The photograph failed the statistical smell testThe TOI correspondent from Washington: The photograph that Bo French chose to make a political argument about Indians and foreigners overrunning the University of Texas, Austin, may have been worth thousands of social media posts, but it failed the statistical smell test. French, the Republican nominee for the powerful Texas Railroad Commission, posted a photograph of Longhorn fans -- named after the famous local cattle breed -- celebrating UT Austin’s dramatic September 12 football victory over Ohio State.
“I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it.
The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined," he wrote. He later doubled down, saying the image showed how “Americans have been displaced by foreigners” and lamenting that Texas families could not get their children into UT because the university “prioritizes foreigners over Texans.”
There was, however, a small problem with the argument: UT's enrollment figures do not remotely resemble the photograph. 5% were Texas residents.
S. 4% of total university enrollment -- a substantial community, but hardly evidence of a foreign or Indian invasion.
There is another important statistical trap in the “Indians/foreigners have taken over” canard: “Asian” or “Indian” or “brown” is not synonymous with “foreign.” A foreign-looking student in a football crowd could be an American citizen, a permanent resident, a Texas-born child of immigrants or an international student.
Race or apparent ethnicity cannot establish immigration status. 6%, according to Census Bureau data.
The transformation is particularly visible in the technology and professional suburbs around Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and Austin which have become a hotbed of anti-Indian rhetoric and activism. Indian community activists acknowledge none of this means immigration policy is beyond legitimate debate, nor that every criticism of the H-1B programme is xenophobic.
They agree that critics raise genuine questions about outsourcing, wage competition, employer practices, visa dependence and whether the programme is being used as Congress intended. But there is a considerable difference between asking whether H-1B policy works properly and looking at a football crowd, guessing people's ethnicity and declaring that Indians are displacing Americans.
