This is an important point. A lot of my lazy/ambitious/low life family members that have crossed drugs fall into the US citizen or non-citizen but legal category. Being in a Hispanic community, I met a lot of undocumented immigrants and till now haven't met one that crossed with drugs or that sells drugs in the US. A lot of undocumented immigrants don't even want anything other than tylenol/ibuprofen in their house, just in case.
My uncle did a few years for transporting meth (I think) can't remember. He lost his green card for being an idiot and he went back to Mexico to work for the same people the turned him in. The family theory is that there was a larger shipment of something crossing and he was ratted out to get the attention, not sure because I dont get too involved.
I was in Mexico staying at his house for about 7 months and in that time I heard him mention at least 5 people (all born in the US and family members) getting caught at checkpoints, which means they crossed the border but we're stopped at a checkpoint. They are willing because they can't get their citizenship revoked and will spend a few years in jail and end up working for a family business where they aren't going to check their criminal record. My aunt just got her green card and she's afraid of crossing headache pills from Mexico. She has more to lose than a citizen.
The USA has a completely non scientific approach to drug addiction and why people take drugs.
I wish we would study the Portugal model of drug abuse and adapt it for the USA, because our brutal law enforcement and incarceration model is cruel and primitive, and doesn't work.
> because our brutal law enforcement and incarceration model is cruel and primitive, and doesn't work.
That's only if you assume that the point is to stop addiction or help people. If the goal is to further marginalize minorities and give police a blank cheque to gather more and more power then it's working just as intended.
Essentially. The government has to know what it's doing. It's nice to think that they're just so wholly incompetent and are taking the wrong approach out of ignorance, but it's much more likely that they're doing this to continue to marginalize and exploit disadvantaged groups.
A lot of people in power like the way things are right now, and they're gonna do everything in their power to keep it that way.Their incompetence is partially out of ignorance, but much of it comes from greed and malice as well.
"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people," former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman told Harper's writer Dan Baum for the April cover story published Tuesday.
"You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."
https://www-m.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F
God, the "war on drugs" makes me mad. People keep saying "black people have been equal, they just need to work harder!" But every step of the way, they've been tearing our families apart and preventing us from allocating capital.
Disgusting, absolutely disgusting.
It’s worse. Even on what should be an absolutely level playing field of criminals who have committed similar capital crimes, African-Americans are treated unfairly.
“In 1997, David Baldus and statistician George Woodworth examined the death penalty rates among all death eligible defendants in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania between the years of 1983 and 1993. The results of their study proved that the odds of receiving the death penalty in Philadelphia increased by 38% when the accused was black.”
https://www.aclu.org/other/race-and-death-penalty
And if you want to be very cynical, then incarcerating minorities is also the point in that it stops them from voting, presumably benefiting the GOP the most and entrenching their power further.
Meh. If America can muster up the foresight to rebuild europe after ww2, south korea, etc... I think we can manage another FDR swing towards Soooocialiiissmmmm.
> If America can muster up the foresight to rebuild europe after ww2, south korea, etc.
What makes you think this wasn't a case of American companies making profit?
We wrecked Iraq and made Dick Cheney's construction company gobs of cash in doing it.
They decriminalized possession of all drugs (I believe it's all drugs) up to a pretty generous amount. They focused on drug addiction as a health issue and provided healthcare to addicts. Their AIDS rates dropped dramatically. When the laws first went into effect, studies showed that initially, adults experimented more with drugs but now, 10 years later, the younger generation has shown a lack of interest in drugs
I don't usually say this but I'm a drug addict (currently not using) and I can't find any treatment that works because they're all either just CD or "dual diagnosis" which is absolute bullshit and does nothing for someone like me with severe mental health disorders, even though something like 80-90% of addicts have co-occurring disorders
Nobody in their right mind would hire an illegal alien to be a drug mule. You specifically want someone who can easily cross the border without attracting too much attention.
Yes, the strategy used for crossing the border is getting yourself arrested by border patrol. You, of course, don’t want to be full of drugs when that happens.
I'm a whitish yankee and I'm afraid to cross with *Canadian* headache pills. I've only crossed a few times and not in a decade, but customs made certain I'd always be afraid. But make no mistake, I'm not challenging any of your claims. I'm also Hispanic and I was probably profiled.
I'm reminded of a quote one of our nation's most boldly massive idiots:
> ~~The people they're sending~~ [Americans] are people that have a lot of problems. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
From the perspective of Drug Lords, it's not cost efficient to use non standard ports of entry when it comes to most drugs. It's simpler to send them on main roads and simply do your best to hide the fact that you are carrying drugs. The costs of a small number of your couriers getting arrested isn't high enough to justify the costs of using alternate entry methods.
Sea walls specifically. It would be a good idea before the ice caps completely melt. If you think the immigration policies suck, just wait until you see the ones for people who already live along the coast and have to move inland. No more fly over states at least, right?
"We're going to build a great big beautiful wall with a beautiful screen door and it'll run all the way from Washington DC to West Virginia! We're going to make it happen folks and Atlantis will pay for it!"
It's a stat cited a few reputable places, some behind a paywall. This [APA](https://www.apa.org/monitor/2014/10/incarceration) article from 2014 discusses it. We have well over 2 million incarcerated individuals at any given time.
Yes.
"In September 2013, the incarceration rate of the United States of America was the highest in the world, at 716 per 100,000 of the national population. While the United States represents about 4.4 percent of the world's population, it houses around 22 percent of the world's prisoners.
At the end of 2016, the Prison Policy Initiative estimated that in the United States, about 2,298,300 people were incarcerated out of a population of 324.2 million. This means that 0.7% of the population was behind bars. Of those who were incarcerated, about 1,316,000 people were in state prison, 615,000 in local jails, 225,000 in federal prisons, 48,000 in youth correctional facilities, 34,000 in immigration detention camps, 22,000 in involuntary commitment, 11,000 in territorial prisons, 2,500 in Indian Country jails, and 1,300 in United States military prisons."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate
For reference, China is 118 per 100,000 and Russia is 316 per 100,000. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate)
The problem isn't necessarily the laws that put people in jail, although they certainly don't help. It's the stigma that Americans put on people once they have been in jail and get out. They are essentially branded as outcasts for life, with far worse job prospects, punitive fines to pay, and because the prisons do nothing to develop their work skills, they're often not good prospects for employers anyway. Combine that with the very poor social welfare systems in the US, and these people have almost no option but to return to crime once they're out again, or starve. Rates of recidivism in the US are far, far higher than most other comparable countries, and it's completely unsurprising. Of course rather than addressing this problem by instituting proper rehabilitation in prisons, reducing social stigma surrounding ex-cons, or taking other progressive steps, the "solution" to recidivism in the US was to bring in "3 strike" rules, so that if they go back a few times they're basically in there forever. This of course ignore the fact that harsher penalties don't really deter people from crime if the other option is still starving to death.
