America’s Refugee Situation
The last 24 hours has left my stomach churning. With Muslim's being detained at the airport for no reason whatsoever (well, other than Islamophobia), we need to take a minute to consider the facts around one of the most vulnerable segments of the population right now: refugees.
Dumpy Trumpy has spend his entire campaign conflating immigrants, illegal immigrants, and refugees. His followers have tendency to roll these groups of people together, cross-apply facts and statistics, and mangle the reality to promote their xenophobic agenda. I strongly encourage everyone to educate themselves on the differences between these groups. We need to understand the terminology in play if we are to be properly informed and armed with facts, particularly in the face of "alternative facts."
When I was researching refugees, I found that the top suggested article is from Brietbart itself, with an inflammatory headline "More Than 90 Percent of Middle Eastern Refugees on Food Stamps." My response to this: so what? According to the Food Research and Nutrition Agency, as of Sept 2016, the SNAP (food stamp program) had 43,493,667 registered recipients. According to the Pew Research Center, "During the past 15 years, the U.S. has admitted 399,677 Christian refugees and 279,339 Muslim refugees" [Source 1]. If my math is correct, this is 676,016 refugees since 2002 (it should be noted, however, that this is a generous number in itself. This number would exceed the total number of refugees from the countries specifically targeted in Trump's executive order). 676,016 refugee recipients out of 43,493,667 is 1.6% of all recipients. And this is with taking a 100% rate of food stamp usage, as opposed to the 90% Bannon generously gives us. We see here how important it is to not trust inflammatory headlines. Brietbart has been crusading against Islam under the banner of saving resources for American citizens. There is fundamentally nothing wrong with an "America first" mentality, but there is something very, very, very wrong in twisting statistics and facts to paint a false version of America in which refugees are draining and diverting resources away from Americans. This rhetoric is clearly chosen to add to the flame of Islamophobia.
One of the more pervasive arguments I've heard against immigration is that immigrants use welfare programs at a higher rate. This is true. According to a CIS study conducted in 2012, 30.2% of native born households utilize welfare, while this rate is 51.3% of immigrant households. While this might be a damning statistic on surface level, looking at the study shows us that the sample size of native families used in this study was 22,077 million, while 2.98 million immigrant families were sampled. If we look at the net welfare recipients then, buy taking 30.2% of 22,077 million and comparing it with 51.3% of for 2.98 million, we see that the number of native born Americans benefiting from welfare in this study is 666.7 million native households versus 1.5 million immigrant households. Because of this, we see the danger of just looking at the percentages. Yes, a higher percent of immigrants use welfare, but let's think about that. However, the data in this study also shows that of a sample size 668.2 million, almost 99% of recipients are native families. [Source 2, table 1] This shows the importance of looking at a study and interpreting the data in a study without blindly accepting the analysis offered in an article.
I really urge you all to research the facts. Please do not take any studies or statistics at surface level. Look at the studies yourself, open up the .csv files of raw data, know how a study was conducted, and really analyze what numbers make sense in the context of our society. It's not often rates we need to see, but growth rates. Not percentages, but raw figures.
It makes me incredibly happy and hopeful to see the protests going on across America. I support and salute all you wonderful people who are out there on your two feet trying to make a difference. I urge everyone in the resistance movement to not only use their voice, vote, and physical presence to make a stand, but also facts.
As always, please message me and let me know if there is anything inaccurate in this post.
Source 1: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/05/u-s-admits-record-number-of-muslim-refugees-in-2016/
Source 2: http://cis.org/Welfare-Use-Immigrant-Native-Households
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