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Question

Trump administration proposes limiting green cards for those who took public benefits

Do immigrants use up more welfare? This data says there is no correlation.

Where can I find a scatter plot of welfare spending vs. immigrant rate?

Yet this data says immigrants use more welfare (42% vs 27% for natives),
table 12, table 22.

https://cis.org/sites/cis.org/files/immigrant-profile_0.pdf

Use of Means-Tested Programs Welfare Programs by Household Head grouped by immigrant status

How can they both be true?

Just pointing out that the CIS isn't a neutral organization - they're in favor of lower immigration (as their tagline states, "low immigration, pro-immigrant"). — 3 hours ago
Would it be especially notable if they did, though? Going back to Trump's "sh--hole countries" complaint - Who is more likely to uproot and leave their country? People in a stable, economically comfortable situation or someone looking to escape misery and find opportunity elsewhere? One would expect new immigrants to be in a lower average economic strata, in general, than established "natives," and one would people well off are not qualified to collect welfare benefits. — 2 hours ago
^^^^ Just a note - not trashing the question, I like it. Sorry about the random "one would" inhabiting space in my comment for no reason. — 2 hours ago
Methodology is important: I once saw an article in the times newspaper, for example, that reported the numbers into Britain, but they didn't disclose - in that report - how many left. Numbers that you would think would be important to that debate. Perhaps you should do some research into the methodologies adopted by the authors of the study, and perhaps who also funded the study? — 2 hours ago
Since you're to just be trying to figure out which claim is true, your question might get better answers on the Skeptics SE site. — 1 hour ago

score 2 · Answer 1 · 2018-09-24 19:00:01Z

The two points are not incompatible; the first type of study says that immigrants aren't particularly attracted to countries/states with high welfare benefits, as opposed to (say) high salaries.

The second point says that immigrants tend to use more welfare compared to natives once in a country. Now, I don't know if the second (non-peer-reviewed) [CIS] study is correct on this point. But I'm just saying I don't see any contradiction with the first line of inquiry even if this second finding is true. (You may want to challenge the latter on Skeptics SE.)

Note that a CATO study finds the exact opposite of the CIS study

Overall, immigrants are less likely to consume welfare benefits and, when they do, they generally consume a lower dollar value of benefits than native-born Americans.

Good reasons to be skeptical of such think-tank publications (applies to CIS as well).

I don't have a lot interest in this topic, but on a quick evaluation, CATO uses dollar amounts and CIS the number of people who ever used welfare in some way (it seems). The former measure is probably less misleading.

Actually even using percentage of users (by category of benefits), CATO finds the immigrants use less.

enter image description here

That's a more substantive contradiction with the CIS study if that's you're looking for. With such politically motivated studies (both CIS and CATO's), one needs to read carefully the sampling, inclusion criteria etc., and I don't feel terribly inclined to do that now.

score 1 · Answer 2 · 2018-09-24 19:06:28Z

This question is more complicated than just finding correlated data-sets. Let's unpack this.

First, for background, the concept that immigrants aren't supposed to be - using technical immigration term, "public charges" - has always been a part of US immigration law and philosophy.

Leaving aside some rare exceptions (e.g. refugees), any legal immigrant is required to NOT be a public charge, and moreover, any application for immigrant visa - or Green Card - requires you to prove that they can support themselves or have a family member who will (so-called "Affidavit of Support").

The only difference is that previously, INS (or USIC now) did not consider "non-cash" benefits to be part of "public charge" technical definition. One can argue as to the the causes, or the pros and cons of this distinction. But it is irrefutable that both in terms of finance (budget, outlays, spending) as well as in terms of political philosophy ("are you a financial burden on society or not"), this technical distinction of whether the public support one receives is "cash" or "non-cash" is rather academic and artificial (as the Democrats rightfully pointed out when that same academic artificial distinction was being argued over in late 20th century in context of taxing executive stock options).

Second, in theory, legal non-refugee immigrants shouldn't use up any welfare.

