In his article Wooldridge reports that “In California, if 3.5 million illegal aliens moved back to Mexico, it would leave an extra $10.2 billion to spend on overloaded school systems, bankrupted hospitals and overrun prisons.”

Kristin F. Butcher and Anne Morrison Piehl the authors of the study reported by Rueters found that “People born outside the United States make up about 35 percent of California's adult population but account for about 17 percent of the adult prison population.”  Furthermore “non-citizen men from Mexico 18 to 40 -- a group disproportionately likely to have entered the United States illegally -- are more than eight times less likely than U.S.-born men in the same age group to be in a correctional institution.”  This study was released by Public Policy Institute of California.

So the question is whose data is correct and how can we know?  On the one hand Wooldridge confirms the stories that we have been hearing since the immigration debate heated up last year but it has no data.  On the other hand a careful study by academics of knowable facts makes Wooldridge’s claims about the prisons at least seem preposterous.

At Radical Immigration we believe reports that have a factual basis.  In this case Butcher and Piehl present facts to back up their claims. Their report if widely reported is another piece of evidence that will help over time to discredit the shrill fear-mongers on the right.  It will help to dispell their claims of being “overwhelmed” that have to often been accepted as fact.  This analysis is a very helpful contribution to the pro-immigrant agenda and I thank the authors.