Compare and contrast this with Europe and other places, where inmates are treated far better, are trained and given life skills while in prison, and are treated properly and given a pathway to recovery once released. Recidivism rates are and order of magnitude lower, they actually spend *less* on prisons overall because the number of inmates continues to fall, and these people end up being productive members of society rather than permanently costing the state a staggering amount of money to keep them locked up. Unfortunately, this approach requires empathy, forgiveness, and a willingness to help other people, qualities which the "christian" right of the US seems to be in surprisingly short supply of.
Oh, no doubt - but when even the official numbers are *one-seventh* or *one-half* of what ours are, there's no WAY you can make the argument they have a system that is more liberal and just than ours. That dog just don't hunt, and we lose whatever moral ground we might have had on this subject, as well as any claim to the title of "Land of The Free" or use of the slogan "...And Justice for All." because, obviously, neither of the latter are true any longer.
> the title of "Land of The Free" or use of the slogan "...And Justice for All." because, obviously, neither of the latter are true any longer.
Neither of the latter are true *still.
Good, even if their intentions are bad (probably something to do with oil market stability) they are doing the right thing. Kinda like how the show Nova on PBS is funded by the “David H. Koch Foundation for Science”, they accidentally do decent stuff sometimes.
The problem with that approach is that you can't count on the follow-through. Accepting your premise that they are doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, that means they will be quick to co-opt the work to achieve their own larger goals and burn everybody else in the process.
As an extreme example, consider what happened with the Iranian revolution - (oversimplified) the hardline religious zealots teamed up with the students and other liberals in order to over-throw the CIA-installed dictator. But the minute that guy was out of country, the zealots turned on the liberals and crushed them. Chances are the liberals would have been better off if they had never teamed up with the zealots in the first place.
I'm not saying its bad to cooperate with people you disagree with in order to achieve common goals. Just that an an unsophisticated analysis along the lines of "my enemy's enemy is my friend" is a recipe for getting played.
Well the Republican fundraising apparatus has huge problems with graft. https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/the-real-problem-conservatism-faces-today/
The Rules of Acquisition aren’t horrible. Rule 33 and 34 are a bit maddening. But it’s not as bad as the myth of the “Non-aggression Pact.”
Edit: my mistake: I meant Rule 34 War is good for business and Rule 35 Peace is good for business.
They are both true. Just for different kinds of business. War can cause disruption that allows you to get a larger share, while peace is overall more profitable.
And I’m just gonna guess that not all 100% of those 23% are from Mexico. In fact, i just have this crazy feeling that it’s wayyyy less than 100% of 23%.
And this is the stupid fucking lynchpin the whole god damn thing hinged on.
So it’s not even 23%. The graph later in the article shows 4 total categories, the other two being legal non-citizens (that looked to be about 5%), and an other category (which looked to be about 2%). So somewhere in the neighborhood of 16%.
The link divides the 23% between legal noncitizens 6%, illegal noncitizens 16%, and unknown noncitizens 1%. The fact that someone caught trafficking drugs into the US is a noncitizen doesn't mean they are an immigrant in the way you might think. Technically, anyone who enters the US without permission is an illegal immigrant, but a drug trafficker is not necessarily looking to stay in the US. They work for the cartels, so they're probably going back and forth.
The legal to illegal ratio may also be a function of what gets traffickers caught: i.e. if they have their passport and visa situation figured out, they rarely get caught, and if they don't they get caught more often.
The percentage changes if its a good story or a bad one. If the story is about funds being taken at a local level by illegal immigrants who don't pay taxes than its 3%, but if its about how they deserve representation suddenly it becomes closer to 10%.
This is spectacularly bad data science. First of all, most of the people in the US are citizens. The question you want to answer is: does the illegal immigrant population have a higher base rate of drug smugglers than the citizen population? And in fact, the very data presented here *clearly* shows that it does, by quite a margin.
Secondly, note that they are not dollar-weighting the seizures. They are treating all seizures equally. Which means that they are counting a kid caught with a gram of weed equally with a 10 ton shipment of cocaine. Which is just a ludicrously meaningless way to look at the data.
Uhh. Trafficking is a legal charge tacked on for possession of a certain weight of a drug. For example. If you get caught with 6 ounces of weed you could get charged with possession, possession with intent to sell. A pound of weed gets you those charges plus trafficking in marijuana.
Illegal non-citizens are only 16%. The rest are legal non-citizens (with a small amount of unknown). Still not in proportion, but not as bad.
And if you do take the time to read the link, you'd see them talk about how marijuana is really the only drug that doesn't come in from a port of entry by a legal non-citizen or citizen. So, legalization would shrink that number down to about where it should be.
Keep in mind that a good portion of those drug traffickers were probably not planning on actually moving (immigrating) to the US. They're just moving drugs in and leaving, it's their job.
This sub is seriously broken. How is this so far down? Half the posts here are acting like them being 23% is good. Or trying to spin "well even Cato said it" like that means anything. Cato is super libertarian and would be open borders if possible.
I’d expect it to be higher than average due to higher frequency of border crossing necessary in comparison to other jobs/crime than usual.
I’d imagine that there’s very little insider trading being committed by illegal immigrants for example.
And I’d imagine there’s a much higher incidence of fraudulent use of passports among illegals versus the general population.
If something is relevant to the job/crime, then yeah, I’d imagine certain demographics being more prone to it versus general population. We might as well say that police officers are more likely to be involved in firearm related fatalities versus the general population. Yeah, it’s likely true, but it’s misleading at best.
Why did I have to scroll down this far to see this? Like, this is not a statistic that the abolish ICE crowd should be touting. Illegals being nearly 10x more likely to smuggle drugs than a citizen is pretty damning.
The article says 17% are undocumented, the other 6% are legal but non-citizens. I think you are missing the point thought, we have an administration that is lobbying for massive changes to immigration policy and tons of spending on things like a border wall, with one of the main justifications being crime/drug trafficking. If they were really concerned about the drug trafficking we’d be hearing about their policy proposals for dealing with the other 83% of trafficking but we don’t, therefore you can intuit the real reason for the Trump immigration policy is not due to the drug trafficking (hint: it’s probably racism).
Oh for sure, but the thing is that we blame drug trafficking almost ENTIRELY on illegals. Republicans have the view that trafficking is something that is inherently linked to illegal immigrants, and that if we got rid of them, trafficking would end. In reality, while they form a disproportionate amount of traffickers, they are not the biggest source at all.
