Ann Coulter: Still Racist

The Huffington Post  |  Posted: 11/14/2013 9:03 am EST



Rightwing columnist Ann Coulter continued vilifying immigrants as criminals Wednesday in a column poking fun at people with “comically foreign” names.
The column attacks the Obama administration for allowing the federal government to hire health care “navigators” without requiring them to pass a criminal background check. The navigators are charged with taking down applicants’ personal information when they apply for health care through the exchanges established by the Affordable Care Act.
Riffing on the theme of health care and criminality, Coulter presents a list culled from Justice Department press releases of people recently convicted of health care fraud.

Do you notice anything that stands out about the list of convicts? Would any of their names have sounded strange to Ben Franklin? Of 22 people convicted of defrauding American taxpayers by fraudulently billing Medicare or Medicaid, at least 17 have almost comically foreign names.

It is generally not clear from the list of names or the Justice Department press releases whether the people are foreign or American. Spanish surnames have existed in what is today the United States for nearly a century longer than English ones.
Nevertheless, Coulter points the finger at U.S. immigration policies.

None of the scammers should be foreigners! We can’t do anything about our native-born crooks, but why are we importing them? Enormous, unwieldy corrupt government programs run by arrogant bureaucrats would be bad enough in 1950. But after decades of our Third World-only immigration policies, one can't help noticing that Medicare and Medicaid are beckoning Disneylands for foreign-born thieves.
The problem isn't their complexion, it's their culture. In America, we think only dumb people become criminals. That's not true in the Third World!

Crime rates are lower among immigrants than the native born, according to a study cited by Pew last month. Crime rates rise among second-generation immigrants to levels comparable to the native born, the study says.
Coulter has continually raised alarms about the possibility of reform including a pathway to citizenship, saying it would create a primarily Latino underclass of welfare recipients that deplete government resources.
In fact, Latinos use less than their fair share of government benefits. A study released last year by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted that non-Hispanic whites accounted for 64 percent of the population in 2010 and received 69 percent of entitlement benefits. Latinos, on the other hand, made up 16 percent of the population but received 12 percent of the benefits.
Check out more wrong things Ann Coulter says below.

Immigration reform will destroy the economy

Coulter doesn't just think immigration reform will hurt the economy -- she thinks it will be the "end of America." But economists generally agree that immigration reform will boost the overall economy, though it will likely increase labor competition in some sectors.

Image: Demonstrators rally for immigrant worker rights on May Day, May 1, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. Thousands of people are participating in seven May Day immigrant rights protest

There are 20 million undocumented immigrants in the United States

Wrong. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, there were about 11.1 million undocumented immigrants in the country as of 2011. Migration from Mexico, the largest sending country of undocumented immigrants, now stands at net zero or less.

Image: People gather at South Alvarado Street and West 7th Street, an area with high density of

Latinos are lazy

Wrong. In fact, the Hispanic community is highly entrepreneurial. Latinos opened twice as many businesses as the national average in the 2000s, according to U.S. Census data cited by Businessweek. Furthermore, Coulter usually makes these comments in the context of the immigration debate. Undocumented immigrants often work grueling jobs, for long hours, with fewer benefits than the native born and documented immigrants. What's lazy about that?

 

 Undocumented immigrants want to live here illegally in order to receive government benefits

 This statement is ridiculous. The vast majority of undocumented immigrants are not legally eligible for most government assistance, though many households have members who are both citizens and undocumented.

Anyone who has reported on the topic knows the vast majority of undocumented immigrants would prefer to regularize their status than run the risk of winding up in detention and deportation proceedings

 

Hispanics become poorer over time

That’s not what the research shows. In fact, each generation of Latinos tends to do better economically than the generation that preceeded it, according a 2011 study by the Migration Policy Institute.

 

Image: Adriana Sanchez, who was brought from Mexico to Central California as a 12-year-old, teaches a math class at the Adult School in Fresno, Calif., on Monday, May 21, 2012. Despite a lack of proper immigration documents, the 24-year-old graduated in May from California State University, Fresno with a Master's degree in International Relations, a full time job and zero loans to pay back. (AP Photo/ Gosia Wozniacka)

Latinos are government-dependent

Untrue. In fact, Hispanics use less than their fair share of government benefits, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Latinos make up 16 percent of the population, but receive 12 percent of benefits. Non-Hispanics whites, by contrast, account for 64 percent of the population

Latinos will automatically vote Democrat

Not if past experience is a guide. There are many absolutes in Coulter's mind, but reality generally plays out with more nuance. The Latino vote tends to lean liberal because Hispanics, in the aggregate. Latinos tend to favor a larger government that provides more services and -- conservative talking points notwithstanding -- they tend to lean more liberal than non-Hispanic whites on issues like abortion and gay marriage. ion, but receive 69 percent of entitlement benefits.