Category: Migration, Refugees, and Asylum

Immigrants don’t commit crime because criminals aren’t “immigrants”

by philg

State-sponsored NPR assures us that “Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born Americans, studies find”. The state-sponsored news organization in the UK demonstrates a brilliant method of proving this Scientific fact.

“What we know about synagogue attacker Jihad Al-Shamie” (BBC):

The Manchester synagogue attacker was Jihad Al-Shamie, a 35-year-old British citizen of Syrian descent.

“Syrian descent”? Meaning that his ancestors came to England after the Second Crusade besieged Damascus? (before the country of “Syria” existed)

Al-Shamie, who lived in Prestwich, Manchester, is understood to have entered the UK as a young child and was granted British citizenship in 2006 when he was around the age of 16.

So… Jihad wasn’t born in the UK and then lived in the UK with a UK passport. The article never describes Jihad as an “immigrant” or uses the word “immigrant” or “migrant”. So, to the extent that stabbing and running over Jews on Yom Kippur are crimes in the UK there is no immigrant guilty of those crimes. Jihad was not an “immigrant.”

Separately, would it make sense to grant immediate British citizenship to anyone named “Jihad”?

Finally, how about a movement regarding this noble enricher who was unjustly killed by police with “His name was Jihad; Say His Name” signage? From Grace Lutheran Church in Wisconsin:

Tweak it to “Jihad Al-Shamie. Listen to his name. Say his name aloud. Hear yourself saying his name.” I asked Grok to work on this:

ChatGPT:

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Is every lawyer in the U.S. working for Mahmoud Khalil?

by philg

“Immigration judge orders Mahmoud Khalil deported to Syria or Algeria” (Politico):

Lawyers for the pro-Palestinian activist said they plan to appeal the immigration judge’s order, which was revealed in court documents filed Wednesday.

The order from the immigration judge, Jamee Comans, came despite a separate order in Khalil’s federal case in New Jersey blocking his deportation while that court considers Khalil’s legal argument that his detention and deportation are unlawful retaliation for his Palestinian advocacy.

Khalil’s March 8 arrest and subsequent detention in Louisiana was part of the Trump administration’s aggressive crackdown on foreign-born pro-Palestinian academics who were studying or working in the U.S. legally. Khalil, a former Columbia graduate student who helped organize campus protests, was arrested at his Manhattan residence and put into deportation proceedings. He has not been charged with a crime.

In a letter to the New Jersey federal judge, Michael Farbiarz, Khalil’s lawyers said they have 30 days from Sept. 12, the date of the immigration judge’s ruling, to appeal her decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals. The lawyers said they expect that process to be “swift” and that an appeal of the BIA decision, which would go to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, is unlikely to be successful, since, they wrote, the appeals court “almost never” grants stays of removal to noncitizens.

If we include the judges and also the tied-up federal government attorneys on this project, is it fair to say that all, or nearly all, of America’s attorneys are working for Mahmoud Khalil?

Related:

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Is U.S. immigration policy a form of animal hoarding?

by philg

People in the U.S. who say that we have a critical shortage of affordable housing and that income and wealth inequality are a “crisis” simultaneously say that we must keep our borders open to low-skill migrants, elderly and disabled migrants, and others who will never be able to pay a median rent. The people who observe that the U.S. health care system is unusable due to lengthy waiting lists and capacity shortages also say that we should bring in child migrants with diseases that will entail months of hospital stays (at a cost of $millions and with a result of extending waiting lists for native-born Americans; see, by contrast, Australia).

Let’s compare this to animal hoarding, as explained by the Minnesota-based Animal Humane Society (I picked Minnesota because the noble citizens there are passionate about importing as many Somalis as possible, regardless of education level or propensity to work):

Animal hoarding is an accumulation of animals that has overwhelmed a person’s ability to provide minimum standards of care. … Rescue hoarders believe they’re the only people that can adequately care for their animals. Their hoarding begins with a strong desire to save animals. They also may have an extensive network of enablers, and are in complete denial about the dangerous or unhealthy conditions in which the animals are living.

