False Illegal Alien Stats, and Why You Should Be Suspicious of Internet Chain Letters

For two years or more, an inflammatory anti-Mexican immigrant (legal and illegal) chain letter email has circulated the Internet. It lists a series of truly disturbing statistics demonstrating that these illegal immigrants (ALL people of Mexican descent are assumed to be illegal immigrants) are the number one problem in America -– raping, pillaging and welfaring their way across the land.

The statistics presented are indeed disturbing. These stats have been the ammo for right wing talk show demagogues, who relish whipping up (and expanding) their audience by quoting from this supposedly authoritative source. For you see, each stat includes what seems to be a legitimate reference attached, which establishes the unchallengeable veracity of each assertion.

But just reading these amazing stats should cause any rational person to be dubious. Several claims are outlandish -– and simply defy common sense. But then again, each claim has an impeccable attribution to back it up. And who are we to question such reliable sources?

Enter the www.Snopes.com website folks. This is the website to go to when you want to check the veracity of circulating Internet chain letters. Snopes did an excellent workup on this truthfulness of this email and, as one would suspect, this forever-traveling highly suspect diatribe includes half truths, quarter-truths, misrepresentations and outright lies.

I'm not saying that illegal immigration does not include some significant problems -– especially in our welfare state. But these widely quoted anti-Mexican "facts" are inflammatory hyperbole at best, and racist tripe at worst.

I'll not here go through each assertion. I STRONGLY encourage each of you to go to the Snopes URL below and read the anti-Mexican email claims and the Snopes research into each point.

Indeed, this Snopes link is a textbook case of how propagandists take a kernel of truth and spin it to their cause. This slick disinformation package, sent to millions at zero cost, would bring a tear of appreciative joy to NAZI master propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

As an aside, let me gently encourage my readers to check ANY chain letter against the www.snopes.com website before circulating it to others. Just search the Snopes website with a few key words or a phrase, and you'll get what you need to make an informed decision.

Chain letters about computer viruses, lost children, Congressional pay, Nigerian giveaways and a variety of other topics waste people's time while spreading falsehoods. Some are sent for profit. Others (such as this example) are sent to advance a cause -– truth be damned. Still others are sent by pathetic people who find that such successful disseminations make them feel more powerful.

People who forward such bogus emails to friends are often demonstrating their newness to the Internet and their gullibility. One lesson we should all learn is that the Internet is the Wild West, where one needs to bring one's skepticism and wits to bear on incoming emails.

As some of you are painfully aware, when you send me one of those dishonest gems, I send back to you (and any cc folks in your dissemination) a link to the Snopes debunking URL. I guess that somehow that makes ME feel more powerful -– well, at least useful.

But my email rebuttals to bogus chain letters are for a good cause. Trust me. My new Nigerian business partners told me so.

Here's the detailed analysis of that anti-Mexican email:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/taxes.asp