On Boyles' show, Anderson repeated bogus claim that 25 to 30 percent of California inmates are illegal immigrants

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

Discussing the case of illegal immigrant activist Elvira Arellano on Peter Boyles' August 20 broadcast, frequent guest and talk show host Terry Anderson suggested that “between 25 and 30 [percent]” of California prison inmates are “illegals.” Boyles made a similar claim on a previous broadcast, but federal statistics show that “noncitizens” in California's federal and state prisons at midyear 2006 comprised 9 percent of the inmate population. Anderson also echoed a remark he previously made regarding Arellano, who sought refuge in a church, stating that he and Boyles probably would have “drug this broad out ... hollerin' and screamin.”

On August 20, after 630 KHOW-AM host Peter Boyles asked frequent guest Terry Anderson, “What percentage of illegals do you think make up the prison population in California?” Anderson replied that he had “heard it's between 25 and 30 [percent].” Boyles made a similar unsubstantiated claim on his August 14 broadcast, stating that “25 percent of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally,” as Colorado Media Matters noted. However, according to U.S. Department of Justice statistics published in June, noncitizens -- legal and illegal combined -- made up only 9 percent (15,849 out of 175,115) of federal and state prisoners held in California at midyear 2006. Furthermore, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's fourth quarter 2006 Jail Profile Survey Report, of the average daily county jail population of 81,612, only 9,350 -- or 11.46 percent -- were classified as “criminal/illegal aliens.”

Earlier in the broadcast, describing how he and Boyles would have confronted illegal immigrant activist Elvira Arellano while she used a Chicago church as a sanctuary to avoid deportation, Anderson stated that “we'd have probably stormed the ... church there and drug this broad out, you know, hollerin' and screamin' ” -- comments that echoed Anderson's declaration on Boyles' November 15, 2006, broadcast that “I'd drag this broad out of there by her hair.” Anderson's Los Angeles-based talk show airs for one hour on Sunday evenings on KRLA 870.

Boyles' conversation with Anderson followed Arellano's August 19 arrest in Los Angeles by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. As the Los Angeles Times reported on August 21, Arellano, a Mexican national who re-entered the United States following an earlier deportation, sought refuge in a Chicago church in the summer of 2006 after an immigration judge called for her deportation. The Times reported that, according to one of her supporters, nearly a year after entering the church, Arellano left it with the intention of speaking out about immigration reform. She was deported to Mexico again, on August 20. Her 8-year-old son, Saul, is a United States citizen who remained in the country.

From the August 20 broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's The Peter Boyles Show:

ANDERSON: See, here's the thing Pete: This, this broad flipped us off. She flipped off the, the, the country, the people. She flipped off ICE. And, you know, you and I, we would've -- we'd have probably stormed the, the church there and drug this broad out, you know, hollerin' and screamin.' But, then, that's what, that's what everybody I know wanted to happen. But, but it didn't happen. And -- ICE, ICE laid in the cut. You know, they were quiet. They laid in the cut. They, they, they bided their time. And she says, “OK, I'm goin' on tour now. I'm a rock star. I'm goin' on tour.”

BOYLES: Yeah, she went on tour. You're right.

ANDERSON: She -- she goes on tour, and ICE says, “OK, one performance only. This tour is shut down,” and they grab the broad.

[...]

ANDERSON: She just basically said, you know, “The hell with all you Americans.” I want her prosecuted. She committed a felony by re-entering the country. Am I correct?

BOYLES: Oh, absolutely.

ANDERSON: Now, why is she not gonna be prosecuted for that? I want to stretch this broad with about five years in the pen. Put her kid in a workhouse or somewhere, or --

[Boyles laughs]

ANDERSON: -- or maybe put, or maybe put him in, put him in a, put him in an orphanage. Old-fashioned orphanage, you know, where they, where they eat porridge three times a day.

BOYLES: May I have, may I have more, sir?

ANDERSON: Yeah, stick it, yeah, stick him in there. And, and, you know, don't, don't persecute the kid, but let it, you know, don't let him be a burden on the country, either.

Toward the end of their conversation, Boyles asked Anderson his opinion about the size of the illegal immigrant prison population in California, and Anderson suggested that it was “between 25 and 30” percent:

BOYLES: What percentage of illegals do you think make up the prison population in California?

ANDERSON: Oh, I've heard, I heard it's between 25 and 30.

BOYLES: OK. Wanted to just check with you on this one, my boy, because I knew it happened in your backyard.

ANDERSON: Oh yeah, right up the street.

BOYLES: Thank you. Be safe.

ANDERSON: See you, Pete.

Similarly, on his October 20, 2006, broadcast, Boyles falsely claimed that according to U.S. Justice Department figures, “illegals now make up half of California's prison population,” as Colorado Media Matters noted.