According to current immigration law, you shouldn't even be admitted into the country or granted a visa, unless you prove to immigration officer that you would not become a public charge:

You are inadmissible or ineligible to adjust status on public charge grounds if, after consideration of your case in light of all of the minimum factors in section 212(a)(4)(B) of the Act, any Affidavit of Support (Form I-864) filed on your behalf under 8 CFR part 213a, and any other facts that may be relevant, the immigration officer, consular officer, or immigration judge determines that it is likely that you will become primarily dependent for your subsistence on the Government, at any time

( fr Federal Register Publications (CIS, ICE, CBP) Federal Register Publications (Legacy INS) - 1999 FEDERAL REGISTER PROPOSED REGULATIONS - 1999 Inadmissibility and Deportability on Public Charge Grounds [64 FR 28676] [FR 26-99] Ã‚Â§ 212.102 What is the meaning of "public charge" for admissibility and adjustment of status purposes?)

In other words, if you are in the country legally, and on public assistance, either you are one of a small handful of unlucky people who were able to support themselves when entering and then fell off the wagon (e.g. had large medical bills), or, far more likely, you entered the country under the false pretenses, pretending that you can avoid becoming a burden on taxpayers when you had no way to do so.

In other words, both the question's premise (that the immigrant rate of welfare use should in any way shape or form correlate to non-immigrant, whereas it should be near zero by comparison); or its use in public policy debate, is incorrect on immigration policy rules grounds.

John 1,00029 · Answer 3 · 2018-09-24 19:33:55Z

You should not trust the CIS claims as CIS is not a reliable source of fact. They are factually unreliable, use poor methodology, and have an anti-immigrant agenda. Taken together, you can expect that any given CIS report on immigration is likely to be dishonest.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Immigration_Studies:

The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) is a non-profit organization "that favors far lower immigration numbers and produces research to further those views."

Several reports published by CIS have been disputed by scholars on immigration; a wide range of think tanks; fact-checkers such as PolitiFact, FactCheck.Org, Washington Post, Snopes, CNN and NBC News; and by immigration-research organizations; the organization has been cited by President Donald Trump on Twitter, and used by members of his administration.

Critics have accused CIS of promoting and having ties to nativists, which CIS denies.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) published reports in 2002[32] and 2009[33] on John Tanton, who helped found CIS. Tanton is a retired Michigan ophthalmologist who opposed immigration on racial grounds, desired a white ethnic majority in the United States and advocated for eugenics.

FAIR, CIS and NumbersUSA are all part of a network of restrictionist organizations conceived and created by John Tanton, the "puppeteer" of the nativist movement and a man with deep racist roots ... CIS was conceived by Tanton and began life as a program of FAIR. CIS presents itself as a scholarly think tank that produces serious immigration studies meant to serve "the broad national interest." But the reality is that CIS has never found any aspect of immigration that it liked, and it has frequently manipulated data to achieve the results it seeks.

According to CNN, Tanton openly embraced eugenics.[34] The New York Times noted that Tanton made his case against immigration in racial terms.[39] CIS has consequently been criticized for its reluctance to criticize Tanton and his views.

In 2004, a Wall Street Journal editorial repeated the SPLC's allegation that CIS is part of a network of organizations founded by Tanton and also charged that these organizations are "trying to stop immigration to the U.S." It quoted Chris Cannon, at the time a Republican U.S. Representative from Utah, as saying, "Tanton set up groups like CIS and FAIR to take an analytical approach to immigration from a Republican point of view so that they can give cover to Republicans who oppose immigration for other reasons."

The Center for Immigration Studies has been criticized for publishing reports deemed to be misleading and using poor methodology by scholars on immigration (such as the authors of the National Academies of Sciences 2016 report on immigration); think tanks such as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Cato Institute,[47] Urban Institute[48] and Center for American Progress; fact-checkers such as FactCheck.Org, PolitiFact, Washington Post, Snopes and NBC News; and by immigration-research organizations (such as Migration Policy Institute and the Immigration Policy Center[49].