Does the analogy hold up? Below, from Politico, a situation that has changed exactly nobody’s mind in Maskachusetts regarding the merits of open borders.

Related:

  • the UK is jammed with advocates for open borders despite a 2023 report by Human Rights Watch about “this system [of taxpayer-funded everything for migrants] has increasingly been plagued by serious deficiencies, in violation of people’s human rights to housing, food, education, health, and social security”
  • national ASPCA page: Animal “hoarding” can be identified when a person is housing more animals than they can adequately and appropriately care for. … guardians believe they are helping their animals and deny this inability to provide minimum care.
  • “‘You’re not welcome here’: Australia’s treatment of disabled migrants” (BBC): It is one of few countries that routinely rejects immigrants’ visas on the basis of their medical needs – specifically if the cost of care exceeds A$86,000 ($57,000; £45,000) over a maximum of 10 years. New Zealand has a similar policy but Australia’s is much stricter. … The government defends the law as necessary to curb government spending and protect citizens’ access to healthcare.
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U.S. population has doubled and housing construction has remained constant

by philg

Happy National Construction Appreciation Week to those who celebrate.

We’re supposedly building roughly the same number of new houses and apartments that we did in 1960 when the U.S. population was 180 million, i.e., roughly half of what it is now. St. Louis Fed:

During the intervening years we had an influx of about 80 million immigrants (Pew for 1965-2015 then add for the extra years before and after) and we are also home now to the children of those immigrants. How is it possible that we haven’t been building more houses in the aggregate?

One possible answer is that families are much larger today and, therefore, we have more people in the typical house or apartment. But 1960 was prior to the age of no-fault (unilateral) divorce. ChatGPT:

Another possible answer is that we have people living in tents, California-style. But Brookings says “Our calculations show that the U.S. housing market was short 4.9 million housing units in 2023 relative to mid-2000s”. I.e., if we assume a household size of 2, at most 10 million Americans and migrants are living in tents. (Note that this 10 million number is roughly comparable to the number of undocumented migrants who came across the border during the the Biden-Harris administration.)

A final possible answer is that we are living in shabby old houses. I asked ChatGPT:

Maybe this is good because it shows that we did such a great job building homes circa 1960-1980 that they’re not wearing out? ChatGPT says it is not good:

I can’t figure out how this happened. We are informed that migrants are skilled eager construction workers. Labor is 30-50 percent of the cost of building a single-family house. We are richer in migrants than at any time in U.S. history. Why wouldn’t we have at least the same ratio of housing starts to population size that we had in 1960 before we began to be enriched by migrants?

In fact, the New York Times says it is more or less impossible for us to have built any houses without immigrants: “How Would We Build Homes Without Immigrant Labor and Foreign Materials?” (April 1, 2025)

Related:

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Cuban government much smarter than U.S. government?

by philg

“Motel beheading suspect’s criminal history reveals escalating path of violent crime” (NBC Dallas):

Yordanis Cobos-Martinez was previously arrested on charges of indecency with a child, carjacking, false imprisonment and grand theft of a motor vehicle. … Four months later, in June 2017, in South Lake Tahoe, California, a police report details a carjacking in which Cobos-Martinez, while naked, tried to force himself into a woman’s car while pulling her hair and clothes and sitting on her lap. … ICE says he was released on an order of supervision under the Biden administration and because Cuba would not accept him based on his criminal history.

What did this noble migrant do? “ICE calls for removal of man accused of beheading another man with machete at Dallas motel” (CNN):

Police say Cobos-Martinez was cleaning a room with an unnamed witness as the incident unfolded. The witness told police Cobos-Martinez became upset when the victim, Chandra Nagamallaiah, used the unidentified witness to translate his request to not use a broken washing machine instead of speaking to him directly, according to the affidavit.

