Longtime readers of redbankgreen comments may be familiar with the postings of ‘Dan.’

Whether or not one agrees with him, he’s clearly an evidence-driven guy (or maybe a woman — who knows, right?). He looks to outside sources of expertise and often cites it in his comments. And if someone else offers up some documentation in support of an argument, he’s likely to check it out and see how it squares with that person’s characterization of it.

That approach was evident last week, when Dan replied to another commenter, “Just Sayin,” under our story, ‘Alleged West Side Shooter Rejects Plea Deal.’

Here’s Dan’s comment:

just sayin,

I actually started reading the attached links, and it was clear that you hadn’t read them.  Read the article in #1, and you’ll find that it’s talking about legal immigrants, not illegals.  That article says, “Illegal immigrants are barred from the following federal public benefits: grants, contracts, loans, licenses, retirement, welfare, health, disability, public or assisted housing, post secondary education, food assistance, and unemployment benefits. States are barred from providing state or locally funded benefits to illegal immigrants unless a state law is enacted granting such authority.”  That contradicts items 2, 3 and 9 in your list

Then I found that your list is from a chain mail circulating the Internet.  Here is an examination of the claims made in the chain mail:
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/do_illegal_immigrants_cost_3383_billion_dollars.html

And here’s a real study on immigrants and crime: http://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedhwp/wp-05-19.html
From the abstract:
“Despite the widespread perception of a link between immigration and crime, immigrants have much lower institutionalization (incarceration) rates than the native born. More recently arrived immigrants have the lowest comparative incarceration rates, and this difference increased from 1980 to 2000.”