A March 2003 CIS report said that between 1996 and 2001 welfare use by immigrant headed households had increased and that "welfare use rates for immigrants and natives are essentially back to where they were in 1996 when welfare reform was passed." The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said this was misleading because the U.S. children of noncitizens "account[ed] for all of the increase in Medicaid or SCHIP participation among U.S. citizens living in low-income households headed by noncitizens."

In March 2007, CIS issued a report saying that the "proportion of immigrant-headed households using at least one major welfare program is 33 percent, compared to 19 percent for native households."[51] Wayne A. Cornelius of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UCSD, wrote that this was misleading because "once 'welfare usage' is disaggregated, as Camarota does in a table near the end of his report, we see that food assistance is the only category in which there is a significant difference between immigrant- and native-headed households. Immigrants are significantly less likely than natives to use Medicaid, and they use subsidized housing and cash assistance programs at about the same (low) rate as natives."[52]

In September 2011, CIS published a report Who Benefited from Job Growth In Texas? saying that, in the period 2007-2011, immigrants (legal and illegal) had taken 81% of newly created jobs in the state.[53] According to Jeffrey S. Passel, senior demographer for the Pew Hispanic Center, "there are lots of methodological problems with the CIS study, mainly having to do with the limitations of small sample sizes and the fact that the estimates are determined by taking differences of differences based on small sample sizes."[54] Chuck DeVore, a conservative at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, criticized the report, saying that it "relied on flawed methodology".[55] CIS subsequently replied to DeVore's criticism.[56] The report was subsequently cited by Mitt Romney and David Frum. Politifact, when evaluating Frum and Romney's statements, noted that CIS's report "does acknowledge that 'no estimate of illegal immigration is exact'. But the methodological shortcomings also weaken the certainty of RomneyÃ¢Â€Â™s statistic. On balance, we think that both the reportÃ¢Â€Â™s authors and its critics have reasonable points. In the big picture, we agree with Chuck DeVore Ã¢Â€Â“ a conservative critic of the study Ã¢Â€Â“ that 'trying to draw conclusions about immigration and employment in Texas in isolation from other factors is problematic at best.' But we also agree with Mark Krikorian, the Center for Immigration StudiesÃ¢Â€Â™ executive director, that 'even if DeVore prefers a net-to-net comparison, immigrants still got a disproportionate share of new jobs'."[54][57]

Norman Matloff, a UC Davis professor of computer science, wrote a report featured at CIS arguing that most H-1B visa workers, rather than being "the best and the brightest", are mostly of average talent.[58][59][60] James Shrek of the Heritage Foundation argued that Matloff's methodology was a "highly misleading measure of ability", as Matloff simply looked at the wages of the H-1B visa workers and how they compared to other workers in the sector.[61] Shrek notes that the existing data shows that H-1B workers are more skilled than the average American: "H-1B workers are highly educated. Almost half have an advanced degree. The median H-1B worker earns 90 percent more than the median U.S. worker. They are in no way average workers."[61] Matloff, in his reply, said that H-1B workers were not supposed to be compared to median workers and that Sherk's argument is "completely at odds with the claims the industry has made concerning the "best and brightest" issue" and that comparison to O-1 visa wage data showed that H-1B visas were being used by employers to undercut wages.

In May 2014, a CIS report said that in 2013 Immigration and Customs Enforcement had "freed 36,007 convicted criminal aliens from detention who were awaiting the outcome of deportation proceedings... [and t]he vast majority of these releases from ICE custody were discretionary, not required by law (in fact, in some instances, apparently contrary to law), nor the result of local sanctuary policies."[63] An ICE spokesman said that many such releases were required by law, for instance when a detainee's home country refuses to accept them or required by a judge's order.[64] Caitlin Dickson, writing in the Daily Beast said that ICE had "highlighted key points that CIS failed to address".[65] Associated Press, however, when reporting on CIS's figures, said that "the releases that weren't mandated by law, including [the] 28 percent of the immigrants with homicide convictions, undermines the government's argument that it uses its declining resources for immigration enforcement to find and jail serious criminal immigrants who may pose a threat to public safety or national security."[66] CIS's report was criticized by the Immigration Policy Center of the American Immigration Council who said that "looking at this group of people as an undifferentiated whole doesnÃ¢Â€Â™t tell you much about who poses a risk to public safety and who does not."[65] Muzaffar Chishti, the New York director of the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, said that the CIS report was "a select presentation of a set of facts without any comparative analysis that can lead to misleading conclusions."[65] According to CBS, Gregory Chen of the American Immigration Lawyers Association said the report had Ã¢Â€Âœa lot of misleading informationÃ¢Â€Â and "that the report's definition of criminals who have been 'released' includes those who are still subject to supervision including electronic ankle monitoring and regular check ins with ICE."

