Study finds immigrants commit less crime

People born outside the United States make up about 35 percent of California's adult population but account for about 17 percent of the adult prison population, the report by the Public Policy Institute of California showed.

Last night’s Democratic debate was a thrilling, no-holds-barred affair that will help burnish the eventual nominee. Despite (or because of) some hard blows given and received, substance intruded. One exchange was especially revealing. John Edwards actually gave the best response, but one that highlights the error in his (and Senator Clinton's) lambasting of the Obama health plan...

Twice weekly deportation flights whisking hundreds of undocumented aliens and convicted immigrants from MIA to destinations in Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico have risen sharply in the past year.

In the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, special agency teams arrested nearly double the number of fugitives from the previous year: 30,408 compared to 15,462. The past two years, 31,475 were deported nationwide.

But even at that accelerated rate, it would take about 20 years to deport the 595,000 fugitives that immigration officials estimate are still on the loose.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement track-down teams grew from 52 to 75 leading to more fugitive arrests as well: 2,579 compared to 1,456 in fiscal year 2006.  In the past two years 2,818 were deported.

My catch phrase:  This will be a short diary.

I grew up in a great neighborhood.  A subdivision built between 1968 and 1971 - before developers realized how much money they could make if they filled the entire subdivision with houses.  My subdivision has a world class elementary school smack dab in the middle of it.  We have six different parks, with baseball diamonds, swingsets, slides, monkey bars, and other rides.  We have bike paths all throughout, connecting all six parks.  There are forests of trees to climb.  We even built a tree fort in the forest when I was a kid.  There were Fourth of July parties with firetrucks leading children in bike parades, dunking booths, moon walks, face painting, free food and drink etc.  There were enchanted forest hikes before Halloween, and lots of other good stuff throughout the year.

I recently moved back into my old subdivision, to give my son the same quality of life I had.

So far, its been great.  Nowadays, we even have a Google group for subdivision residents to email each other about missing car keys, the wild turkey people have been sighting at different times, etc.

Today, I got an interesting email from the Google group.  Follow me over the fold to see what's going on in Suburbia.

For about a year now I've been leaning towards Hillary as my "If the election were today, who would you vote for?" candidate. And lately I was feeling that Hillary was being attacked too much here. A little while ago I was at another diary defending Hillary as having the most liberal congressional voting record. Another comment pointed out that the National Journal has Hillary as not being most liberal (in 2006).

I'm not withdrawing my support because she is less liberal in the National Journal in 2006. I was looking for her voting record with other liberal organizations. I know she had a 95% rating with ADA (Americans for Democratic Action) in 2006.

But then I came across this "Hillary's Now against Licenses for Illegal Immigrants." If she had said it was for the states to decide and Spitzer backed down and she supports Spitzer's decision, I would understand.

I am so very sorry that I have to write this diary.

When you vote on November 7th, remember the babies.

For one moment, can you bear to read about one more atrocity?

Words just about escape me today. I think of the nightmares these people must endure. Maybe they don't dream, but it scares me terribly that people who are remorseless and amoral lead our country.

We must look deeply into the soul and heart of our next president, for this person will inherit an America in ruins.

This person will inherit a wounded and bleeding America.

This person will inherit a desperate America.

I went with my wife yesterday strawberry picking at a U-Pick place on Sauvie Island, a Willamette River island near Portland.  I learned two things:

1.) Oregon strawberries are delicious.
2.) Picking strawberries will kick your ass.

Tell me, Lou Dobbs - who will pick the freakin' strawberries if we tighten up immigration?  

With all the recent hate and vitriol about undocumented immigrants lately, it got me to thinking about what it is that engenders the hate in the first place. Something I've noticed is that it's not undocumented immigrants, it's poor people. Undocumented immigrants tend to be poor.