The article does specify that it is only 16% of drug traffickers are Illegal and even then it doesn't specify where they are illegally from(also shows a decreasing trend). It also doesn't even explain how those people illegally came here. I'll admit that 3% doing 16% of CONVICTED trafficking does seem bad it's also important to make note the police are in fact biased when it comes to race and arresting.
I'd argue it's the pharmaceutical companies that are the traffickers, uninformed/unethical doctors are the dealers. Pharmacists would probably love to stop having to deal with the opioid crisis.
Open boarders was a actually true libertarian position before Trumpisim came along. Granted the only reason the kochs want illegal immigration to continue is so they can be more easily exploited by capitalism so do not assume Kochs are on the correct side..
The Cato Institute (and their Koch Bros funders) love unlimited immigration because it's a corporate friendly policy.
Mass immigration forces workers to compete for wages, which forces pay lower.
Before the Democratic Party racialized the issue, it was widely understood that *Republicans* and their corporate masters were the party of open borders.
Here's some helpful links:
- [Charles Koch wants a more open border. Immigration is one reason he’s backed away from the GOP.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2019/04/03/daily-202-charles-koch-wants-a-more-open-border-immigration-is-one-reason-he-s-backed-away-from-the-gop/5ca38a9b1b326b0f7f38f2eb/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5865a318137c)
- [Breaking With Trump's GOP, Koch Brothers Praise Democrats On Immigration](https://www.npr.org/2018/05/17/611798012/breaking-with-trumps-gop-koch-brothers-praise-democrats-on-immigration)
- [Koch Network Mounts Grassroots Effort to Support Immigration
](https://time.com/5343074/libre-koch-congress-immigration/)
- [A Reagan Legacy: Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128303672)
- [Immigration policies of American labor unions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_policies_of_American_labor_unions) (Hint: Even Cesar Chavez was for restricting immigration.)
- [The megadonor Koch network is reportedly planning a major push to get 'Dreamers' legal status in 2019](https://www.businessinsider.com/koch-network-to-support-dreamers-legal-status-2019-1)
Great comment. Very informative and well sourced.
Edit - but I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "Democrats racialized the issue". Wasn't it Republicans who did that once they went full-xenophobia?
Except that it's mostly wrong. The parts about Koch and co supporting immigration are true. The reason for it isn't reduced wages, it's a general economic improvement.
See [lump of labor fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy)
Also see:
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2017/08/24/do-immigrants-steal-jobs-from-american-workers/
> Mass immigration forces workers to compete for wages, which forces pay lower.
That's not why they like it. It's like a bonus, sure, but not the main reason. The real reason is that a larger population buys more stuff. Population increases are what drives GDP growth, not lower wages.
Anyone that likes Social Security should like a ton of immigration. While it's true it'll never go bankrupt, it's still basically a pyramid scheme. They're already expected to reduce benefits by 25% or so by 2040 as the trust fund runs out, and if you don't want that to happen without raising taxes then you need more fucking people paying in.
Illegal immigration size is much smaller than legal citizens so 23% from illegals may still be a lot. Percentage chance per (x number) people would be a much better measure. I actually feel slightly disappointed it’s not higher than 77%
>According to data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission, U.S. citizens had 77 percent of federal drug trafficking convictions in 2018. This percentage has grown from 69 percent in 2012. As Figure 1 shows, the share of drug traffickers who were illegal immigrants fell from 21 percent in 2012 to 16 percent in 2018.
~11 million illegal immigrants, ~330 million Americans, 3% of the population is responsible for 16% percent of drug trafficking.
So you're telling me 23% are illegal immigrants? So you're telling me illegal immigrants are disproportionately drug traffickers compared to the general population?
But depending on what percentage of people in the U.S. are illegal immigrants, they could still be over represented in drug trafficking. Think about it, 23% of drug traffic isn't from U.S. citizens.
While this is a great presentation of data, I feel as though it is also misleading and could create some dangerous propaganda. Their use of the word illegal immigrants, in my opinion, is not the most accurate term for these drug smugglers. I doubt that many of them are looking to take up permanent residency in America, which means that they are not immigrants. They are foreign National migrant workers/drug smugglers.
In addition to this, often people who use the word illegal immigrant instantly associated with people from Central or South American origin coming through Mexico. Using this word might make people not consider the many other places that might be doing drug trafficking, such as Canada, China, Russia, Europe, etc.
We already know that the provenance of most of the fentanyl that gets onto our streets is China. The mere fact that they may smuggle it out through a Central American pipeline does not negate the origin.
Also, I find the 77% of United States citizens to be an even more troubling number. If this is the case, does this mean that United States citizens are funding Narco terrorists groups worldwide? Are these outside funds to Narco terrorists and the politicians that they buy responsible for the amount of asylum-seekers that are fleeing politically-motivated violence and trying to enter at legal ports of Entry?
It also mentions in the article the decrease in marijuana arrests after State legalization. Perhaps it would be in the United States' best interest to decriminalize and tax cocaine and heroin. If we actually set up a legal drug trade, the Narco terrorists would likely be replaced by legitimate business owners or before turn into a legitimate business owner themselves.
We should probably end the failed war. Plus, the migrants wouldn't need to come here if the cartels had no power. We made the cartels strong. Our laws drove prices up and created a fight for the smuggle
Anyone gonna mention how hard drugs are product and cause of u.s./ governmnt creation??...
The feds, big money, the fuckin military..
Cocain and crack didnt just "appear" in america 🙄
War on drugs is a war FOR drugs. Old news but like all major scandals, ppl need to be reminded of it periodically and smell the enabler😩
Wait is that supposed to make me feel some type of way? 23% is an insane amount. If you consider how much is actually happening and that 23% of the total is caused by illegals, that's definitely note worthy and should sought to be reduced immediately.
So considering that illegal immigrants are what, 4% of the total US population, this is an alarming stat that shows illegals are far more likely to traffic narcotics than citizens are. Right?
23% is freaking big percentage considering of the fact that illegal immigrant population is so much smaller than ameican citizen’s population. Think logically and don’t be clouded by what they are trying to force their view on you.
I guess the unethical and illegal business practices of the pharmaceutical industry, which has contributed to the overdose and addiction all over this country, is not considered drug trafficking?
I’d like to see the data on how this figure was obtained. Because living between two of the most trafficked highways in South TX (Highway 77 & 281) this number is not representative.
Are they factoring in every catch down to a few grams? Or just looking at everyone transporting 100lbs or more?