Surveillance video shows Cobos-Martinez leaving the motel room, pulling out a machete and attacking Nagamallaiah. After the victim ran, the attack continued outside – in front of the victim’s wife and son – both of whom attempted to intervene, according to the affidavit. After beheading Nagamallaiah, Cobos-Martinez allegedly placed the victim’s head in a dumpster.

Should we give the Cuban government credit for being smarter than the U.S. government? Cuban officials protected their own citizens/residents by wisely giving Americans what Americans voted for (i.e., to collect a miscellaneous assortment of humans from all of the world’s most violent and dysfunctional societies with particular emphasis on collecting those directly embroiled in violence).

Separately, this latest beheading seems to be another example of Migrant A killing Migrant B on U.S. soil, similar to Indian enricher Harjinger Singh killing three Haitians in Florida (NY Post).

Related:

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What was our rationale for wanting to continue to host immigrants after they were convicted of crimes?

by philg

“Man Who’d Served His Time in U.S. Is Deported to an African Prison” (New York Times, September 1, 2025):

Mr. Etoria came to the United States [from Jamaica] on a green card in 1976 at age 12. He joined his mother, who had been sponsored by a family she worked for as a nanny, said Ms. McKen, his aunt. He had tough times early in life, she said. He saw his mother flee from his abusive father. In the United States, he struggled to adjust and was bullied in school, she said.

Mr. Etoria has a history of drug abuse, which he has blamed in part on head injuries he suffered as a child. He was also diagnosed with schizophrenia. Doctors noted that he has exhibited violent outbursts, hallucinations and paranoia, according to court records.

He was arrested in 1981 on charges of attempted murder, robbery and kidnapping. During a psychiatric evaluation, he said he could not remember exactly what happened, according to court records. He pleaded guilty and served three years in prison.

More than a decade later, Mr. Etoria walked into a leather goods shop and shot the victim three times in the head, according to Brooklyn court records. The motive was never determined, and there was no indication that he knew the victim or that the crime was gang-related.

I’m trying to figure out what our rationale has been for wanting to keep an immigrant after he “served three years in prison” for “attempted murder, robbery and kidnapping.” Why didn’t we deport him back to Jamaica in the 1980s, before he had a chance to commit murder? The U.S. government had the right to deport him, I think, but a bureaucrat somewhere concluded that American citizens would somehow be better off keeping Mr. Etoria as a neighbor?

Here’s a good window into how the female humans of America are implementing Charles Darwin’s sexual selection:

Since leaving prison in 2021, Mr. Etoria, a father of three adult children, has spoken regularly with his aunt, she said.

I.e., the schizophrenic convicted criminal has enjoyed far greater reproductive success than the typical American male who works 50 hours per week, pays taxes, and has never been arrested. Maybe that actually was the rationale for keeping him around? American women want to breed with convicted criminals and there aren’t enough native-born criminals to meet the demand for genetic material?

Note that the subject of the above-referenced article is not about what happened in the 1980s, but rather about the cruel Trump administration that has deported Orville Etoria to Eswatini, formerly Swaziland.

What amazes me almost as much as the idea that Americans in the 1980s couldn’t live without being enriched by a convicted criminal’s continued residence is the ability of the U.S. economy to survive Mr. Etoria and millions of similarly situated enrichers. Taxpayers have been funding shelter, food, security, etc. for Mr. Etoria almost every year since at least 1981 when he was first arrested. Taxpayers are continuing to fund shelter, food, and security for Mr. Etoria now that he lives in Eswatini. U.S. taxpayers are also funding migrant-to-migrant interactions, e.g., “Three victims of Florida 18-wheeler U-turn crash ID’d as Haitian immigrants” (New York Post):

The three victims of the Indian immigrant truck driver who made an illegal U-turn across a Florida highway earlier this month have been identified as Haitian immigrants, according to officials.

The driver Herby Dufresne, 30, and passengers Faniola Joseph, 27, and Rodrigue Dor, 53, all Haitian immigrants, were in their minivan when it plowed into the side of an 18-wheeler driven by Harjinder Singh, an immigrant from India, on Aug. 12, the Miami Herald reported.

