. Added to the fact that we now estimate (as of 2002) some 115,000 Middle Easterners are here illegally, and you begin to see that there is a widespread (but not coordinated) attempt, IMO, to move people across the US - Mexican sieve for purposes that are - or might - be inamicable to out very safety. Why haven't we heard about this (with just a very few exceptions) in the establishment press? Might it be that open borders just please the hell out of people from those on the left who seek open borders to perfidious so-called ''conservatives'' in the business community that are just thrilled at the opportunities presented by all that cheap labor? A plague on both their houses, I say.

I think that the problem is both under appreciated and underreported. The fact remains that we are setting ourselves up for something that will make 9/11 look like a church picnic if we don't get real serios real soon. If such an outrage occurs, do you have any faith in the ability of our government to respond in a manner respectful of the rights of all citizens? Just ask any Japanese-American who lived on the West Coast in 1942, and you'll get the answer, friend.

President Bush addresses the nation tonight on this issue. I hope that he'll get serious about it; I suspect and fear that he won't.

due to lack of space, so they could put more in. This wouldn't have been counted.

As I noted in Not such a high proportion among prisoners overall the federal prison population is a (comparatively) small and apparently non-representative group of prisoners. It appears that a disproportionate number of 'criminal aliens' end up in federal prison as opposed to state prison. I have not idea why. In any event, I wouldn't focus too much on the 27% or 29% or whatever in the federal prison system.

That does not mean the problem of crime does not exist. It just means we should focus on numbers that paint a broader picture of what is going on.

It is clear that there are real problems with gang related violence, especially in the Southern border states and in New York. The majority of the 'criminal aliens' does appear to be people originally from Mexico, but the problem is wider than that and it is not limited to Hispanic aliens.

My impression is that the problem is not primarily the number of immigrants (we've dealt with proportionately larger influxes in the past) but the criminal behavior of a small fraction of the immigrants. Improved immigration enforcement might help exclude the criminals but I'm not convinced. It seems to me that border security will do more to keep out the would-be migrant workers than it will the gang members and drug dealers. More rational drug policy might reduce the gang-related crimes. That said, I doubt Congress has the will to do much right now even if the President has some good ideas (and that's not a given).

I'm afraid I'll have to pass on the speech this evening. I've got a meeting to go to.

Try this regarding the non-representativeness of the federal prison population statistic.