This week, a reader sent us a letter about former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum’s claim that there are “more people living in this country who were not born here than at any other time in the history of the country.”
In the FactCheck Mailbag, we feature some of the email we receive. Readers can send comments to editor@factcheck.org. Letters may be edited for length.
Santorum Was Right
Actually, Santorum’s statement was not misleading but was entirely correct [“Spinning Immigration Data,” Nov. 26]. If he had stated that “this was the greatest percentage of immigrants into the nation,” that would have been wrong. Do not be hung up on percentages.
If anything, he understated the position. We are a nation of over 315 million people with no wide open frontiers and an increasing welfare state. It is not the 19th century where immigrants were allowed to “root hog or die.”
Frank W. Goudy
Cuba, Illinois