Thread: Immigrants Bring Crime’ Is a Myth (put boots on)

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‘Immigrants Bring Crime’ Is a Myth

New America Media, Commentary, Walter Ewing, Posted: Feb 22, 2007

Editor’s Note: Government and academic studies prove decisively that the common belief that immigrants, especially undocumented ones, bring criminality is based on a big lie. Walter Ewing is a Research Associate at the Immigration Policy Center. IMMIGRATION MATTERS regularly features the views of the nation's leading immigrant rights advocates.

Among the many troubling aspects of the public debate over immigration is the power of myths over facts. One of the most enduring myths about immigration, despite literally decades of evidence to the contrary, is the belief that immigrants are more likely to commit crime than the native-born.

This myth is so widespread and unquestioned that it has been the catalyst for scores of local governments to consider anti-immigrant ordinances over the past year. These calls to crack down on undocumented immigrants, the employers who hire them and the landlords who rent to them, are framed in part as “anti-crime” ordinances.

The city council of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, for instance, passed an ordinance last September claiming that “illegal immigration leads to higher crime rates” and that the council therefore must protect legal residents of the city from “crimes committed by illegal aliens.”

Because most of the undocumented immigrants in Hazleton and other communities throughout the United States are young men from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and elsewhere in Latin America, who have little money or formal education, it is assumed that they are more likely to commit crimes than the native-born.

Government and academic studies, however, have demonstrated repeatedly for over a century that immigrants actually are less likely to commit crimes than the native-born. Even though immigration has increased dramatically over the past decade and a half, the crime rate in the United States has declined.

Since 1994, the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States has more than doubled to 12 million. Immigrants, both legal and undocumented, now comprise just under 13 percent of the population. Yet, according to the FBI, between 1994 and 2005 the violent crime rate (murder, robbery, rape, assault) fell 34.2 percent and the property crime rate (burglary, theft) dropped 26.4 percent.

Cities with large and growing immigrant populations such as Los Angeles, New York, Miami and Chicago also experienced this downward trend in crime. If immigration—either legal or undocumented—were associated with crime, then crime rates should be rising.

An upcoming report from the Immigration Policy Center further dispels the notion that immigration and crime are connected. Using data from the 2000 Census, the report shows that immigrants are less likely than the native-born to be behind bars. Among men age 18 to 39 (who comprise the vast majority of inmates in federal and state prisons and local jails), immigrants were five times less likely to be incarcerated than the native-born in 2000.

About 3.5 percent of native-born men were in prison, compared with 0.7 percent of foreign-born men. Immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala were much less likely to be in prison than native-born, non-Hispanic whites. Roughly 0.7 percent of foreign-born Mexican men and 0.5 percent of foreign-born Salvadoran and Guatemalan men were in prison, compared with 1.7 percent of native-born, non-Hispanic white men.

These findings are not new. Three government commissions investigated the relationship between immigration and crime during the last era of large-scale immigration to the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when millions of immigrants arrived from Italy, Ireland, Russia, Poland, and other nations in Europe. All three commissions came to the same conclusion: immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than natives.

As the [Dillingham] Immigration Commission of 1911 concluded: “No satisfactory evidence has yet been produced to show that immigration has resulted in an increase in crime disproportionate to the increase in adult population. Such comparable statistics of crime and population as it has been possible to obtain indicate that immigrants are less prone to commit crime than are native Americans.”

Despite a century’s worth of evidence that immigration does not breed crime, the stereotype of immigrants as criminals continues to flourish in the media and among policymakers. Popular movies and television shows often feature gun-wielding, drug-dealing criminals from south of the border. News reports of violent crimes committed by gangs such as the Salvadoran Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) often overshadow the fact that an extraordinarily small number of immigrants are in gangs and that gangs are found in every ethnic group among both natives and the foreign-born.

Adding insult to injury, many politicians regularly declare their resolve to stem the criminal tide allegedly unleashed by undocumented immigrants. Even President Bush, who favors immigration reform that creates more legal channels for immigration to the United States, declared in a May 15, 2006 address to the nation that illegal immigration “brings crime to our communities.”

There is no denying that crime is a serious problem in the United States. But it is not a problem created or even aggravated by immigration. Quite the opposite, in fact. Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes of all types than the native-born. This suggests that crime is linked not to one’s place of birth, but to the many other forces which foster crime in this country, especially in relatively poor communities: high rates of divorce and family disintegration, high rates of alcohol and drug abuse, etc.

The solution to crime does not lie in immigration policy. And the solution to undocumented immigration does not lie in misguided “get tough” policies that scapegoat immigrants as criminals.

See More Immigration Matters




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Gus on Feb 22, 2007 at 12:15:50 said:

Immigration is needed to be seen from humane perspective. Economic migration has been always true from ages.
It is true that we have to handle this at root, but at the sametime those who are here for more than 2 years and have adjusted to american lifestyles will be misfit in their own country.

Please give them green cards and choice to work in United States so that they do not get exploited by employers.

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Notice that the idiot propagandist used statistics for "immigrants," not for "illegal immigrants." There is a HUGE distinction. Actual immigrants should well be expected to commit less crimes because they are required to clear criminal background checks and often remain under careful scrutiny. ILLEGAL immigrants BREAK THE LAW TO COME HERE as their first act on US soil, so we could accurately say that ILLEGAL immigrants have a 100% criminal rate. Beyond that, we know that their disregard for our laws goes well beyond that initial offense, frequently including fraud, identity theft, filing false affidavits, theft, driving sans licensure or financial responsibility, robbery, assault, murder, and endless other offenses.