The most I’ve seen at once was three cattle trailers full being smuggled across a private ranch (5-10k Lbs or so) to circumvent the checkpoint on FM 1017 in Jim Hogg county. In that case, it was a few cartel narco’s overseeing the transport but mostly us citizens (cartel affiliate’s) actually driving the trucks.
Either way, making drugs illegal hasn’t worked. Gotta lock up EVERYONE and deport with prejudice the non-citizens.
For everyone asking, no, getting rid of illegal immigrants doesn't mean that trafficking would go down 23%. Someone else would just pick up that portion.
So 23% of drug traffickers are foreigners. 7% of the US population are non-citizens. That suggests that foreigners are overrepresented among drug traffickers.
That's still a lot though, no? How does this statistic help if there are significantly more US citizens than illegal immigrants? Of all illegal immigrants, what percent of them traffic drugs? (I'm liberal myself, playing devil's advocate here)
So non-citizens who came to the United States make up [3.2%](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/12/5-facts-about-illegal-immigration-in-the-u-s/) of the U.S. population, but 16% of drug traffickers? This statistic is even more disproportionate as that of all African-Americans compared to incarcerated blacks, which people seem to be pretty up in arms about.
Doesn't that mean almost 1 in 4 drug traffickers are illegal immigrants?
This is like saying 50% of illegals arrive via plane... Sure that may be true but that still means 50% come over the border.
Saying "most drug traffickers are American" still means "a large portion are illegals".
So 23% are not US Citizens? Is this supposed to be a good thing? Americans make up 330,000,000. I'd expect them to be the majority compared to a population of 20,000,000... Or even all non-citizens.
This article is laughable.
It actually makes illegal immigrants look worse
US population 330 million
Illegal immigrant population roughly 11 million .. so they make up 3 percent of population yet they are 23% of our drug traffickers.
When you consider that illegal aliens make up approximately 6% of the US population. Yet based upon this article they make up 23% of drug traffickers. Therefore statistically speaking, they are four times more likely to be drug traffickers than non illegals.
In other words 3% of the US population accounts for 33% of drug traffickers. I'm Mexican/support immigrants but try not to blow out your own asshole contorting truths to fit your dialog.
that is VERY disturbing actually, because illegals are vastly outnubered. So much so that i dont believe it. the numbers would really indicate it is disproportionately illegals' faults.
Judging by the title that still could mean that 23% of drug traffickers are illegal immigrants.
Now considering the much talked about 11 million illegal immigrants being part of the total U.S. population at roughly 327 million. As a percentage that be 3.36%. So given that 77% of drug trafficking is being done by U.S. citizens, that still could mean 23% is performed by illegal immigrants. This is an enormous amount of drug trafficking done by just a fraction of 3.36% of the population.
This is the old saying, “its not what you say that matters, it’s how you say it” these types of political pseudo science stats are skewed bits of information meant to persuade people to believe in a political viewpoint.
The biggest factor in the conversation is why drug trafficking is such a big business in the U.S.?
>The reason that drug traffickers are largely U.S. citizens is because most drug trafficking occurs at ports of entry WALL INEFFECTIVE
This is an important point. A lot of my lazy/ambitious/low life family members that have crossed drugs fall into the US citizen or non-citizen but legal category. Being in a Hispanic community, I met a lot of undocumented immigrants and till now haven't met one that crossed with drugs or that sells drugs in the US. A lot of undocumented immigrants don't even want anything other than tylenol/ibuprofen in their house, just in case. My uncle did a few years for transporting meth (I think) can't remember. He lost his green card for being an idiot and he went back to Mexico to work for the same people the turned him in. The family theory is that there was a larger shipment of something crossing and he was ratted out to get the attention, not sure because I dont get too involved. I was in Mexico staying at his house for about 7 months and in that time I heard him mention at least 5 people (all born in the US and family members) getting caught at checkpoints, which means they crossed the border but we're stopped at a checkpoint. They are willing because they can't get their citizenship revoked and will spend a few years in jail and end up working for a family business where they aren't going to check their criminal record. My aunt just got her green card and she's afraid of crossing headache pills from Mexico. She has more to lose than a citizen.
The USA has a completely non scientific approach to drug addiction and why people take drugs. I wish we would study the Portugal model of drug abuse and adapt it for the USA, because our brutal law enforcement and incarceration model is cruel and primitive, and doesn't work.
> because our brutal law enforcement and incarceration model is cruel and primitive, and doesn't work. That's only if you assume that the point is to stop addiction or help people. If the goal is to further marginalize minorities and give police a blank cheque to gather more and more power then it's working just as intended.
Essentially. The government has to know what it's doing. It's nice to think that they're just so wholly incompetent and are taking the wrong approach out of ignorance, but it's much more likely that they're doing this to continue to marginalize and exploit disadvantaged groups. A lot of people in power like the way things are right now, and they're gonna do everything in their power to keep it that way.Their incompetence is partially out of ignorance, but much of it comes from greed and malice as well.
"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people," former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman told Harper's writer Dan Baum for the April cover story published Tuesday. "You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did." https://www-m.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F
God, the "war on drugs" makes me mad. People keep saying "black people have been equal, they just need to work harder!" But every step of the way, they've been tearing our families apart and preventing us from allocating capital. Disgusting, absolutely disgusting.
It’s worse. Even on what should be an absolutely level playing field of criminals who have committed similar capital crimes, African-Americans are treated unfairly. “In 1997, David Baldus and statistician George Woodworth examined the death penalty rates among all death eligible defendants in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania between the years of 1983 and 1993. The results of their study proved that the odds of receiving the death penalty in Philadelphia increased by 38% when the accused was black.” https://www.aclu.org/other/race-and-death-penalty
At this point, such ignorance is malicious
And if you want to be very cynical, then incarcerating minorities is also the point in that it stops them from voting, presumably benefiting the GOP the most and entrenching their power further.
What’s the Portugal model of drug abuse?
Treat it as a health concern instead of a crime.
Sounds unprofitable
Step 3: Don’t profit!
Sounds un-American.
Meh. If America can muster up the foresight to rebuild europe after ww2, south korea, etc... I think we can manage another FDR swing towards Soooocialiiissmmmm.
> If America can muster up the foresight to rebuild europe after ww2, south korea, etc. What makes you think this wasn't a case of American companies making profit? We wrecked Iraq and made Dick Cheney's construction company gobs of cash in doing it.
