Thread: Commentary: OReilly and Dobbs are Nativists

This commentary led to a segment on Oreilly 3-13


www.postwritersgroup.com/archives/schu090227.htm


WASHINGTON -- The fury of Bill O'Reilly, Lou Dobbs and other nativists in response to the news that the prime suspect wanted for the murder of Chandra Levy is an illegal immigrant from El Salvador could easily be dismissed as racism. But complicating matters is that most Americans probably agree with them.

The immigration restrictionists point to Salvadoran Ingmar Guandique, who is in prison for knife attacks against two other women, as an example of illegal immigrant crime run amok. "About a half million serious crimes have been committed by illegal aliens over the past 10 years," declared O'Reilly.

Some polls show that as many as three-fourths of Americans believe that immigrants cause crime to rise. Crime by illegal immigrants in particular has stirred such unease that even liberal communities such as San Francisco and the Washington suburb of Montgomery County, Md., known for providing sanctuary to the undocumented, are now moving to turn in some felony suspects to immigration authorities.

The lurid nature of immigrant-related cases, many reported spectacularly in the media, feed public insecurity. In Montgomery County, for example, illegal Latin American immigrants were charged last year for the murders of a 14-year-old honor student on a bus and a 63-year-old woman in her home.

But in all the furor, there is this hitch: The perception of high crime rates by illegal immigrants is pure myth. And it is misdirecting public policy about what we really should do to stop illegal immigration.

The image of predatory criminal immigrants has long been a staple of popular lore -- think "The Godfather" and "Scarface" -- but a century of studies has consistently shown that recent immigrants are in fact less likely to commit a crime or be in jail than native Americans. Today's immigrants, legal and illegal, are no different.

Crime statistics aren't recorded nationally in a way that allows a definitive measure of illegal immigrant crime, but the conclusion from various indicators is overwhelmingly clear. The last comprehensive national report, by Ruben G. Rumbaut, Walter A. Ewing and the American Immigration Law Foundation, found two years ago that while the number of unauthorized Latino immigrants in the country doubled between 1994 and 2005, violent crime during the same period dropped nearly 35 percent.

Other studies show that the drop fell faster in major illegal immigrant destinations such as Los Angeles and New York than in cities with lower immigration rates. Rumbaut and Ewing reported that U.S-born men ages 18-39 were five times more likely to be in jail than foreign-born ones, even though nearly 30 percent of those foreign-born were here illegally and often jailed for only that offense.

In California, home to the largest illegal immigrant Latino population, immigrants in 2005 made up about 35 percent of California's adult population but accounted for only 17 percent of the prison population, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. The foreigners, most of whom were legal and illegal Latinos, were much less likely to have been jailed for violent crimes or drug trafficking.

A Pew Hispanic Center report suggests a reverse problem: Federal prisons are being overcrowded by illegal immigrants jailed at high cost merely for entering or staying in the country illegally. In 2007, nearly 30 percent of all federal offenders were Latinos without citizenship, of whom more than 60 percent were there for immigration offenses and less than 1 percent for violent crimes.

What researchers also have found is a Latino paradox: their incarceration rates go up one generation to the next. In the California study, U.S.-born Mexican descendents were eight times more likely to be jailed than were recent Mexican immigrants. Among Salvadorans and Guatemalans, the difference was six to one.

Most Latino crime, in other words, is learned here. It is due to higher rates of family disintegration, drug and alcohol addiction, and gang membership.

To be sure, some illegal immigrants join gangs and are involved in the drug trade. Phoenix has replaced Miami as the drug capital of the country and the rates of murder and kidnappings there among cross-border drug gangs are soaring.

But this is a phenomenon that would exist regardless of there being 12 million illegal immigrants here. The answer is standard policing and a change in emphasis to reduce drug demand. For the overwhelming number of illegal immigrants who are law-abiding and have come to the U.S. merely to work, the solution lies in comprehensive reform that imposes controls, but also responds to labor demand by opening pathways to legal temporary work and citizenship.

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Edward Schumacher-Matos is CEO, Editorial Director and Founder of Meximerica Media Inc., and has more than 25 years of newspaper experience. Before founding Meximerica Media, he was the founding editor and associate publisher of The Wall Street Journal Americas. He began his career as a reporter at the Patriot Ledger in Quincy, Massachusetts, and then moved to the Philadelphia Inquirer, where he was part of a team that in 1979 won the Pulitzer Prize for public service. For nearly a decade afterwards, Schumacher Matos worked at The New York Times, first as the York City economic development reporter and later as bureau chief in Buenos Aires and in Madrid. He has written extensively for The Washington Post, Foreign Affairs and other publications.

Most Latino crime, in other words, is learned here. It is due to higher rates of family disintegration, drug and alcohol addiction, and gang membership.

Of course, it's our fault. Like Mexico and the rest of Latin America are quiet idyllic countries with absolutely no drugs, no rapes and murders, kidnappings or drugs, no running gun battles, etc. Gotta love these nuts that spelledy Ingles real bueno.

quote(Most Latino crime, in other words, is learned here. It is due to higher rates of family disintegration, drug and alcohol addiction, and gang membership.)quote

What a joke I've lived on the border for years know the culture and the country,serious we do not need to teach them crime.


I love the term nativists could that equal patriot, liberals love word games.

on the scroll on the bottom of the tv screen, it even said Matos lived here illegally in his teen years but did serve in vietnam

Welll consider the ratio , 300+ million Americans and 20 million illegal aliens and I would bet their crime rate is pretty high...not to mention citizens we have to tolorate and illegal aliens are preventable crimes.

There are the catch words again - nativist and restrictionists. Well, someone wants to call me that just because I want our immigration laws enforced so be it.

And do you think the above matters to such families as the Levys, Shaws, Bolognas, etc.? I don't think so. They don't care about statistics, all it took was being in the wrong place when an illegal perpetraded their deadly crime against a family member. We have enough crime by our own but when it occurs by someone who shouldn't even be here it does matter.