Washington Post Analysis of Immigrant Admissions Under Trump Ignores Half of All Immigrants to Reach Erroneous Conclusions
By Jessica M. Vaughan and Preston Huennekens on July 9, 2018
A recent story in the Washington Post concluding that the Trump administration is deliberately suppressing immigration, especially from Muslim-majority countries, is based on a deeply flawed analysis that included statistics for only half of all recent immigrant admissions. As a result, the Post's numbers and conclusions are way off — so far off that the story should be retracted and rewritten.
The story, written by Abigail Hauslohner, a reporter who covers Islam and Arab affairs, and Andrew Tran, a data crunching specialist, relied primarily on the State Department's immigrant visa issuance statistics. The reporters did not acknowledge or otherwise inform their readers that these statistics represent only about 50 percent of all legal immigrants. The State Department statistics count only those immigrants who are admitted with an immigrant visa issued abroad. The other 50 percent of legal immigrants are admitted through a process known as adjustment of status, meaning they obtain their green card from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a domestic agency within the Department of Homeland Security. Tran confirmed the methodology in an email to the Center.
https://cis.org/Vaughan/Washington-Post-Analysis-Immigrant-Admissions-Under-Trump-Ignores-Half-All-Immigrants-Reach