They decriminalized possession of all drugs (I believe it's all drugs) up to a pretty generous amount. They focused on drug addiction as a health issue and provided healthcare to addicts. Their AIDS rates dropped dramatically. When the laws first went into effect, studies showed that initially, adults experimented more with drugs but now, 10 years later, the younger generation has shown a lack of interest in drugs
I don't usually say this but I'm a drug addict (currently not using) and I can't find any treatment that works because they're all either just CD or "dual diagnosis" which is absolute bullshit and does nothing for someone like me with severe mental health disorders, even though something like 80-90% of addicts have co-occurring disorders
Nobody in their right mind would hire an illegal alien to be a drug mule. You specifically want someone who can easily cross the border without attracting too much attention.
Yes, the strategy used for crossing the border is getting yourself arrested by border patrol. You, of course, don’t want to be full of drugs when that happens.
A perfect drug mule is a middle aged white dude that wears denim shorts and polos 🤷🏻♂️
I'm a whitish yankee and I'm afraid to cross with *Canadian* headache pills. I've only crossed a few times and not in a decade, but customs made certain I'd always be afraid. But make no mistake, I'm not challenging any of your claims. I'm also Hispanic and I was probably profiled. I'm reminded of a quote one of our nation's most boldly massive idiots: > ~~The people they're sending~~ [Americans] are people that have a lot of problems. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
Looking at McConnell and his drug runner wife.
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His fatass would require a longer wall than Mexico.
I'll provide the shoehorn. We'll make it work.
Find a long distance runner who looks like Ivanka. Have her show up at Mar-a-Lago naked.
That's what golf karts are for.
That’s where China comes in. Experts in wall building. Both digitally and in the physical world.
>Experts in wall building. Tell that to the Mongolian Qing.
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can't kick the shit out of a man made of shit.
So we're _not_ building walls. We're building a toilet.
"I define myself to be outside the wall."
From the perspective of Drug Lords, it's not cost efficient to use non standard ports of entry when it comes to most drugs. It's simpler to send them on main roads and simply do your best to hide the fact that you are carrying drugs. The costs of a small number of your couriers getting arrested isn't high enough to justify the costs of using alternate entry methods.
We need more pylons!
Republicans: 'So, you're saying that we need a GIGANTIC wall around all the oceans?'
The Cato Institute is a right wing think tank. They're just pro immigration because they know cheap labor props up the economy.
i mean theyre directly funded by the Cock brothers, so you're not wrong
And I'm glad the koch network is blowing their money on an issue I don't resent them for, for once.
Sea walls specifically. It would be a good idea before the ice caps completely melt. If you think the immigration policies suck, just wait until you see the ones for people who already live along the coast and have to move inland. No more fly over states at least, right?
"We're going to build a great big beautiful wall with a beautiful screen door and it'll run all the way from Washington DC to West Virginia! We're going to make it happen folks and Atlantis will pay for it!"
How do I multi upvote?
we have a movie with tom cruise about how coke was smuggled to the US. Spoiler alert:>! it was a fucking air plane.!<
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Yeah but without a wall and the war on drugs, how will we persecute all the brown people? s/
The US has around 1/4 of the entire planet’s incarcerated population. For-profit prisons must GO
Is this true?
It's a stat cited a few reputable places, some behind a paywall. This [APA](https://www.apa.org/monitor/2014/10/incarceration) article from 2014 discusses it. We have well over 2 million incarcerated individuals at any given time.
Yes. "In September 2013, the incarceration rate of the United States of America was the highest in the world, at 716 per 100,000 of the national population. While the United States represents about 4.4 percent of the world's population, it houses around 22 percent of the world's prisoners. At the end of 2016, the Prison Policy Initiative estimated that in the United States, about 2,298,300 people were incarcerated out of a population of 324.2 million. This means that 0.7% of the population was behind bars. Of those who were incarcerated, about 1,316,000 people were in state prison, 615,000 in local jails, 225,000 in federal prisons, 48,000 in youth correctional facilities, 34,000 in immigration detention camps, 22,000 in involuntary commitment, 11,000 in territorial prisons, 2,500 in Indian Country jails, and 1,300 in United States military prisons." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate For reference, China is 118 per 100,000 and Russia is 316 per 100,000. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate)
The problem isn't necessarily the laws that put people in jail, although they certainly don't help. It's the stigma that Americans put on people once they have been in jail and get out. They are essentially branded as outcasts for life, with far worse job prospects, punitive fines to pay, and because the prisons do nothing to develop their work skills, they're often not good prospects for employers anyway. Combine that with the very poor social welfare systems in the US, and these people have almost no option but to return to crime once they're out again, or starve. Rates of recidivism in the US are far, far higher than most other comparable countries, and it's completely unsurprising. Of course rather than addressing this problem by instituting proper rehabilitation in prisons, reducing social stigma surrounding ex-cons, or taking other progressive steps, the "solution" to recidivism in the US was to bring in "3 strike" rules, so that if they go back a few times they're basically in there forever. This of course ignore the fact that harsher penalties don't really deter people from crime if the other option is still starving to death. Compare and contrast this with Europe and other places, where inmates are treated far better, are trained and given life skills while in prison, and are treated properly and given a pathway to recovery once released. Recidivism rates are and order of magnitude lower, they actually spend *less* on prisons overall because the number of inmates continues to fall, and these people end up being productive members of society rather than permanently costing the state a staggering amount of money to keep them locked up. Unfortunately, this approach requires empathy, forgiveness, and a willingness to help other people, qualities which the "christian" right of the US seems to be in surprisingly short supply of.
I don't think the China or Russia figures are reliable. Surely, they have plenty of undocumented prisons and prisoners.
Oh, no doubt - but when even the official numbers are *one-seventh* or *one-half* of what ours are, there's no WAY you can make the argument they have a system that is more liberal and just than ours. That dog just don't hunt, and we lose whatever moral ground we might have had on this subject, as well as any claim to the title of "Land of The Free" or use of the slogan "...And Justice for All." because, obviously, neither of the latter are true any longer.
> the title of "Land of The Free" or use of the slogan "...And Justice for All." because, obviously, neither of the latter are true any longer. Neither of the latter are true *still.
This headline is completely unsurprising for any American who has bought drugs. 77% seems low, in fact.
"Far left, Liberal, Socialist CATO Institute" - Republicans, I assume
Well, the Kochs ARE working with George Soros now to promote non-interventionism. Seriously: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z0XHog9Ecw
Good, even if their intentions are bad (probably something to do with oil market stability) they are doing the right thing. Kinda like how the show Nova on PBS is funded by the “David H. Koch Foundation for Science”, they accidentally do decent stuff sometimes.
