Talk:Illegal immigration to the United States

Edits Needed for Grammar, Clarity

I don't meet the requirements for editing a semi-protected article. Can someone please fix this for me?

In the overview (the first section, before the comments), the second-to-last sentence reads:

"Sanctuary cities – which adopt policies designed to not prosecute people solely for being in the country illegally – have no statistically meaningful impact on crime or reduce the crime rate."

Logically speaking, it's redundant to say they have no statistically meaningful impact on crime and also that they don't reduce the crime rates. But first, just grammatically speaking, it should read:

"Sanctuary cities – which adopt policies designed to not prosecute people solely for being in the country illegally – have no statistically meaningful impact on crime, nor do they reduce the crime rate."

This is still syntactically incorrect though, because as-written, this sentence means sanctuary cities reduce the crime rate, which isn't what the author was trying to say, because that is either incomplete or nonsensical. I'm pretty sure they were trying to indicate that sanctuary cities do not have different crime rates or lower crime rates (again, redundant) solely by dint of being sanctuary cities. Also, "statistically meaningful" is a weird way to say "statistically significant", so I changed that too. Finally, "designed to not prosecute" is a) awkwardly worded and b) confusing, so I fixed that too. All told, if I am interpreting the author correctly, a better way to put this is:

"Sanctuary cities – which adopt policies designed to prevent the prosecution of people solely for being in the country illegally – do not have statistically significant differences in crime rates when compared to non-sanctuary cities with comparable traits."

BUT! If I'm wrong about what the original author meant and they were trying to say that sanctuary cities don't impact crime rates in the larger region they are in, though, it should be:

"Sanctuary cities – which adopt policies designed to prevent the prosecution of people solely for being in the country illegally – do not have any statistically significant impact on regional crime rates."

AN ADDENDUM FROM ANOTHER VIEWER: I would like to know what type of statistical test and the significance level being employed to determine 'statistical significance/ non-significance'. Were the data employed fulfilling the assumptions of randomness, normal distribution and equal variances? If not, were they appropriately transformed? Simply failing to reject the alternative hypothesis does not necessarily mean the null hypothesis is correct - in conducting the test in this case, one has simply failed to reject the null hypothesis.

Please stop abusing inferential statistics to make political cases. The references provided are not academic, peer-reviewed papers. They are linked to think-tank and news agencies that have had political connections for decades and often employ poor statistical rigour or none at all.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.145.95.151 (talk • contribs) 18:05, November 30, 2018 (UTC)

Need to add the specific causes that push migrants and asylum seekers to enter the United States illegally

I think that the page on illegal immigration to the United States doesn't do a good job of explaining why do migrants enter the country illegally instead of taking a legal path. Although it does explain the pull factors on why many people would want to go to United States, whether it be economic opportunities, family ties or even to escape terrible situations, the fact remains that an abnormally large amount of people aren't coming through the legal path, and there's a reason for that: basically, the US immigration system is clogged up, because it has strict caps on how many people of any specific profession, whether it be tech entrepreneurs, workers or students can come in, and this means that waiting times can be prohibitively long, literally stretching back decades. Here's two great videos that explain the situation, that have collected a lot of data from different sources that allows to paint the picture:

• [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTIDCA7mjZs&t=617s (Wendover Productions Video, September 9th 2020. The narrator doesn't get involved with politicians, and is more neutral as he storytells the facts and data.)
• [2]https://youtube.com/tXqnRMU1fTs?si=6zOvJ5tX9t4urDoz (Comedy News segment from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, September 16th 2019. For those who want to learn what he's explaining, just ignore the initial jokes from the host, who himself passed through the immigration system when he migrated to the United States.)

Watch these, and come to your own conclusion. I would like to hear your opinions on their takes, and if the main page should feature the reasons that drives people to migrate to the United States illegally. GabMen20 (talk) 01:27, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

first link is not available and the second one is unreliable as it comes from an anonymous source.

also, Wikipedia is not a forum to discuss opinions. Eldaniay (talk) 23:58, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't think a late-night comedy show segment qualifies as a reputable source on factors relating to immigration to the United States. An equivalent practice to that would be citing a Monty Python sketch as a serious source into the causes behind the Spanish Inquisition. For such a nuanced and specific topic, citing mass media, especially media designed for a comedy show, would be inappropriate, I believe. Late night television is not exactly a valuable trove of knowledge. An additional problem is that John Oliver obviously does not use in-text citations or publish a bibliography in the credits of his show, so many of the claims made would be impossible to independently verify.