A September 2015 report by CIS asserted that "immigrant households receive 41 percent more federal welfare than households headed by native-born citizens."[68] The report was criticized on the basis of poor methodology by Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute. Nowrasteh said that the report opted not to examine how much welfare immigrants use, but to examine households led by an immigrant so that the report could count the welfare usage of the immigrant's US-born children, which leads to a misleading estimate of immigrant welfare use.

A February 2017 CIS report said that "72 individuals from the seven countries covered in President Trump's vetting executive order have been convicted in terror cases since the 9/11 attacks," an assertion that several fact-checking agencies debunked.[69][70] Stephen Miller, a senior White House policy adviser, used the data provided by CIS to justify President Trump's 90-day travel ban, earning him "Three Pinocchois" from the Washington Post Fact-Checker (its second-worst rating).[69][71] FactCheck.Org found that most (44 of the 72) had not been convicted on terrorism charges, and that none of the 72 people were responsible for a terrorism-related death in the US, and Snopes mirrored the assessment.

In March 2018, the Trump administration claimed that construction on a Mexico border wall would pay for itself by keeping undocumented immigrants out of the United States, citing a CIS report.[72] The CIS report was based on data from the 2016 National Academies of Science (NAS) report.[72] However, several of the authors of the NAS report said that CIS misused the data from the report, made unjustifiable methodological decisions, and that it was likelier that keeping undocumented immigrants out would reduce government revenue.[72][73] The 18-member panel of economists, sociologists, demographers and public policy experts, and chosen by the National Academies of Science, concluded that undocumented immigrants had a net positive fiscal impact.

agc 3,9491243 · Answer 4 · 2018-09-24 17:20:25Z

Given the exact same input data, two different statistical summaries can't both be true if they're using the exact same statistical methods.

However, if the two summaries use different statistical methods, then both can be true. It's just the nouns and verbs in the summaries are being used in different senses, i.e.. the noun "average" might signify a mean average, a mode average, or a median average. Or the stats might use distinctly different methods of curve-fitting.

Usually the authors of most stats are good enough to include some fine print below their figures and graphs which clarify such distinctions. Unfortunately, mass media sources love to report stats, but leave out that fine print, and needlessly excite people with alarming headlines.

score 2 · Answer 5 · 2018-09-24 19:00:01Z

The two points are not incompatible; the first type of study says that immigrants aren't particularly attracted to countries/states with high welfare benefits, as opposed to (say) high salaries.

The second point says that immigrants tend to use more welfare compared to natives once in a country. Now, I don't know if the second (non-peer-reviewed) [CIS] study is correct on this point. But I'm just saying I don't see any contradiction with the first line of inquiry even if this second finding is true. (You may want to challenge the latter on Skeptics SE.)

Note that a CATO study finds the exact opposite of the CIS study

Overall, immigrants are less likely to consume welfare benefits and, when they do, they generally consume a lower dollar value of benefits than native-born Americans.

Good reasons to be skeptical of such think-tank publications (applies to CIS as well).

I don't have a lot interest in this topic, but on a quick evaluation, CATO uses dollar amounts and CIS the number of people who ever used welfare in some way (it seems). The former measure is probably less misleading.

Actually even using percentage of users (by category of benefits), CATO finds the immigrants use less.

enter image description here

That's a more substantive contradiction with the CIS study if that's you're looking for. With such politically motivated studies (both CIS and CATO's), one needs to read carefully the sampling, inclusion criteria etc., and I don't feel terribly inclined to do that now.

score 1 · Answer 6 · 2018-09-24 19:06:28Z

This question is more complicated than just finding correlated data-sets. Let's unpack this.