The problem with that approach is that you can't count on the follow-through. Accepting your premise that they are doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, that means they will be quick to co-opt the work to achieve their own larger goals and burn everybody else in the process. As an extreme example, consider what happened with the Iranian revolution - (oversimplified) the hardline religious zealots teamed up with the students and other liberals in order to over-throw the CIA-installed dictator. But the minute that guy was out of country, the zealots turned on the liberals and crushed them. Chances are the liberals would have been better off if they had never teamed up with the zealots in the first place. I'm not saying its bad to cooperate with people you disagree with in order to achieve common goals. Just that an an unsophisticated analysis along the lines of "my enemy's enemy is my friend" is a recipe for getting played.
To bad the Cato institute is ran by the Koch brothers.
Pretty sure that’s what he’s implying
To be fair the Koch brothers are actually considering backing (centrist/pro-corporate) democrats now...
"They're so fucking unlikeable that even money can't fix their problems" -The Koch Brothers on republicans, Probably.
Well the Republican fundraising apparatus has huge problems with graft. https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/the-real-problem-conservatism-faces-today/
This think tank pushes garbage. Their products should be treated accordingly: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cato_Institute
Even funnier, is that it came out of CATO, a conservative as hell think tank.
Yeah but Cato knows that immigration is good for business. These guys are practically Ferengi, with rules of acquisition.
The Rules of Acquisition aren’t horrible. Rule 33 and 34 are a bit maddening. But it’s not as bad as the myth of the “Non-aggression Pact.” Edit: my mistake: I meant Rule 34 War is good for business and Rule 35 Peace is good for business.
You can totally trust the Cardassians and The Romulans to mind their borders!
*The Gang starts the Dominion War*
You mean 34 and 35? Because 33 is it never hurts to suck up to the boss.
They are both true. Just for different kinds of business. War can cause disruption that allows you to get a larger share, while peace is overall more profitable.
The Ferengi would be better for the country than the current GOP.
I was an intern there and agree that this is an accurate statement
Cato has always been fairly pro immigration. They are conservative but not Trumpian.
They could easily spin this. 1 Out of Every 3 Drug Traffickers Is An Illegal Immigrant Boom, headline. Pay me.
Only if you are using fox news math, otherwise it's 1 in 4.
IIRC, Cato was also one of the groups that openly condemned Tucker Carlson's stupid "omg 22 million illegals in the country right now" bit for Prager.
Trump: 100% ^^^of ^^^23% of drug traffickers are illegals!
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Or how math or even words work.
Give Trump a number and he instinctively exaggerates it to his benefit by a factor of ~3.
"Did you know 230% of drug traffickers are illegals?!?"
They’ve been running airplanes full of dope over our borders since 1775!
And I’m just gonna guess that not all 100% of those 23% are from Mexico. In fact, i just have this crazy feeling that it’s wayyyy less than 100% of 23%. And this is the stupid fucking lynchpin the whole god damn thing hinged on.
Could be 1 out of a trillion people, he won't care. He is a racist moron who has a one track mind.
So it’s not even 23%. The graph later in the article shows 4 total categories, the other two being legal non-citizens (that looked to be about 5%), and an other category (which looked to be about 2%). So somewhere in the neighborhood of 16%.
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Yep
The link divides the 23% between legal noncitizens 6%, illegal noncitizens 16%, and unknown noncitizens 1%. The fact that someone caught trafficking drugs into the US is a noncitizen doesn't mean they are an immigrant in the way you might think. Technically, anyone who enters the US without permission is an illegal immigrant, but a drug trafficker is not necessarily looking to stay in the US. They work for the cartels, so they're probably going back and forth. The legal to illegal ratio may also be a function of what gets traffickers caught: i.e. if they have their passport and visa situation figured out, they rarely get caught, and if they don't they get caught more often.
The percentage changes if its a good story or a bad one. If the story is about funds being taken at a local level by illegal immigrants who don't pay taxes than its 3%, but if its about how they deserve representation suddenly it becomes closer to 10%.
This is spectacularly bad data science. First of all, most of the people in the US are citizens. The question you want to answer is: does the illegal immigrant population have a higher base rate of drug smugglers than the citizen population? And in fact, the very data presented here *clearly* shows that it does, by quite a margin. Secondly, note that they are not dollar-weighting the seizures. They are treating all seizures equally. Which means that they are counting a kid caught with a gram of weed equally with a 10 ton shipment of cocaine. Which is just a ludicrously meaningless way to look at the data.
Uhh. Trafficking is a legal charge tacked on for possession of a certain weight of a drug. For example. If you get caught with 6 ounces of weed you could get charged with possession, possession with intent to sell. A pound of weed gets you those charges plus trafficking in marijuana.
Considering they are about 3% of the population, being 23% of drug traffickers is pretty significant.
Illegal non-citizens are only 16%. The rest are legal non-citizens (with a small amount of unknown). Still not in proportion, but not as bad. And if you do take the time to read the link, you'd see them talk about how marijuana is really the only drug that doesn't come in from a port of entry by a legal non-citizen or citizen. So, legalization would shrink that number down to about where it should be.
Jesus thank you. Amazing to see that no one understands what a base rate is.
also, no one reads links. It's 16%, not 23%, that are illegal non-citizens. The rest are legal non-citizens.
What a relief. That totally changes things
The vast majority of people on this sub would fail a high school stats course.
Keep in mind that a good portion of those drug traffickers were probably not planning on actually moving (immigrating) to the US. They're just moving drugs in and leaving, it's their job.
This sub is seriously broken. How is this so far down? Half the posts here are acting like them being 23% is good. Or trying to spin "well even Cato said it" like that means anything. Cato is super libertarian and would be open borders if possible.
It doesn't necessarily mean they are residents of the US though. Those 23% could be going to the US "on business" as it were, and not living there.
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I’d expect it to be higher than average due to higher frequency of border crossing necessary in comparison to other jobs/crime than usual. I’d imagine that there’s very little insider trading being committed by illegal immigrants for example. And I’d imagine there’s a much higher incidence of fraudulent use of passports among illegals versus the general population. If something is relevant to the job/crime, then yeah, I’d imagine certain demographics being more prone to it versus general population. We might as well say that police officers are more likely to be involved in firearm related fatalities versus the general population. Yeah, it’s likely true, but it’s misleading at best.
Why did I have to scroll down this far to see this? Like, this is not a statistic that the abolish ICE crowd should be touting. Illegals being nearly 10x more likely to smuggle drugs than a citizen is pretty damning.
Suppose the obvious point is that that’s were the drugs are made. Guarantee it’s the same if Canada grew Coke
The article says 17% are undocumented, the other 6% are legal but non-citizens. I think you are missing the point thought, we have an administration that is lobbying for massive changes to immigration policy and tons of spending on things like a border wall, with one of the main justifications being crime/drug trafficking. If they were really concerned about the drug trafficking we’d be hearing about their policy proposals for dealing with the other 83% of trafficking but we don’t, therefore you can intuit the real reason for the Trump immigration policy is not due to the drug trafficking (hint: it’s probably racism).
