In her column “America Nears El Tipping Pointo” (cute), Coulter goes on a diatribe, where she laments how Hispanics went from being only 2 percent of the population – as well as mostly married, educated and skilled – to being “the poorest of the world poor” immigrants. She says the biggest mistake is thinking Latino immigrants will “go the way of Italian immigrants and become Republicans” through hard work and family values. Instead, Coulter says, recent “Third World immigrants” are just “having illegitimate children and going on welfare.”
Huffington Post Latino Voices‘ Roque Planas shot back, citing a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report showing non-Hispanic whites accounted for 64 percent of the population, but receive 69 percent of entitlement benefits, whereas Latinos make up 16 percent of the population, but receive 12 percent of the benefits. Ironically, this is due in part to the fact that undocumented Latinos do not have access to many government benefits or services.
Other facts ignored by Coulter but pointed out by Planas include the fact that Latinos created twice as many businesses as non-Latinos since 2000, according to Census figures, and the fact that 45 percent of undocumented immigrant households are two-parent households, versus 34 percent for legal immigrants and 21 percent for U.S.-born households.
Either way, to say Ann Coulter is not in the Republican camp trying to figure out how to make the party a “bigger tent” is an understatement. Anyway, some of us have work to do. by Sandra Lilley [NBC]