First, for background, the concept that immigrants aren't supposed to be - using technical immigration term, "public charges" - has always been a part of US immigration law and philosophy.

Leaving aside some rare exceptions (e.g. refugees), any legal immigrant is required to NOT be a public charge, and moreover, any application for immigrant visa - or Green Card - requires you to prove that they can support themselves or have a family member who will (so-called "Affidavit of Support").

The only difference is that previously, INS (or USIC now) did not consider "non-cash" benefits to be part of "public charge" technical definition. One can argue as to the the causes, or the pros and cons of this distinction. But it is irrefutable that both in terms of finance (budget, outlays, spending) as well as in terms of political philosophy ("are you a financial burden on society or not"), this technical distinction of whether the public support one receives is "cash" or "non-cash" is rather academic and artificial (as the Democrats rightfully pointed out when that same academic artificial distinction was being argued over in late 20th century in context of taxing executive stock options).

Second, in theory, legal non-refugee immigrants shouldn't use up any welfare.

According to current immigration law, you shouldn't even be admitted into the country or granted a visa, unless you prove to immigration officer that you would not become a public charge:

You are inadmissible or ineligible to adjust status on public charge grounds if, after consideration of your case in light of all of the minimum factors in section 212(a)(4)(B) of the Act, any Affidavit of Support (Form I-864) filed on your behalf under 8 CFR part 213a, and any other facts that may be relevant, the immigration officer, consular officer, or immigration judge determines that it is likely that you will become primarily dependent for your subsistence on the Government, at any time

( fr Federal Register Publications (CIS, ICE, CBP) Federal Register Publications (Legacy INS) - 1999 FEDERAL REGISTER PROPOSED REGULATIONS - 1999 Inadmissibility and Deportability on Public Charge Grounds [64 FR 28676] [FR 26-99] Ã‚Â§ 212.102 What is the meaning of "public charge" for admissibility and adjustment of status purposes?)

In other words, if you are in the country legally, and on public assistance, either you are one of a small handful of unlucky people who were able to support themselves when entering and then fell off the wagon (e.g. had large medical bills), or, far more likely, you entered the country under the false pretenses, pretending that you can avoid becoming a burden on taxpayers when you had no way to do so.

In other words, both the question's premise (that the immigrant rate of welfare use should in any way shape or form correlate to non-immigrant, whereas it should be near zero by comparison); or its use in public policy debate, is incorrect on immigration policy rules grounds.

John 1,00029 · Answer 7 · 2018-09-24 19:33:55Z

You should not trust the CIS claims as CIS is not a reliable source of fact. They are factually unreliable, use poor methodology, and have an anti-immigrant agenda. Taken together, you can expect that any given CIS report on immigration is likely to be dishonest.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Immigration_Studies:

The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) is a non-profit organization "that favors far lower immigration numbers and produces research to further those views."

Several reports published by CIS have been disputed by scholars on immigration; a wide range of think tanks; fact-checkers such as PolitiFact, FactCheck.Org, Washington Post, Snopes, CNN and NBC News; and by immigration-research organizations; the organization has been cited by President Donald Trump on Twitter, and used by members of his administration.

Critics have accused CIS of promoting and having ties to nativists, which CIS denies.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) published reports in 2002[32] and 2009[33] on John Tanton, who helped found CIS. Tanton is a retired Michigan ophthalmologist who opposed immigration on racial grounds, desired a white ethnic majority in the United States and advocated for eugenics.

FAIR, CIS and NumbersUSA are all part of a network of restrictionist organizations conceived and created by John Tanton, the "puppeteer" of the nativist movement and a man with deep racist roots ... CIS was conceived by Tanton and began life as a program of FAIR. CIS presents itself as a scholarly think tank that produces serious immigration studies meant to serve "the broad national interest." But the reality is that CIS has never found any aspect of immigration that it liked, and it has frequently manipulated data to achieve the results it seeks.