So, Mr. Ewing, how about you try being honest for a change? When we want to talk about immigrants, we'll talk about immigrants. When we want to talk about illegal aliens, we'll talk about illegal aliens. But disputing the claims of Hazleton's ordinance on ILLEGAL ALIENS with a meaningless statistic relating to IMMIGRANTS is nothing short of dishonest. I guess that makes you a liar, Mr. Ewing, and I would be happy to call you that to your lying face.

Here's the deal, most of the illegal aliens do not commit crimes, other than fraud by faslifying documents and stealing IDs and breaking into our country to get here. But, there is a large number of them who do. The crimes we hear about are horrible, rape and murder of a nun for example.

My argument is, if they weren't here, the crimes would not have happened. Yes, our citizens also commit crimes, but that is the risk we have to live with in this society. We should not import violence. We also shouldn't allow illegal aliens to spread our law enforcement so thin that everone, legal and illegal, gets a pass. That's what happens in Oregon.

You can't look at prosecutions and prison records for the numbers. You have to look at the crime reporting statistics and numbers from jails (counties, cities, etc.).

Once an illegal alien commits a crime, they simply leave the area and establish themselves under a different name somewhere else. They also may head back to their country of origin. Ask any Sheriff's office for their numbers and they are staggering. When overcrowding and bad judges let them out pending trial, they simply flee and they never end up in Prison.

They can play with the numbers and pull on heartsrings all they want, all you have to do is watch the local nightly news in Anytown, USA. It is a huge problem.

Hey there everyone - good morning!


My Rant:

The IPC = OBL

Bovine Scatology. Here, pal (article author), let me trash your argument with these simple statistics:

Q1: % (of total) of persons in Federal Custody (in prisons/jail) that are 'foreign born'?___27% (from Dobbs recently, via Casey Wian report). (Keeping in mind, that even the Federal system does not do a completely thorough job in identifying persons that are technically 'illegal aliens' - but, sometimes such persons fall under the classification of just being 'foreign-born'...)
= 27%

Q2: % (of total) of person in the US illegally? (using standard, but 'conservative' estimate of) about 12 million = 12/300 (in mil) = 0.04 or
= 4%

Now, if the differences owing to country of origin/immigration status aren't the main factor in the almost 6-7 fold greater than expected crime incidence, what in the heck explains the discrepancy?
(eg. if, as the author suggests, that 'immigrants' commit crimes at a rate no greater than the native population, than the % of incarcerated individuals should be about 4% also - but the reality is FAR different).

Possible explanations/intervening factors:
1). The estimates of numbers of individuals in the US illegally is exceedingly LOW,
2). The number of illegal individuals in Federal custody is higher than true population or otherwise should be,
3). Etc., other factors too. Such as: for whatever reason... incarcerated 'immigrants' tend to only by locked away in State/Local jails, and not Federal ones, etc. (which is, not out of the question, but probably not what most would expect in such cases)
4). Also, another, yet more troubling explanation is that LEGAL immigrants are committing crimes in a disproportionately very high rate - which begs a whole set of following questions I'll save to later...
5) Some combination(s) of the above...
(etc)

Put your boots on

No, we need hip waders for this one as this guy is in this s--- waist deep.

Again I will repeat something I have said before. About in 1997, my brother went through trainging for the Clackamas County sheriffs office to be a reserve deputy. During training, they discussed demographics, and I know, all of our enemies would say that was "racial profiling", but it was simply learning the true numbers.

It was explained that in Oregon, the Latino population held 9% of the state population (illegal/legal was not discussed), however, they held at that time, 37% of the prison/jail population. So over 1/3 of the prison jail population was simply Latino, and it is likely that almost all were illegals. Considering they comprised only 9% of the population, at that time, thats awful dang high.

I can say with surety that other states with a higher population in illegals, the numbers must be sky high.

This guy needs a labotomy.

If this is true, then why is 95% of homicide committed in CA done by criminal aliens?

They actually posted my response and other people who don't agree. They have more guts than most liberal rags.

Illegal immigrants 'are' crime.

If I were in charge of the INS I would deport them, to, by mistake (how are we supposed to know- it's not like they have any documentation to prove it) a different country. Further south (not Antarctica like in my dreams although Ernest Shackleton did a pretty damned good job) let these scofflaws jump their own damned borders without documents and see how far they get.

I figure they will crap out around Brazil.

May be they just stopped arresting them as in Los Angeles because they have taken over the whole town plus taken over the poiticians and police departments, and this is probably happening in most large cities.

I would like to know just how many police officers and city officials are on the take from drug cartel.

Its pretty hard to convince the public when we hear about crime everyday, be it drugs, driving without a license,entering illegaly, fake documents, on and on. Don't feed us you propagand crap!!!!!

But disputing the claims of Hazleton's ordinance on ILLEGAL ALIENS with a meaningless statistic relating to IMMIGRANTS is nothing short of dishonest. I guess that makes you a liar, Mr. Ewing, and I would be happy to call you that to your lying face.

Rock and Roll!!!!




Neils
1:49 pm
02/24/2007