This is diary about immigration, race, and rankly sophisticated bigotry. It's also about science, truth, and reason -- and the terrifying lack thereof. Some of you will find it unpleasant. But it is important, and I ask that you read and take a moment to recommend it if you find it important and worthy. Who controls conventional wisdom about people and races on the margin of our society also shapes the struggle for equality.
Please, follow me below the fold.
Some of you may be familiar with Family Security Matters, a dot-org who bills itself as "The National Security Resource For American Families." In truth, it is a clearing house for xenophobic hysteria whose mission is to stoke interracial distrust and division with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to a snail. Imagine Free Republic dressed up like a soccer mom and you've got a reasonably clear picture.
Now your friends at FSM bring you this steaming pile from the pen of self-styled violent crime expert Deborah Schurman-Kauflin, Ph.D. Before I dismantle the junk science Schurman-Kaulflin uses to "support" her conclusion, I will take you first to the conclusion itself:
Illegal immigrants who commit sex crimes first cross the U.S. border illegally. Then they gradually commit worse crimes and are continually released back into society or deported. Those who were deported simply returned illegally again. Only 2 percent of the offenders in this study have no history of criminal behavior, beyond crossing the border illegally. There is a clear pattern of criminal escalation. From misdemeanors such as assault or DUI, to drug offenses, illegal immigrants who commit sex crimes break U.S. laws repeatedly. They are highly mobile, work in low skilled jobs with their hands, use drugs and alcohol, are generally promiscuous, have little family stability, and choose victims who are easy to attack. Their attacks are particularly brutal, and they use a hands-on method of controlling and/or killing their victims.
Note: Nearly 30 percent of the victims were illegal immigrants themselves. The remainder were U.S. citizens.
Shorter Schurman-Kauflin, between the lines: your friendly illegal immigrant gardener is probably a drunken, doped up sex maniac who will rape your daughter and leave her for dead if you turn your back.
Let's be fair. Schurman-Kauflin is a Ph.D. With those credentials, certainly we should give her the benefit of the doubt. Surely she arrived at these conclusions objectively, scientifically, and with great care. After all, her work is being published by Family Security Matters, a renowned scientific journal with no skin in the illegal immigration game.
Some excerpts, to wit:
After conducting a 12-month in-depth study of illegal immigrants who committed sex crimes and murders for the time period of January 1999 through April 2006, it is clear that the U.S. public faces a dangerous threat from sex predators who cross the U.S. borders illegally.
There were 1,500 cases analyzed in depth. They included: serial rapes, serial murders, sexual homicides, and child molestation committed by illegal immigrants. Police reports, public records, interviews with police, and media accounts were all included. Offenders were located in 36 states, but it is clear that the most of the offenders were located in states with the highest numbers of illegal immigrants. California was number one, followed by Texas, Arizona, New Jersey, New York, and Florida.
The first thing you should note is where Schurman-Kauflin begins. She begins by studying 1,500 sex crimes committed by illegal immigrants, and somehow finds her way to the conclusion that illegal immigrants are disproportionately likely to commit sex crimes.
No control group.
Not a word devoted to how she sourced her data.
We are asked to trust Schurman-Kauflin -- who provides no footnotes, no bibliography, and cites no specific sources -- because, well, like she said, it was a "12-month, in-depth" study.
Based on population numbers of 12,000,000 illegal immigrants and the fact that young males make up more of this population than the general U.S. population, sex offenders in the illegal immigrant group make up a higher percentage. When examining ICE reports and public records, it is consistent to find sex offenders comprising 2 percent of illegals apprehended. Based on this 2 percent figure, which is conservative, there are approximately 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders in the United States.
This translates to 93 sex offenders and 12 serial sexual offenders coming across U.S. borders illegally per day. The 1,500 offenders in this study had a total of 5,999 victims. Each sex offender averaged 4 victims. This places the estimate for victimization numbers around 960,000 for the 88 months examined in this study.
See the nugget there, in boldface? The author's "proof" for the assertion that illegals are more likely to be sex offenders is that they are more likely to be young and male. But this is not a screed about young males, but brown rapists, so having made her point, she quickly moves on.
Moves on, specifically, to extrapolate her miniscule study to generate numbers as large and as menacing and as full of zeroes and commas as humanly possible.
She studied 1,500 offenders who had committed four offenses each. But don't ask yourself whether more chronic offenders were more likely to have been caught and therefore have become Dr. Schurman-Kauflin's subjects than one-time offenders. Don't ask yourself whether in Dr. Schurman-Kauflin's black box methodology she purposely requested files on multiple offenders. Simply apply the multiple and produce your big number. Voila.
As for linking to or citing the ICE data she quotes, why bother? Extraneous details when you're as bodaciously credentialed as the author. In fact, why even bother saying what ICE is? Why let the well-known liberal bias of facts get in the way of a good boogeyman story?
Schurman-Kauflin certainly doesn't. If anything, her boogeyman story gets even scarier:
Of the 1,500 cases reviewed, 525 (35 percent) were child molestations, 358 (24 percent) were rapes, and 617 (41 percent) were sexual homicides and serial murders. Of the child molestations, 47 percent of the victims were Hispanic, 36 percent were Caucasian, 8 percent were Asian, 6 percent were African American, and 3 percent were other nationalities. In most instances, the offenders were familiar with their victims. In fact, 82 percent of the victims were known to their attackers. The other 18 percent were molested by strangers. In those instances, the illegal immigrants typically gained access to the victims after having worked as a day laborer at or near the victims’ homes. Victims ranged in age from 1 year old to 13 years old, with the average age being 6.
Translation: be afraid. The Mexican molester is a person in your neighborhood.
Don't even ask me to explain how 35% of the victims were children, but the victims ranged in age from 1 year old to 13 years old with the average age being 6. It's not important. She's on a roll.
Not only were victims raped, but some (6 percent) were mutilated. The crime scenes were very bloody, expressing intense, angry perpetrator personalities. Specifically, most victims were blitzed, rendered incapable of fighting back, and then raped and murdered.
BOO!
The highest number came from Mexico. El Salvador was the original home to the next highest number of sexual offenders. Other countries of origin included: Brazil, China, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico*, Russia, and Vietnam.
As they say in target shooting, "Nice grouping!"
Many offenders were unkempt in appearance and worked with their hands.
Shudder.
Most simply ran to the southern U.S. border after being connected with their sex offenses.
Who's busting these psychos, the Keystone Fucking Cops?
"Look, a swarthy four-time rapist! I'd take him down, but I'm wearing pumps!"
I really should not make jokes. Because as easy as it is for some of us to identify amateur tripe masquerading as serious social study, it is not so easy for others, and it is all to easy for popular bunkum to morph into conventional wisdom which is in turn used to justify all manner of insidious social policy.
And don't think for a minute this is just about illegal immigration. It dogwhistles to and reinforces the stereotypes of all manner of racists who seek to indoctrinate others on the margins of white America and create a common enemy in dark-skinned people regardless of national origin and social status.
Xenophobic, hysterical, irresponsible, high-octane hate masquerading as science is never okay. I encourage all of you to share your thoughts with Dr. Schurman-Kauflin by e-mailing her at profiler@drdsk.com. I will be sending her a link to this diary, and encouraging her to defend her "thesis" here.
Though I won't hold my breath.