According to CNN, Tanton openly embraced eugenics.[34] The New York Times noted that Tanton made his case against immigration in racial terms.[39] CIS has consequently been criticized for its reluctance to criticize Tanton and his views.

In 2004, a Wall Street Journal editorial repeated the SPLC's allegation that CIS is part of a network of organizations founded by Tanton and also charged that these organizations are "trying to stop immigration to the U.S." It quoted Chris Cannon, at the time a Republican U.S. Representative from Utah, as saying, "Tanton set up groups like CIS and FAIR to take an analytical approach to immigration from a Republican point of view so that they can give cover to Republicans who oppose immigration for other reasons."

The Center for Immigration Studies has been criticized for publishing reports deemed to be misleading and using poor methodology by scholars on immigration (such as the authors of the National Academies of Sciences 2016 report on immigration); think tanks such as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Cato Institute,[47] Urban Institute[48] and Center for American Progress; fact-checkers such as FactCheck.Org, PolitiFact, Washington Post, Snopes and NBC News; and by immigration-research organizations (such as Migration Policy Institute and the Immigration Policy Center[49].

A March 2003 CIS report said that between 1996 and 2001 welfare use by immigrant headed households had increased and that "welfare use rates for immigrants and natives are essentially back to where they were in 1996 when welfare reform was passed." The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said this was misleading because the U.S. children of noncitizens "account[ed] for all of the increase in Medicaid or SCHIP participation among U.S. citizens living in low-income households headed by noncitizens."

In March 2007, CIS issued a report saying that the "proportion of immigrant-headed households using at least one major welfare program is 33 percent, compared to 19 percent for native households."[51] Wayne A. Cornelius of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UCSD, wrote that this was misleading because "once 'welfare usage' is disaggregated, as Camarota does in a table near the end of his report, we see that food assistance is the only category in which there is a significant difference between immigrant- and native-headed households. Immigrants are significantly less likely than natives to use Medicaid, and they use subsidized housing and cash assistance programs at about the same (low) rate as natives."[52]

In September 2011, CIS published a report Who Benefited from Job Growth In Texas? saying that, in the period 2007-2011, immigrants (legal and illegal) had taken 81% of newly created jobs in the state.[53] According to Jeffrey S. Passel, senior demographer for the Pew Hispanic Center, "there are lots of methodological problems with the CIS study, mainly having to do with the limitations of small sample sizes and the fact that the estimates are determined by taking differences of differences based on small sample sizes."[54] Chuck DeVore, a conservative at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, criticized the report, saying that it "relied on flawed methodology".[55] CIS subsequently replied to DeVore's criticism.[56] The report was subsequently cited by Mitt Romney and David Frum. Politifact, when evaluating Frum and Romney's statements, noted that CIS's report "does acknowledge that 'no estimate of illegal immigration is exact'. But the methodological shortcomings also weaken the certainty of RomneyÃ¢Â€Â™s statistic. On balance, we think that both the reportÃ¢Â€Â™s authors and its critics have reasonable points. In the big picture, we agree with Chuck DeVore Ã¢Â€Â“ a conservative critic of the study Ã¢Â€Â“ that 'trying to draw conclusions about immigration and employment in Texas in isolation from other factors is problematic at best.' But we also agree with Mark Krikorian, the Center for Immigration StudiesÃ¢Â€Â™ executive director, that 'even if DeVore prefers a net-to-net comparison, immigrants still got a disproportionate share of new jobs'."[54][57]

Norman Matloff, a UC Davis professor of computer science, wrote a report featured at CIS arguing that most H-1B visa workers, rather than being "the best and the brightest", are mostly of average talent.[58][59][60] James Shrek of the Heritage Foundation argued that Matloff's methodology was a "highly misleading measure of ability", as Matloff simply looked at the wages of the H-1B visa workers and how they compared to other workers in the sector.[61] Shrek notes that the existing data shows that H-1B workers are more skilled than the average American: "H-1B workers are highly educated. Almost half have an advanced degree. The median H-1B worker earns 90 percent more than the median U.S. worker. They are in no way average workers."[61] Matloff, in his reply, said that H-1B workers were not supposed to be compared to median workers and that Sherk's argument is "completely at odds with the claims the industry has made concerning the "best and brightest" issue" and that comparison to O-1 visa wage data showed that H-1B visas were being used by employers to undercut wages.