(I’m not sure what the argument for keeping the enricher Harjinder Singh here in the U.S. was. India is home to 1.45 billion humans, a number that grows every year, and also India is too dangerous for any human to occupy?)

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Immigrants reproduce faster, so their population can overwhelm food sources before natives have a chance to recover.

by philg

I was doing some research on termite prevention for a friend who recently moved from Maskachusetts to Florida (he and his successful hard-working wife have waved goodbye to the new progressive personal income tax rates in Massachusetts and all of the wonderful progressive programs that it supports). It turns out that the $2000-ish Sentricon system may be a reasonable insurance buy due to Formosan termites, which immigrated to the U.S. in the 1950s.

ChatGPT:

Formosan subterranean termites (Coptotermes formosanus) often outcompete native U.S. subterranean termites (Reticulitermes species) when they invade the same area. A Formosan colony can contain several million termites, whereas native subterranean termite colonies often have fewer than a million. They reproduce faster, so their population can overwhelm food sources before natives have a chance to recover.

Formosan termites have foraging territories up to 300 feet from the nest, much larger than that of native species. This gives them access to more food and nesting sites, putting pressure on native termite colonies.

They defend their territory aggressively, sometimes killing or driving out native termites. They consume wood more rapidly, reducing available resources for competing species.

Once they establish themselves, they tend to displace or severely reduce local native termite populations, especially in warm, humid climates like Florida, Hawaii, and the Gulf Coast.

ChatGPT provides a simple “yes” answer to “Would it be fair to say that Formosan termites are therefore replacing native termites?”

Yes — in areas where Coptotermes formosanus becomes well-established, it’s fair to say they are replacing native subterranean termites over time.

When asked “In Dayton, Ohio the total population of humans is decreasing but the immigrant human population is increasing. Would it be fair in that case to say that immigrants are replacing native-born Americans in Dayton?” however, the answer is long and nuanced! Here’s the end of the hemming and hawing:

It’s more accurate to say immigrants are increasing their share of the population as native-born numbers decline, without implying causation.

Loosely related, a restaurant on the Upper West Side of Manhattan called “The Migrant Kitchen”:

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Washington, D.C. is safe and also people from places that are safer are entitled to asylum

by philg

The righteous recently have complained that Donald Trump is trying to reduce crime in Washington, D.C. where the murder rate is only about 27 per 100,000 in the most recent statistics, down from 40 per 100,000 in 2023. That’s almost perfect safety, we are told, and therefore Trump is plainly motivated by a combination of racism (AP, below) and a grand plan to transition to full dictatorship.

The same people who say that D.C. is perfectly safe tell us that people from Colombia, Guatemala, South Sudan, Venezuela, El Salvador, Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan are entitled to asylum in the U.S. (and four generations of welfare if they want it) because their home countries aren’t safe. What do their home countries have in common? All have murder rates lower than Washington, D.C.’s (Wikipedia).

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Update on the Islamic Republic of Twin Falls, Idaho

by philg

Nine years ago in the Washington Post, “In Twin Falls, Idaho, co-dependency of whites and immigrants faces a test” (paywall-free-version):

Twin Falls is now a testing ground for whether the bitter cultural divisions intensified by this year’s presidential campaign [Good Hillary vs. Evil Trump] can recede in favor of the co-dependency that marks many communities with large white and immigrant populations. In this southern Idaho city of 45,000, the question surrounds a growing Muslim population.

The rancor in Twin Falls began to surface only over the past year and a half as concerns about domestic terrorism awakened a fierce and sudden debate about whether the local Muslim population represented a point of pride or a potential danger — an anxiety that Trump amplified during his campaign. For decades before, the refu­gee resettlement program run by a local community college had flourished with little opposition, with refugees filling open jobs on dairy farms and in cheese factories.