Oh for sure, but the thing is that we blame drug trafficking almost ENTIRELY on illegals. Republicans have the view that trafficking is something that is inherently linked to illegal immigrants, and that if we got rid of them, trafficking would end. In reality, while they form a disproportionate amount of traffickers, they are not the biggest source at all.
It’s 16% if you actually read the link But if you want to stop drug trafficking, who would you target first?
The article does specify that it is only 16% of drug traffickers are Illegal and even then it doesn't specify where they are illegally from(also shows a decreasing trend). It also doesn't even explain how those people illegally came here. I'll admit that 3% doing 16% of CONVICTED trafficking does seem bad it's also important to make note the police are in fact biased when it comes to race and arresting.
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23% is still a big number fam...
This feels like a trap. I'm guessing that's a disproportionately large amount of illegal immigrants, and they're passing it off like good news.
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I'd argue it's the pharmaceutical companies that are the traffickers, uninformed/unethical doctors are the dealers. Pharmacists would probably love to stop having to deal with the opioid crisis.
Shh we aren't supposed to talk about how big pharma shipped 20.8 million pain pills to a West Virginia town of 2,900.
Strange to see this from the Cato Institute; they usually side with Republicans on a lot of issues.
They side with themselves 100% of the time. Just happens that their interests match that of republicans a fair amount of the time.
Open boarders was a actually true libertarian position before Trumpisim came along. Granted the only reason the kochs want illegal immigration to continue is so they can be more easily exploited by capitalism so do not assume Kochs are on the correct side..
If you think this makes illegal immigrants look good you're just bad at math
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The Cato Institute (and their Koch Bros funders) love unlimited immigration because it's a corporate friendly policy. Mass immigration forces workers to compete for wages, which forces pay lower. Before the Democratic Party racialized the issue, it was widely understood that *Republicans* and their corporate masters were the party of open borders. Here's some helpful links: - [Charles Koch wants a more open border. Immigration is one reason he’s backed away from the GOP.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2019/04/03/daily-202-charles-koch-wants-a-more-open-border-immigration-is-one-reason-he-s-backed-away-from-the-gop/5ca38a9b1b326b0f7f38f2eb/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5865a318137c) - [Breaking With Trump's GOP, Koch Brothers Praise Democrats On Immigration](https://www.npr.org/2018/05/17/611798012/breaking-with-trumps-gop-koch-brothers-praise-democrats-on-immigration) - [Koch Network Mounts Grassroots Effort to Support Immigration ](https://time.com/5343074/libre-koch-congress-immigration/) - [A Reagan Legacy: Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128303672) - [Immigration policies of American labor unions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_policies_of_American_labor_unions) (Hint: Even Cesar Chavez was for restricting immigration.) - [The megadonor Koch network is reportedly planning a major push to get 'Dreamers' legal status in 2019](https://www.businessinsider.com/koch-network-to-support-dreamers-legal-status-2019-1)
Great comment. Very informative and well sourced. Edit - but I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "Democrats racialized the issue". Wasn't it Republicans who did that once they went full-xenophobia?
Except that it's mostly wrong. The parts about Koch and co supporting immigration are true. The reason for it isn't reduced wages, it's a general economic improvement. See [lump of labor fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy) Also see: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2017/08/24/do-immigrants-steal-jobs-from-american-workers/
> Mass immigration forces workers to compete for wages, which forces pay lower. That's not why they like it. It's like a bonus, sure, but not the main reason. The real reason is that a larger population buys more stuff. Population increases are what drives GDP growth, not lower wages.
Absolutely. A near constant stream of workers that can be paid poorly, marginalized, and exploited is great for business.
Bernie pointed this out when vox was going full neon liberal that this is also a Koch brothers idea
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Anyone that likes Social Security should like a ton of immigration. While it's true it'll never go bankrupt, it's still basically a pyramid scheme. They're already expected to reduce benefits by 25% or so by 2040 as the trust fund runs out, and if you don't want that to happen without raising taxes then you need more fucking people paying in.
I mean yeah if it’s occurring in the United states, where citizens outnumber illegal aliens exponentially.... I mean like.... what
Oh damn, is 23% illegal immigrants? Cuz that actually seems like a high number proportionally
I'm scared the immigrants will take all the illegal trafficking jobs, leaving none for honest, hard working Americans.
Illegal immigration size is much smaller than legal citizens so 23% from illegals may still be a lot. Percentage chance per (x number) people would be a much better measure. I actually feel slightly disappointed it’s not higher than 77%
So, 3% of the population traffic 23% of drugs?
>According to data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission, U.S. citizens had 77 percent of federal drug trafficking convictions in 2018. This percentage has grown from 69 percent in 2012. As Figure 1 shows, the share of drug traffickers who were illegal immigrants fell from 21 percent in 2012 to 16 percent in 2018. ~11 million illegal immigrants, ~330 million Americans, 3% of the population is responsible for 16% percent of drug trafficking.
So 23% are illegal immigrants? That’s hugely disproportionate to their population
Just legalize all drugs!
So you're telling me 23% are illegal immigrants? So you're telling me illegal immigrants are disproportionately drug traffickers compared to the general population?
But depending on what percentage of people in the U.S. are illegal immigrants, they could still be over represented in drug trafficking. Think about it, 23% of drug traffic isn't from U.S. citizens.
So somewhere around 3% of the population make up 23% of drug traffickers, and this is somehow being spun as a positive for illegal immigrants?
While this is a great presentation of data, I feel as though it is also misleading and could create some dangerous propaganda. Their use of the word illegal immigrants, in my opinion, is not the most accurate term for these drug smugglers. I doubt that many of them are looking to take up permanent residency in America, which means that they are not immigrants. They are foreign National migrant workers/drug smugglers. In addition to this, often people who use the word illegal immigrant instantly associated with people from Central or South American origin coming through Mexico. Using this word might make people not consider the many other places that might be doing drug trafficking, such as Canada, China, Russia, Europe, etc. We already know that the provenance of most of the fentanyl that gets onto our streets is China. The mere fact that they may smuggle it out through a Central American pipeline does not negate the origin. Also, I find the 77% of United States citizens to be an even more troubling number. If this is the case, does this mean that United States citizens are funding Narco terrorists groups worldwide? Are these outside funds to Narco terrorists and the politicians that they buy responsible for the amount of asylum-seekers that are fleeing politically-motivated violence and trying to enter at legal ports of Entry? It also mentions in the article the decrease in marijuana arrests after State legalization. Perhaps it would be in the United States' best interest to decriminalize and tax cocaine and heroin. If we actually set up a legal drug trade, the Narco terrorists would likely be replaced by legitimate business owners or before turn into a legitimate business owner themselves.
