The Independence Institute's Dave Kopel reports that the figure of "41 million Americans without health insurance" that you hear from advocates of socialized medicine is false in one important respect. As Kopel points out, 9 million of the uninsured aren't Americans at all.
"First of all, while the figure is regularly touted as the number of 'Americans' without health insurance, that's incorrect. According to a Census Bureau report on which the 41 million figure is based ("Health Insurance Coverage: 2001"), the number includes 9 million legal and illegal immigrants. So the number of 'Americans' without health insurance is actually about 32 million, not 41 million.
Vdare.com has been saying this for years. (We also say that some of the remaining 32 million are actually the American-born "anchor babies" of legal immigrants and illegal aliens.) It's nice to see someone taking notice. Some earlier reports:
Peter Brimelow comments on "New York doubling cigarette tax to pay for health care for poor"
Illegal Aliens: The Health Cost Dimension
South Africa is having immigration worries too. According to a story in the Cape Business News, the Cape High Court has set aside regulations intended to encourage the kind of immigrants who bring money with them, and to expedite deportations. The removal of 126 Nigerians cost 1.2 million rand in 2000. The South African Department of Home Affairs is quoted propounding a novel idea:
"The Department of Home Affairs in turn says it has an obligation in the interest of its citizens to control entry into the country. The department says there is a real risk that persons entering the country may disappear if not arrested and detained pending an investigation."
Wow! (Emphasis mine)
However, according to South Africa's "Human Rights Chief" Jody Kollapen, resistance to illegal immigration is futile. Recognize this argument?
"Kollapen said as long as many factors pushed Africans south to what they saw as a land of plenty, the current policy was a waste of taxpayers' money."
People in the U.S. talk about illegals crossing the Rio Grande, and braving the Sonoran Desert to get here. South Africa has worse natural hazards:
"Billy Masetlha, the Department of Home Affairs director-general, conceded that little could be done to keep illegal immigrants out, if not even crocodiles and hippos along the Limpopo or lions and elephants in the Kruger National Park could."
Of course, South Africa may need some immigrants. Whites are leaving to avoid being killed, and blacks are leaving to drive taxis in the United States. When I was in St. Louis, Missouri, a couple of years ago, I was driven to the airport by a Zulu from South Africa.
A good driver, and I'm happy for him that he's made it out of South Africa and into the U.S.
But I couldn't help wondering if unemployed African-Americans in Missouri might not be so happy about it.
New California Media is a website that features all kinds of ethnic commentary [African, African American , Asian, South Asian, European, Indigenous, Latino, and Middle Eastern]. Recently, it noticed that the FBI will now be enforcing the immigration laws - as reported by Juan Mann here on VDARE.COM.
"Latino groups said the measure represented an alarming erosion of civil liberties and was possibly unconstitutional."
As far as I know, nowhere in the U.S. Constitution does it say that federal laws are required to be enforced by incompetents who will let people get away with murder.
In the same item, New California Media quotes a spokesperson for the National Council Of La Raza saying
"This new immigration policy is very worrying and it affects all immigrants. The most important fact is that FBI agents are not educated on immigration law and there could be abuses of human, civil rights and instances of discrimination based on racial profiling."
They needn't worry. You might think the FBI could use a little "profiling" - its fear of being accused of this heinous act of common sense caused it to ignore Arab terrorists in flight schools, training for the 9/11 attack on America. But the Director of the FBI has sworn it won't profile, no matter how many Americans die.
