How Trustworthy is This Factoid?

Posted on September 24, 2003 in Immigration Journalists & Pundits

Members of the current affairs discussion group were distressed when they read that California allows illegal aliens to attend state universities as California residents. When I questioned the author’s veracity, I got the “it’s all over the media” line.

Yes, I should trust the same media which failed to investigate the truthfulness of the President’s rationale for war (among other things) when it relates a factoid about illegal aliens on the eve of a California election.

Even if this were true (one discussant said that it probably wasn’t allowed under the law but believed that admission officers may well have put it into place on a de facto basis) we run into the question of significance. How many illegal aliens do this? No numbers seem to be available and I suspect that it is less than a hundred, probably less than twenty. The proper response is “So what?” How many less deserving students were admitted to their father’s alma mater despite their inferior grades and test scores? (At least one and it is significant because he stole the White House.)

---

A favorite whine of conservatives is that Mexico is using us as a safety valve. By not doing anything about the flow of illegal aliens, they are preventing revolution in their own country. The next time I hear this argument, I think I shall say “So, you want a war? You would rather see these people dead than serving you your hamburger and Freedom Fries?”

“You say you want a revolution, weeelllll, you know….”

John Lennon would probably work a comment about George W. Bush and Ahnold into the lyrics if he were alive today.