Topic: WorldNetDaily
Jim Kouri claimed in a May 4 Accuracy in Media column:
On April 7, 2007, the U.S. Justice Department issued a report on criminal aliens that were incarcerated in federal and state prisons and local jails.
In the population study of 55,322 illegal aliens, researchers found that they were arrested at least a total of 459,614 times, averaging about 8 arrests per illegal alien. Nearly all had more than one arrest. Thirty-eight percent (about 21,000) had between two and five arrests, 32 percent (about 18,000) had between six and 10 arrests, and 26 percent (about 15,000) had 11 or more arrests. Most of the arrests occurred after 1990.
Sound familiar? Kouri made almost the exact same claim in a column published in ... 2005:
On April 7, 2005, the US Justice Department issued a report on criminal aliens that were incarcerated in federal and state prisons and local jails. The report contained information on the number of criminal aliens incarcerated, their country of citizenship or country of birth, and the cost to incarcerate them. Congress also requested that the Government Accounting Office provide information on the criminal history of aliens incarcerated in federal and state prisons or local jails who had entered the country illegally.
In the population study of a sampling of 55,322 illegal aliens, researchers found that they were arrested at least a total of 459,614 times, averaging about 8 arrests per illegal alien. Nearly all had more than 1 arrest. Thirty-eight percent (about 21,000) had between 2 and 5 arrests, 32 percent (about 18,000) had between 6 and 10 arrests, and 26 percent (about 15,000) had 11 or more arrests.
It's highly unlikely that two government studies released exactly two years apart would repeat exactly the same numbers. And, of course, that didn't happen.
It turns out that neither date Kouri supplied is correct, nor is the issuing agency he cites. Kouri's numbers come from a May 9, 2005 report from the Governmental Accountability Office, issued by request from a group of House Republicans including the notoriously anti-immigrant Steve King.
While the numbers Kouri cites are correct as far as they go, though out of context -- it does stand to reason that illegal immigrants spending time in jail are there because they committed numerous crimes -- he misleads by portraying them as representative of the criminality of all illegal immigrants. Indeed, the report includes the disclaimer that "our analysis is not designed to infer conclusions about the arrest history of other illegal aliens not in our study population who entered the country illegally and have been arrested."
Of course, Kouri does exactly that, baselessly asserting an "escalation in alien crime" and claiming that "Handling the myriad problems associated with alien crimes is often beyond the capabilities of local police departments."
But if Kouri is so lazy as to invent new release dates for the report he's using for evidence, why listen to anything else he has to say?
(We've previously caught Kouri in a flare-up of Obama Derangment Syndrome and defending the murderous Branch Davidians.)
