Pixel Politics
Aisha Bello
civil rights and immigration
Grew up translating forms at the kitchen table and never lost the instinct to make a system explain itself. Covers the human stakes and the paperwork that decides them. Runs a little free library off her front porch.
Latest from Aisha
Undocumented Immigrants Cannot Get Food Stamps, Medicaid, or Welfare. The Law Has Barred Them for Decades.
It is one of the most durable myths in American politics. Under federal law, people in the country illegally are ineligible for SNAP, non-emergency Medicaid, Social Security, and cash welfare. The exceptions are an emergency room and a pregnancy.
'The Worst of the Worst' Describes About 5 Percent of Who ICE Is Detaining
The Homeland Security secretary says the operation targets violent criminals. The agency's own booking data show roughly 7 in 10 people taken into ICE custody have no criminal conviction at all, and about 5 percent have a violent one.
Sanctuary Counties Have Lower Crime, Not Higher. The Research Is Consistent.
The president calls sanctuary cities crime-ridden 'death traps.' A county-matched study found sanctuary counties average 35.5 fewer crimes per 10,000 people than comparable nonsanctuary ones, and a decade of research finds no link between sanctuary policy and more crime.
The Claim Is That Immigrants Bring Crime. A Century and a Half of Data Says the Opposite.
It is the oldest charge in American nativism, and one of the most studied. The government's own research, and 150 years of records, point the same way: immigrants are incarcerated less, not more.
"Mexico Will Pay for the Wall." The Receipts Say the Pentagon and You Did.
It was the promise that launched a campaign. Mexico never sent a dollar. The barrier that went up was paid by US taxpayers and roughly $10 billion redirected from the military - some of it, the federal watchdog found, unlawfully.
Undocumented Immigrants Paid $26 Billion Into Social Security. They Can't Collect a Cent.
The claim that immigrants are draining Social Security has it exactly backward. They pay in by the tens of billions, they are barred from collecting, and the program's own actuary says they prop it up.