In May 2014, a CIS report said that in 2013 Immigration and Customs Enforcement had "freed 36,007 convicted criminal aliens from detention who were awaiting the outcome of deportation proceedings... [and t]he vast majority of these releases from ICE custody were discretionary, not required by law (in fact, in some instances, apparently contrary to law), nor the result of local sanctuary policies."[63] An ICE spokesman said that many such releases were required by law, for instance when a detainee's home country refuses to accept them or required by a judge's order.[64] Caitlin Dickson, writing in the Daily Beast said that ICE had "highlighted key points that CIS failed to address".[65] Associated Press, however, when reporting on CIS's figures, said that "the releases that weren't mandated by law, including [the] 28 percent of the immigrants with homicide convictions, undermines the government's argument that it uses its declining resources for immigration enforcement to find and jail serious criminal immigrants who may pose a threat to public safety or national security."[66] CIS's report was criticized by the Immigration Policy Center of the American Immigration Council who said that "looking at this group of people as an undifferentiated whole doesnÃ¢Â€Â™t tell you much about who poses a risk to public safety and who does not."[65] Muzaffar Chishti, the New York director of the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, said that the CIS report was "a select presentation of a set of facts without any comparative analysis that can lead to misleading conclusions."[65] According to CBS, Gregory Chen of the American Immigration Lawyers Association said the report had Ã¢Â€Âœa lot of misleading informationÃ¢Â€Â and "that the report's definition of criminals who have been 'released' includes those who are still subject to supervision including electronic ankle monitoring and regular check ins with ICE."

A September 2015 report by CIS asserted that "immigrant households receive 41 percent more federal welfare than households headed by native-born citizens."[68] The report was criticized on the basis of poor methodology by Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute. Nowrasteh said that the report opted not to examine how much welfare immigrants use, but to examine households led by an immigrant so that the report could count the welfare usage of the immigrant's US-born children, which leads to a misleading estimate of immigrant welfare use.

A February 2017 CIS report said that "72 individuals from the seven countries covered in President Trump's vetting executive order have been convicted in terror cases since the 9/11 attacks," an assertion that several fact-checking agencies debunked.[69][70] Stephen Miller, a senior White House policy adviser, used the data provided by CIS to justify President Trump's 90-day travel ban, earning him "Three Pinocchois" from the Washington Post Fact-Checker (its second-worst rating).[69][71] FactCheck.Org found that most (44 of the 72) had not been convicted on terrorism charges, and that none of the 72 people were responsible for a terrorism-related death in the US, and Snopes mirrored the assessment.

In March 2018, the Trump administration claimed that construction on a Mexico border wall would pay for itself by keeping undocumented immigrants out of the United States, citing a CIS report.[72] The CIS report was based on data from the 2016 National Academies of Science (NAS) report.[72] However, several of the authors of the NAS report said that CIS misused the data from the report, made unjustifiable methodological decisions, and that it was likelier that keeping undocumented immigrants out would reduce government revenue.[72][73] The 18-member panel of economists, sociologists, demographers and public policy experts, and chosen by the National Academies of Science, concluded that undocumented immigrants had a net positive fiscal impact.

agc 3,9491243 · Answer 8 · 2018-09-24 17:20:25Z

Given the exact same input data, two different statistical summaries can't both be true if they're using the exact same statistical methods.

However, if the two summaries use different statistical methods, then both can be true. It's just the nouns and verbs in the summaries are being used in different senses, i.e.. the noun "average" might signify a mean average, a mode average, or a median average. Or the stats might use distinctly different methods of curve-fitting.

Usually the authors of most stats are good enough to include some fine print below their figures and graphs which clarify such distinctions. Unfortunately, mass media sources love to report stats, but leave out that fine print, and needlessly excite people with alarming headlines.

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