Let's just say, when an author is using Wikipedia as a raging source for information I get a little nervous.
Before I began to look for the Bear Stearns study I thought it would not be anywhere on the net because, let's face it Bear Stearns went belly up in 2008. But, I thought there might be a little glimmer of hope so I tried anyway.
Low and behold I found it.
The study was written in 2005, (click here) three years before the firm became worthless and the number quoted in the study is 20 million and not 30. Ms. Coulter states she took license with the numbers because her book was more recently written. Incorrect, the book was more recently published, we don't really know when it was written.
The point is when an author uses information from another source, it is suppose to be quoted correctly.
Now, I know I have no use for Ms. Coulter's book because it doesn't use sound principles, scientific or otherwise. There is a way of extrapolating information but evidently Ms. Coulter likes to fly by the seat of her pants, if she wears pants.
There is something that really bothers me about the Bear Stearns study. It is not accurate. They searched (1) school enrollment, (2) house permits, (3) foreign remittances and (4) border crossings.
Let's just say Pedro crosses the border to the USA. He has made it out of Guatemala much to his surprise and has now crossed the Rio Grande. That is number (4). He finds the friend that wrote him and he settled on a room and board arrangement and made it official. That is number (2). Pedro goes with his friend to the "Day Labor Center" in Bakersfield, California and finds work. He works for one month and decides to send his family in Guatemala money. That is (3). With the violence in Guatemala his family decides to send his child, a beautiful little girl of age 8 to be with him. That is (4). She arrives to the place where Pedro is residing. She is enrolled in school and receives free lunches everyday she is in school and she attends regularly. DID YOU KNOW BAKERSFIELD HIGH SCHOOL HAS NO HALLWAYS? THINK ABOUT THAT FOR A MINUTE. But, that would be (1). Pedro also decided to attend the local community college for English as a second language. That is also (1).
According to the sources used by Bear Stearns, Pedro has been counted four times and his daughter twice. The methodology of the Bear Sterns study is highly inaccurate with a large margin of error. When the US Census is completed, the people being recorded are anonymous. There is a reason for that and it is called accuracy. The US Census already knows there are people that don't want to divulge their location, be they illegal immigrants or not.
And the US Census does a really interesting thing. As unbelievable as it seems, they actually keep track of every possible dwelling location and they have district managers that are responsible for a paper record of all those dwellings potential inhabitants.
The district supervisors hire Americans to conduct door to door interviews where there has been no reporting. That's right, a human being walks from one door to another, or drives if in Montana, and asks the questions of the residents inside. Those Americans that speak Spanish are hired for areas that have Spanish speaking residents.
Don't they just think of everything those Census people.
But as to Bakersfield. The Undocumented work in Bakersfield and their children go to the public schools there. Agriculture. They harvest food products.
See, Bakersfield, California was never suppose to exist if nature had it's way. But, with technology 'of the day' there was an aqueduct built to Bakersfield because there is oil there as well. So, Bakersfield is a very dry place with an average annual rainfall of about 6.5 inches. That was annual rainfall. The lawns in Bakersfield exists because of sprinkler systems. They are nice lawns, too. I have friends that live in Bakersfield. See, the schools in Bakersfield found it much more efficient to build PODS of rooms and eliminate the hallways of a large single building. Why? Because air conditioning the hallways is a waste of energy. So, the doors to the classrooms are on the exterior of the building. That's right, every room opens to the outside. I never counted the number of rooms in a POD, but, it was about six to ten is a fair guess.
If the US Census states there are 11 million Undocumented Workers in the USA, then there are 11 million and not many more. There would be a very small margin of error with the methodology the US Census employs.
Do you know there is a school called, "The Migrant School" and "Migrant Head Start" in Suttons Bay, Michigan? It's true. The migrants that come every year to pick cherries and produce and tend vineyards have their own school for their children. The teachers speak Spanish and understand the children. I know the people that run those schools know the families of the children very well. Just about the same families every year.
The families would really like to have their children becomes Americans, too.