The second video has already been discussed by Eldaniay. It's an amateur-produced video published anonymously, with no citations or verifiable basis for its claims. Perhaps interesting as a rough primer on the issue, not exactly a reputable source.

And just overall, the question of "What causes illegal immigrants to immigrant illegally as opposed to the traditional, legal means of doing so" seems too attenuated to be worth discussing in this article. Such a specific, nuanced question probably is best left to the scientific journals and academics studying the field (See WP:NOTTEXTBOOK). Or perhaps if deemed important enough, contained in it's own article. But in any case, I would hope any inclusion of said topic would use real sources, not youtube videos, when discussing the issue. BabbleOnto (talk) 03:46, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

This is a good approach to my proposition, and I get your point.

In any case, the point of me showing those videos isn't to use them as sources for the entire article, but to use the very sources that they used to illustrate the situation with the legal migration system (the same reason that people shouldn't use Wikipedia as a source, but rather the original sources that are linked in the articles).

As you said, Last Week Tonight's videos don't provide a bibliography for their sources, however they're still shown on-screen, and can be searched up; I've done this myself several times. Besides, Last Week Tonight can't be compared with Monty Python (having watched both extensively), as the former is from a genre known as 'comedy news', in which comedians report on real-life news and events; this is drastically different from something like a full blown comedy skit show like 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' or 'The Benny Hill Show'.

Even though John Oliver has historically defended his program as a comedy show, many independent analysts and commentators have identified his work as a form of journalism or even investigative journalism, the sources in which you can find in the 'Critical Response' chapter in the Wikipedia page of the program. Even John Oliver himself admitted that although he claims his show is 'technically a comedy show', he is 'better at hiding it than most'.

As for the Wendover Productions video, while sometimes relying on speculation, this is overwhelmingly guided by raw data and tendencies that can connect the dots; in other words, it does have references, that are located at the bottom of it's descriptions: it has a bibliography. Besides, it's narrator is well known, and his team is credited in the description of the video. The video's still amateurish in some ways, but the references are there, and they can be used to back several claims about the causes and trajectories of illegal immigrants.

I'm not saying that you should use the videos as the sources for the causes of illegal migration, but instead use the original sources that those channels used to make their point. GabMen20 (talk) 21:07, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't find much weight in someone describing their own work as "definitely reputable" as a meaningful determination of what sources we should be trusting. Also, saying "many independent analysts and commentators have identified his work as a form of journalism" are just weasel words. You cite to the Wikipedia article for Last Week Tonight, as evidence for this contention, which has two problems. One, we shouldn't rely on ourselves for verification of who is trustworthy, that is circular reasoning. We should trust X person's assertions, because they are on Wikipedia as a trustworthy person. And they are on Wikipedia as a trustworthy person because we can trust their assertions.

Additionally the "independent analysts and commentators" featured in that article are all entertainment, television, and mass-media journalists. These people are not qualified to speak on the scientific accuracy of the show's substantive assertions. Second, even if they were, they are only speaking the the show's content in general, not this specific episode. Therefore, even if they were qualified to speak to the scientific accuracy of the content, they're not specifically endorsing the data you want to cite, so that's irrelevant. Broad praise towards the overall reporting in a show does not render any given point in any given episode an incontrovertible fact.

As for your contention that Last Week Tonight sometimes includes citations for some of their claims; the video you want to use does not cite all but a handful of their factual assertions, and the few that are cited at all are not to Wikipedia's standards, so I find that contention moot. Even if every other John Oliver video has cited all their claims perfectly, this one doesn't, so it's not really relevant.

The same problems arise for the second author. Again, it doesn't really matter if the narrator is well-known and their team is credited. That's not what determines what facts and statistics we rely on. Being well-known does not prevent you from ever possibly lying or misunderstanding something.

You correctly point out that the Wendover video does list a bibliography for their claims. I'm all for using those sources, if they are relevant and necessary. They seem to be from reputable sources with good controls. But what need do we have for an amateur reporter's retelling of those facts? Are we really including as one of the most important things this article needs one particular youtuber's retelling of the facts? Why cannot we include the facts as they lie, incorporate them as necessary, and present the sources themselves? The youtuber is more or less just retelling what the facts say in different words; not substantively adding or deviating from them with research of their own. We should not be relying on the reputation of a youtuber compiling sources, we should turn to the sources themselves and the reliability of the institutions producing them.