The headline reminds white readers that they’re “dependent” on the “local Muslim” immigrants and also that Muslims aren’t “white”. But the body of the article reveals that it is local business owners seeking cheap labor who are dependent on the imports. There is, apparently, no need to explain how a working-class native-born resident of Twin Falls is better off as a result of the new arrivals or how he/she/ze/they would suffer if the immigrants on which he/she/ze/they “depends” departed. The “local community college” is getting most of the federal cash, it seems, in exchange for facilitating the importation of humans (which is not “human trafficking”?).

The article goes on to remind readers that non-coastal Americans are stupid because they can’t distinguish among the various species of migrants:

A sexual assault took place in a local apartment complex, and rumors spread that the suspects were Syrian teens. “Syrian Refugees Rape Little Girl at Knifepoint in Idaho,” read a headline on the Drudge Report. The case was sealed because it involved juveniles, including the victim, a 5-year-old girl. Still, Twin Falls police corrected a few facts, saying the suspects were from Sudan and Iraq.

The real issue with the sexual assault of a 5-year-old, according to the Washington Post, is that some natives of Twin Falls can’t tell the difference between a Syrian and an Iraqi.

What’s happening in Twin Falls circa 2025? As tourists wandering/biking around for three days we encountered Islamically covered women at least 4 or 5 times a day. No burqas with full face coverings, but always more than a hijab. The clothing was sharply at odds with the prevailing shorts and T-shirt fashion for the typical female out in the 80-90-degree dry heat. The elites live in a Muslim-free environment. We didn’t see any covered women at an upscale restaurant overlooking the canyon, on the trails leading to waterfalls, or in expensive neighborhoods (“expensive” = $600,000+ for a house). The Twin Falls Mosque is in a neighborhood of shabby $200,000+ houses.

We talked to some local high-school- and college-aged native-born kids. They expressed pride that their high school was “diverse”, but also noted that the Muslim immigrants formed an entirely separate society within the high school and that they themselves had never been friends with a Muslim student.

The local science museum explains that non-natives lead to environmental, ecological, economic, social, and human health impacts.

On our way out of town we were reminded that ecosystems can be destroyed by newcomers who “end up where they shouldn’t be”…

Note that all of Twin Falls is apparently considered a dumping ground by the elites of Boise, some of whom we met in Sun Valley. They all advised us to avoid even a brief stay in Twin Falls. The density of hijabs is lower in Boise, at least in the expensive downtown areas where we spent most of our time. That said, Google Maps shows a variety of mosques:

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If Zohran Mamdani were Ugandan would that have made his claim to be “Black or African-American” more fair?

by philg

The New York Times, which said that anything negative about the Biden family was Russian disinformation, jumped immediately on a story regarding the progressive on track to be New York City’s next mayor: “Mamdani Identified as Asian and African American on College Application”.

The implication of the article is that it would have been righteous for Zohran Mamdani to check the “I am Black” box for a race-based preference if he had actually been Ugandan rather than part of an immigrant population from India.

Today’s question is why it would have been fair for a recent immigrant from Uganda, even one with the correct skin color, to receive preference in college admissions or hiring. America’s race-based college admissions and jobs allocation systems were advertised as reparations for past discrimination and slavery. If someone who shows up in the U.S. five minutes ago scoops up these preferences doesn’t that prevent the preferences from going to the people for whom they were intended? What discrimination could an actual Black Ugandan who arrived in the U.S. yesterday, for example, have suffered at the hands of the bad people (i.e., white Americans)?

The idea of affirmative action (race-based discrimination by do-gooders or white-/Asian-haters, depending on your perspective) was started by President Lyndon Johnson via Executive Order 11246 in 1965. This was, coincidentally, at a point when immigrants weren’t a significant percentage of the U.S. population (Pew):

(Note that the open borders of the Biden-Harris administration made the above 2015 forecast inaccurate. The U.S. became 15.8 percent foreign-born in 2025 (CIS).)

Even though Donald Trump has gotten the federal government out of the race-based discrimination business we still have private corporations and universities engaging in it. The question for today: Why are race-based preferences available to immigrants?

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