I think the point that is really crying out to be made is that college campuses and the backs of ambulances/squad cars are two very biased sets of places to attempt to collect a representative sample of the immigrant population.
In fact, if you were to collect samples of natural born American citizens in the same two sets of places you'd reach the exact same biased conclusions about Americans.
If you collected statistics about immigrants on college campuses and immigrants in the back of a squad car you'd find they got here from very different places and on very different visas (or lack of visa).
In fact, if you were to collect samples of natural born American citizens in the same two sets of places you'd reach the exact same biased conclusions about Americans.
What conclusions are you referring to, in particular?
What conclusions are you referring to, in particular?
The respective ones. If you collected statistics about Americans in the back of a squad car, you'd conclude that Americans are a bunch of criminals (shocker of shockers). That's the point: it's just about the silliest, most extreme way to bias your sample.
Are you saying that police officers, by virtue of the fact that they primarily interact with criminals, would conclude that people here on, say, student visas are a bunch of criminals?
You said "If you collected statistics about Americans in the back of a squad car, you'd conclude that Americans are a bunch of criminals (shocker of shockers).".
I'm challenging you on that. I think your statistics would show that certain classes of Americans are comparatively very criminally oriented, and certain classes of Americans are not. Similarly, if you collected statistics about foreigners in the back of a squad car, you'd conclude that foreigners here without a visa of any kind are much more criminally oriented than foreigners here on, for example, a student visa. You seem to want to dismiss the usefulness of those statistics just because they're only dealing with a particular segment of the population.
I think your statistics would show that certain classes of Americans are comparatively very criminally oriented, and certain classes of Americans are not.
I didn't say anything about certain classes of Americans. I said that if you sampled the back of a squad car, you'd conclude that Americans are a bunch of criminals in general. That is the point. Asking a police officer about their experiences with immigrants is extremely biased. Just as asking a surgeon about athletes is biased (hint: surgeons have a lot more contact with injured athletes than the average person).
Asking a police officer about their experiences with immigrants is extremely biased.
So I ask again (and I won't use students this time, since you didn't get the point the first time): If you asked police officers about their experiences with immigrants here on E1 visas, would you conclude that people here on E1 visas are a bunch of criminals? What does that tell you about people here on E1 visas?
In fact, if you were to collect samples of natural born American citizens in the same two sets of places you'd reach the exact same biased conclusions about Americans.