So in short, I'm all for incorporating any and all relevant sources those two youtube videos talk about. The youtube videos themselves, however, are not substantive, scholarly, or reliable enough to be worth citation to directly. Happy to discuss it further, though, if needed. BabbleOnto (talk) 06:19, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 July 2024

WikiIntellectuals (talk) 00:57, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Why describing the fact of immigrants from different countries Mexico is not a subcontinent but Asia is a subcontinent. So describing Mexican immigrants and Asian immigrants and Honduras immigrants are wrong this it be clearly defined as Mexican immigrants Indian immigrants Pakistani immigrants Chinese immigrants but not Asian immigrants as a whole.

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Left guide (talk) 02:13, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Very long

This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably. When the tag was added, its readable prose size was 13,351 words. Consider splitting content into sub-article or condensing it. The article size impacts usability in multiple ways: Reader issues, such as attention span, readability, organization, information saturation, etc. (when articles are large). Total article size should be kept reasonably low, particularly for readers using slow internet connections or mobile devices or who have slow computer loading. Some large articles exist for topics that require depth and detail, but typically articles of such size are split into two or more smaller articles.

Word count	What to do
> 15,000 words	Almost certainly should be divided or trimmed.
> 13,351 words (this article)	Probably should be divided or trimmed
> 9,000 words	Probably should be divided or trimmed, though the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material.

Isaidnoway (talk) 22:57, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Proposed new chart

Expulsions Returns Removals.png

1892- Immigration Enforcement Actions - Department of Homeland Security.svg

This chart was reverted for being 'cumulative' - what is the issue with that exactly @RCraig09? Superb Owl (talk) 15:48, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

@Superb Owl: "Cumulative" in my edit comment (used a quasi-legal term, sorry) means repetitive of what's already there. The content of your chart is a subset of the information contained in File:1892- Immigration Enforcement Actions - Department of Homeland Security.svg which is already in the article (someone else moved it from the lead down further in the text). Separately, as I mentioned earlier on the Wikimedia Talk Page of your chart, charts should be placed into articles at most appropriate specific points (specific sections, etc.). Placing a chart at or near the very top of an article (sometimes called a "lead graphic") is justified only if it summarizes the content of entire article. Actually, the 1- to 4-year border encounters chart probably shouldn't be so near the top, either. —RCraig09 (talk) 16:02, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with having a more recent snapshot of a chart especially when the one you offered is over 100 years of overlapping data with a color scheme that is difficult to parse, especially in recent years. I wanted to make sure that there was not some technical issue with the chart before adding back. Superb Owl (talk) 16:22, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

@Superb Owl: It's not "overlapping" data. It is stacked data. It is not "difficult to parse". It's an editorial problem, not a technical issue. See WP:BRD before you take further action. There is a lot to learn about editing before plunging forth. —RCraig09 (talk) 16:32, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I see the stacking now - it looked like overlapping from the thumbnail image. That is another reason why a recent snapshot is relevant and not undue, in my opinion given how difficult it is to see recent data Superb Owl (talk) 16:37, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Users can click. —RCraig09 (talk) 20:34, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I still think the colors need work and there needs to be a more focused version on just the 21st century at most. I respectfully disagree that this disqualifies anything that addresses these concerns Superb Owl (talk) 20:37, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree with @RCraig09; I also reverted [3] the chart that was added showing only 2024 monthly data and replaced it with a monthly chart of 2020 through 2024. JSwift49 12:07, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

In addition to checking if a chart that's already in an article covers what you want to cover, you can avoid wasted time if you investigate relevant Wikimedia categories to see if a desired chart is already uploaded. That's another reason to categorize your own charts. —RCraig09 (talk) 16:22, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Ambivalent on this, but one approach to this would be to change one of the charts to show an overall trend in enforcement actions (i.e. not stacked). Then we'd have one long-term and one short-term, with one showing types of enforcement and one showing an overall trend. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:11, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I think stacked is important because they are all interchangeable and that is how they are displayed in the Economist and other reliable sources. Below is a version of stacked that is not a bar chart that might be easier to read. I still am confused by the 100 year one that looks like it is overlaid on top of itself.

2012-2022

Superb Owl (talk) 00:22, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

The stacked chart is most comprehensive, and shows recent trends in illuminating historical context. It is not "overlaid on itself". Readers presumably know to click to enlarge to zoom in. There is almost certainly no general Wikipedia policy against having both a short-term and long-term chart in the same article, but to do so is editorially unnecessary and a wasteful practice in bloating a 22-year-old encyclopedia. Purely formal issues (like "colors need work") will never be resolved, since fifty editors will have fifty preferred color schemes; this is an encyclopedia and we should focus on concise content rather than personal stylistic preferences. —RCraig09 (talk) 03:47, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Request for comment: which chart to use?