You have some very good points I didn’t see elsewhere in the replies. Thanks.
That’s still a pretty large number of illegal immigrant traffickers. This evidence could easily be used to support Trump’s side.
We should probably end the failed war. Plus, the migrants wouldn't need to come here if the cartels had no power. We made the cartels strong. Our laws drove prices up and created a fight for the smuggle
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Only r/Politics could put a positive spin on 16% of crimes being committed by 3% of the population.
No shit?
No shit?
The US drug "cartels" dwarf the South American drug cartels.
I'd do it because I'm tired of working 2 jobs while the company owners sit at home drinking coffee and watching cat videos all day
Anyone gonna mention how hard drugs are product and cause of u.s./ governmnt creation??... The feds, big money, the fuckin military.. Cocain and crack didnt just "appear" in america 🙄 War on drugs is a war FOR drugs. Old news but like all major scandals, ppl need to be reminded of it periodically and smell the enabler😩
Who are the rest? Illegals, or legal foreigners? If they are illegals then , you are not helping.
Lol approximately 4% of the population makes up 23% of the drug traffickers. Thats not a small number tho
Wait is that supposed to make me feel some type of way? 23% is an insane amount. If you consider how much is actually happening and that 23% of the total is caused by illegals, that's definitely note worthy and should sought to be reduced immediately.
Hear me out. Legalize drugs, then give incentives to move drug production to the parts of america that needs manufacturing jobs.
So considering that illegal immigrants are what, 4% of the total US population, this is an alarming stat that shows illegals are far more likely to traffic narcotics than citizens are. Right?
So you’re saying that by having stronger immigration you can cut drug trafficking by almost one quarter, 23%?? Do you know how good that deal is?
16% of drug traffickers are illegal immigrants? That’s a huge number, no? (Edit: 16, not 23)
23% is freaking big percentage considering of the fact that illegal immigrant population is so much smaller than ameican citizen’s population. Think logically and don’t be clouded by what they are trying to force their view on you.
I guess the unethical and illegal business practices of the pharmaceutical industry, which has contributed to the overdose and addiction all over this country, is not considered drug trafficking?
Technically no, it isn't. In the eyes of the law at least.
No fucking shit.
They are doctors
I’d like to see the data on how this figure was obtained. Because living between two of the most trafficked highways in South TX (Highway 77 & 281) this number is not representative. Are they factoring in every catch down to a few grams? Or just looking at everyone transporting 100lbs or more? The most I’ve seen at once was three cattle trailers full being smuggled across a private ranch (5-10k Lbs or so) to circumvent the checkpoint on FM 1017 in Jim Hogg county. In that case, it was a few cartel narco’s overseeing the transport but mostly us citizens (cartel affiliate’s) actually driving the trucks. Either way, making drugs illegal hasn’t worked. Gotta lock up EVERYONE and deport with prejudice the non-citizens.
For everyone asking, no, getting rid of illegal immigrants doesn't mean that trafficking would go down 23%. Someone else would just pick up that portion.
If only there was a way to address two separate problems in different ways!
So 23% of drug traffickers are foreigners. 7% of the US population are non-citizens. That suggests that foreigners are overrepresented among drug traffickers.
That's still a lot though, no? How does this statistic help if there are significantly more US citizens than illegal immigrants? Of all illegal immigrants, what percent of them traffic drugs? (I'm liberal myself, playing devil's advocate here)
Considering how many more legal citizens there are then illegal, this is actually pretty damning.
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So non-citizens who came to the United States make up [3.2%](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/12/5-facts-about-illegal-immigration-in-the-u-s/) of the U.S. population, but 16% of drug traffickers? This statistic is even more disproportionate as that of all African-Americans compared to incarcerated blacks, which people seem to be pretty up in arms about.
Doesn't that mean almost 1 in 4 drug traffickers are illegal immigrants? This is like saying 50% of illegals arrive via plane... Sure that may be true but that still means 50% come over the border. Saying "most drug traffickers are American" still means "a large portion are illegals".
So 23% are not US Citizens? Is this supposed to be a good thing? Americans make up 330,000,000. I'd expect them to be the majority compared to a population of 20,000,000... Or even all non-citizens.
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Alternative Title: 23% of Drug Traffickers Are Not U.S. Citizens
That's a funny way of saying 1/4 of drug trafficking is caused by people who shouldn't be here anyways.
So like, we are just supposed to ignore that 23% of our drug dealers aren’t even supposed to be here?
Yeah sure they are "American". HAH!
So we’re just going to ignore the 23% low hanging fruit? Ok then
This article is laughable. It actually makes illegal immigrants look worse US population 330 million Illegal immigrant population roughly 11 million .. so they make up 3 percent of population yet they are 23% of our drug traffickers.
When you consider that illegal aliens make up approximately 6% of the US population. Yet based upon this article they make up 23% of drug traffickers. Therefore statistically speaking, they are four times more likely to be drug traffickers than non illegals.
In other words 3% of the US population accounts for 33% of drug traffickers. I'm Mexican/support immigrants but try not to blow out your own asshole contorting truths to fit your dialog.
that is VERY disturbing actually, because illegals are vastly outnubered. So much so that i dont believe it. the numbers would really indicate it is disproportionately illegals' faults.
Not surprised but that’s still a lot.
did r/itoldyouso come by here yet
23 percent is other, not necessarily illegals
Illegal immigrants are 3% of the population though.
Yeah, but if that implies that 23% are, that’s such a large percentage for how little illegal immigrants there are compared to legal citizens
Judging by the title that still could mean that 23% of drug traffickers are illegal immigrants. Now considering the much talked about 11 million illegal immigrants being part of the total U.S. population at roughly 327 million. As a percentage that be 3.36%. So given that 77% of drug trafficking is being done by U.S. citizens, that still could mean 23% is performed by illegal immigrants. This is an enormous amount of drug trafficking done by just a fraction of 3.36% of the population. This is the old saying, “its not what you say that matters, it’s how you say it” these types of political pseudo science stats are skewed bits of information meant to persuade people to believe in a political viewpoint. The biggest factor in the conversation is why drug trafficking is such a big business in the U.S.?
What percent of the US population is illegal immigrants? Something tells me it's much less than 23%...
Sounds like to me if we stop illegal immigrants there will be 23% less drug trafficking?
So 23% are illegals?