Thread: Report: Info muddled on immigrants and crime

November 19, 2009 8:27 PM

Report: Info muddled on immigrants and crime

BY CINDY CARCAMO
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

A man in the back of a squad car on his way to jail: What are the chances he was born in the United States?

The Center for Immigration Studies released a report today that says it is unclear whether immigrants -- both legal and illegal -- are more likely to commit crimes than people born in the United States.

The report, called "Immigration and Crime: Assessing a Conflicted Issue" challenges decades of studies by groups on both sides of the immigration debate. It contends that conflicting information and a lack of good data provide a confusing portrait of immigrant criminality.

As the debate heats up with the possibility of an immigration overhaul, the report's authors suggest federal officials and local law enforcement work more closely to get a good sense of whether there is a real public safety concern posed by immigrants -- legal and illegal.

"The overall picture on immigration and crime is muddled," said Steven Camarota, co-author of the study by the Washington, D.C.-based group that wants more restrictions on legal immigration.

The group's study comes on the heels of recent reports from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that say legal and illegal immigrants have higher rates of criminality. And those reports contradict older research and studies from think tanks and immigrants rights groups that have consistently said that immigrants -- both legal and illegal – are less likely to commit crimes.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement estimates that about 20 percent of inmates in prisons and jails are immigrants -- legal and illegal. At the same time, the foreign-born make up 15.4 percent of the population, according to the data.

The immigration agency's estimates come from ICE's Secure Communities initiative and data from the 287(g) program, both of which allow local law enforcement officials to screen for inmates' immigration status.

In Orange County, 1,681 of 30,303 inmates screened at the Orange County Jail during the first six months of this year were suspected of being in the country illegally and placed under an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer, according to Sheriff's Department statistics. Nearly 900 were booked on suspicion of committing felonies and the rest on suspicion of misdemeanors.

That means about 5.5 percent of the inmate population at the Orange County Jail during that time were suspected of being in the country illegally, statistics show. Sheriff's deputies screen virtually everybody who is booked into the facility. Those who are booked into the jail are arrested by every law enforcement agency in the county.

The Center for Immigration Studies report points out that the government failed to provide a detailed explanation of how they arrived at their estimates and that their estimates are possibly flawed, Camarota said.

However, the group also suggests that better long-range information on immigrant criminality could come from continuing the Secure Communities and 287(g) programs, if the data is correct.

Opinion surveys show that the public thinks immigrants overall or people who are in the country illegally, in particular, have higher rates of crime, the report said.

In addition, some anti-illegal immigration groups, such as Huntington Beach-based California Coalition for Immigration Reform, have long argued that people who are in the country illegally are criminals by simply being here.

Camarota's report disputes long-held claims by immigrant activists and other groups that legal and illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes.

The report says that studies issued by the Immigration Policy Center in 2007 and the Public Policy Institute of California in 2008 that contend low rates of immigrant incarceration are flawed. The 2000 Census data used is not reliable, Camarota contends, because it's based on educated guesses as to whether a prisoner was an immigrant.

The Immigration Policy Center, an immigrant rights group based in Washington, D.C., strongly disagreed.

"The report... attempts to overturn a century's worth of research which has demonstrated repeatedly that immigrants are less likely than the native-born to commit violent crimes or end up behind bars," the organization stated Wednesday.

Studies and data from a hundred years back have consistently reached the same conclusion: immigration is not associated with higher rates of crime, Immigraton Policy Center officials said.

"In other words, numerous researchers drawing upon numerous sources of data have reached the same conclusion that the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform reached in its 1984 report - which also happens to be the conclusion reached by the Industrial Commission of 1901, the Dillingham Immigration Commission of 1911, and the Wickersham National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement of 1931: that immigration is not associated with higher crime," center officials said in a statement.

The immigrant rights group contends that the center's real agenda is to promote the 287(g) and Secure Communities programs. Immigrant rights groups have criticized the programs, which have come under fire lately, with allegations of mismanagement and suspected misuse and possible racial profiling in such places as Maricopa County in Arizona.

In Orange County, sheriff's deputies do not arrest people based on immigration status or suspected immigration status, said Orange County Sheriff's Department spokesman John McDonald.

Other demographers, however, agree with Camarota that the jury is still out on immigration and crime.

"We don't know the answer," said Mark Hugo Lopez, an associate director at the Pew Hispanic Center. "Part of the problem is that at times in states and locally it's not asked or collected—the nativity of the people and whether they are foreign born or whether someone is here legally or illegally."

http://www.ocregister.com/news/-220273--.html

The group's study comes on the heels of recent reports from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that say legal and illegal immigrants have higher rates of criminality. And those reports contradict older research and studies from think tanks and immigrants rights groups that have consistently said that immigrants -- both legal and illegal – are less likely to commit crimes.

Let's see. Legal immigrants come here on visas, but (oops) never leave. That is a federal crime, but we have no way to track them. Illegals come here without permission, which is another federal crime, but we look the other way and also are not able to track them.
The battle will be fun to watch.

The CIS report, "Immigration and Crime: Assessing a Conflicted Issue", at:
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-178637.html