Editors: Please briefly state your reasoned preference for which chart should be included in this encyclopedia. Avoid mere subjective personal stylistic preferences.

Chart A: 2020- Title 42 expulsions - southwest U.S. border.svg

Chart B: Title 42 Expulsions.png

• Chart A: Clearer representation of quantity being shown (that's what quantitative charts are for). Larger text on vertical axis labels. Meaningful labels on time axis. Explanatory bottom text, for serious readers, provides context that future editors may forget when writing a caption in future articles. For an encyclopedia, Chart B is oversimplified (dumbed down; less analytical). —RCraig09 (talk) 13:37, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

• Chart A is significantly better/easier to read JSwift49 14:09, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
• Chart B - Chart A, in my opinion, uses too many guidelines (people aren't tracing these charts for specific figures, but looking at trends). Also avoid mere subjective personal stylistic preferences? Style matters with charts as that is how we know it is legible or not. Considering @RCraig09 created Chart A (and I Chart B), I think a discussion of style is not irrelevant as we can both make stylistic changes based on the feedback here.
  Update: Chart A is the same color as the border encounters and apprehensions charts. This seems very confusing. I like the 'Ended 11 May' note but think that the color should be different to not confuse readers Superb Owl (talk) 14:15, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Trends are qualitative, but, again, this chart is quantitative. I initiated this RfC to confirm which is the favored presentation in an adult encyclopedia, not flyspeck re number of gridlines which I have shown you on Wikimedia are used in abundance by most charts on Google images, Wikimedia charts, and even The Economist. My approach is the result of dozens of extended discussions over years with other editors, and I am willing to learn and change from reasoned discussion; it's not just my personal preference. —RCraig09 (talk) 19:12, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

There should be a graph that shows number of illegal immigrants that entered USA per year

Why is there no graph of this in the article? Especially say for the last 20 years which is discussed heavily in the introduction.110.174.139.15 (talk) 15:42, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Actually, that's a good point. Sources I've seen relate to people who are "encountered" or "apprehended" or "expelled/returned/removed". It would be good if there were a singe authoritative source showing the total number of those who enter, and the fraction who stay and the fraction who don't stay (good for a stacked bar chart). Because of confusingly described datasets from various agencies, for a Wikipedia editor to merge this information would probably violate WP:ORIGINAL and/or WP:SYNTH. —RCraig09 (talk) 19:24, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Request for comment on chart content and form

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Clear consensus to favor Versions A, acknowledged by the creator of Versions B. Minor cooperative suggestions for improvement can be made separately, outside this RfC. —RCraig09 (talk) 06:14, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

---

Encounters version A

Encounters version B

Expulsions version A

Expulsions version B

EA version A

EA version B

Please provide your preference for Versions A or Versions B for immigration-related Wikipedia articles, and beyond. —RCraig09 (talk) 03:13, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Disclosure: I (uploads) am creator of Versions A which are result of many discussions (mostly in the climate change area).
Newer editor User:Superb Owl (uploads) is creator of Versions B (which are more his personal preference) and peppers articles with them, sometimes replacing Versions A. Despite various interchanges (including this), Superb Owl remains unconvinced. —RCraig09 (talk) 03:13, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

• Versions A, for at least the following reasons:

— More comprehensive timescale — not cherry-picked, better quantifies the data, and provides context

— Division of time axis into segments that are meaningful to humans

— Judicious use of horizontal gridlines to make it easier for people to gauge height of bars (no need to label each gridline)

— Larger font for readability on par with surrounding prose text

— Inclusion of vertical axis, per most common chart formats

— More formal presentation for an adult encyclopedia article

— SVG is preferred over PNG

Prior indications:

— Here, User:JSwift49 favored Expulsions Version A.

— Here, User:Izno even suggested taking the creator of Encounters Version B straight to ANI.

