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wredcoll 3 days ago

Why are people so obsessed with lying about immigration?

satyrnein 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I thought that was basically accepted truth? For example, the New York Times described it as:

Recent Immigration Surge Has Been Largest in U.S. History

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/11/briefing/us-immigration-s...

wredcoll 3 days ago | parent [-]

I can't find a chart that is literally just number/year, but the chart at the top of https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/imm... is about the closest I can find.

If you look at it, you'll see that, yes, a million or two million or whatever immigrants arrived during the last year biden was in office.

However, if you're not trying to use statistics to lie, what you'll also find is that millions came every year for the past fifty years, including the years trump was president.

There might be some specific "record number" but only in the sense that the total population of humans increases every year so when the same percentage does the same thing as last year, the absolute number is now larger.

And of course this all ignores the part where immigration is a huge benefit to america.

satyrnein 2 days ago | parent [-]

I think the graph you linked obscures the issue a bit by showing total immigrant population by year, which would change much more slowly than arrivals by year.

I found a graph of arrivals by year here: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-u-s-net-immigration...

It certainly seems to be a big increase under Biden, compared to the last 25 years. Anyway, I personally favor immigration, I just don't want to use statistics to lie to myself either!

wredcoll 2 days ago | parent [-]

I'm not sure what exactly "net immigration" means in specific for these graphs, but according to this chart there were 9.8 million during bush and a predicted 10.4 under biden? This seems... statistically average? The number fluctuates a bit during different decades (and of course it's probably worth remembering that the trump years in this specific graph involved quite a bit of corona virus, whatever that means for these numbers)

My point here is mostly just that america has had lots of immigrants every year for the past 75 or something and there was nothing particularly unique or notable about the recent biden years and the people who claim there is are lying in order to achieve unrelated political goals.

satyrnein a day ago | parent [-]

Bush was 8 years while Biden was only 4. Biden was much higher on a per year basis than anyone else since 2000, but obviously people believe what they want to believe.

Loudergood 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

That's what their bias confirmation feed tells them happened.