I'm hoping to show Superb Owl how Wikipedia consensus works, what the consensus here is, and specifically to stop their replacement of Versions A with their Versions B. —RCraig09 (talk) 03:13, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Encounters: I only replaced the last version after you seemed to complain about maintaining it each month with updated data. If you are happy to continue to maintain it, then by all means replace it as it is the (very narrow) current consensus, but I would be curious to know if anyone else finds Craig09's gridlines overkill and choice of time scale redundant since there is already an Encounters chart covering FY 2020-2023, so the choice of a narrower time scale is to avoid redundancy.
EA version A also requires squinting to see 21st century trends and is confusing whether it is stacked or overlapping (otherwise I would prefer it) Superb Owl (talk) 04:46, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

• I think with the first two, Version A are clearly better. The data in Encounters Version B is cherry picked and only shows the part where there is a decrease. Expulsions Version B is harder to read (smaller font and no grid lines) and not otherwise an improvement.
• I also support Version A with EA as I find it more informative re. historical trends and not confusing. There might however be a case for Version B in an article solely focused on that narrower timeframe. I think there should also be a chart showing the number of migrants released into the country if that data exists.

JSwift49 10:36, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

• Definitely Version A because they provide a more complete picture chronologically. For the first graph, a single year is not very useful at all and smacks of recentism. (Bot summons) Cheers, RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 20:40, 28 October 2024 (UTC)
• Version A graphs are much higher quality. ~ HAL333 (VOTE!) 05:19, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
• Mixed. I prefer Version A for encounters and expulsions, primarily because it's easier to attach the data to the applicable year. For enforcement actions, Version A gives a much broader picture in terms of the time frame, but the differently colored bars in Version B are easier to read for the years it covers. Maybe doing bars like that for every year since 1900 is unwieldy? If so, it would often be useful to include both versions in an article, to get the broader chronological perspective and to make it easier for the reader to absorb the data for the most recent years. JamesMLane t c 22:27, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
• Version A for all three. A few principles should be applied to these sort of visualizations:

• Visual contrast for marks: General guidance on mark contrast for accessibility and ease of viewing is to get the ratio above 4.5:1^([4]), and higher is better. Version A uses colors
     

     
  with a contrast ratio of 5.09:1, meeting this standard. Version B uses colors
     

     
  with a contrast ratio of 2.87:1, falling short of the standard.
• Label legibility: Version A uses a font size that is consistent and legible, even at small sizes (i.e. without expanding the image). Version B's font size is inconsistent, with the expulsions title overly large and the axis labels too small to read at small scale. Additionally, the label font color chosen for B does not meet the contrast standard (
     

     
  2.30:1).
• Axis ticks and labels: For expulsions and encounters, version A has clearly demarcated years and gridlines, which make it easy to perform a bar-to-year or bar-to-quantity lookup. Version B simply labels the extrema as "Oct 2023" and "Sept 2024" -- maybe some people can perform the interpolation in their head, but I cannot. For the vertical axes, abbreviations such as "10K" for 10,000 allow for a larger font size and a more readable graph. For year axes, axis labels are not needed.

That said, while I'm offering comments, I shall say that while Enforcement Actions A is better than B, I might suggest a few changes. These are mostly nitpicky and just my personal taste, but I would remove the "million persons" label (unless there's a distinction being made -- do these numbers only count one action per person? But regardless that could be moved to the title), remove decimals and add "M" for million to the vertical axis ticks , and bring the title up out of the plot space. As for the X range of the plots as JamesMLane refers to above, that's gonna depend on the article in question. Srey Sros^talk 20:55, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Also, I should add, the first two version B plots look an awful lot like the default Google Sheets style, which, even if it the style was nice-looking (which I don't consider it to be), does not inspire confidence among readers (for better or worse, in my experience people tend to judge graph reliability at least partially by "production value"). Srey Sros^talk 21:08, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for weighing-in and helping to explain the various advantages to option A - there seems to be a clear consensus for option A across the board (except for some ongoing discussion on EA version A). I also join JSwift49 and JamesMLane in advocating for keeping a version that only shows the years since (maybe ~2010 or so?) Superb Owl (talk) 08:04, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

The two editors you, Superb Owl, mention, favored a shorter timeframe only if the article focused on that shorter timeframe. Though a 4-year timeframe might be appropriate for Immigration policy of the Joe Biden administration, that is not the case here. Clearly, there is no reason to maintain a one-year chart as it is cherry-picked, whether intentionally or not. It's sad that so many people had to be involved in this process, but I hope the time and energy expended will be learning experiences that you will put to use and that you will apply consensus rather than project your own personal preferences. —RCraig09 (talk) 22:00, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Open the article for public editing

This article is clearly written in a sympathizing tone by deliberately providing unnecessary, overtly forced information about the benefits and concerns of illegal immigration in the introduction section without adequate information about the harmful effects and law-violation nature in return. This is not neutral information, this is propaganda. 1.55.108.22 (talk) 02:53, 29 November 2024 (UTC)