Alexander Grelier
1/31/19
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| NY Times: The Myth of the Criminal Immigrant |
| PBS: Fact Check: Immigration Doesn’t Bring Crime into U.S |
Do Immigrants Bring Crime to the US?
In the past few decades, especially since 2016 when President Trump was elected, immigration has been one of the biggest national conversations in the US. One of the stand-out claims made by the Trump administration is that immigrants, especially those from Central and South America, are often drug dealers, gang members, and traffickers. According to a poll from Gallup in 2017, just under half of US citizens believe that there is a direct connection with immigrants bringing crime, which could be a result of what Trump has to say on the topic. Recently, Trump has been targeting so-called "sanctuary cities" for breeding crime in the US, which are cities that often ignore requests from federal immigration authorities to hold these immigrants after they have committed a crime. On a national scale, there seems to be little to no evidence of a correlation between immigration and crime rates, however there does seem to be higher crime rates in sanctuary cities.
Trump has recently battled with leaders of sanctuary cities, describing the cities as "breeding grounds" for immigrant crime. According to a research article by Pew Research, the immigrant population is highly concentrated in the US, with over 60% of undocumented immigrants living in just 20 cities, almost all of which being sanctuary cities. Trump has promised to take action to stop sanctuary cities from unlawfully releasing immigrant criminals, but several mayors in the cities say they will not cooperate with the president. In a graph made by data from the FBI, it can be seen that despite the overall violent crime rates decreasing in the past couple of decades, there has still been more violent crime in sanctuary cities than non-sanctuary cities since 2000. An article published by the White House shows specific incidents where immigrant criminals from sanctuary cities have been released on to the streets unlawfully despite requests from federal immigration authorities to hold the suspects. For example, Nery Estrada-Margos is a citizen of Guatemala who has been living in Santa Rosa. Margos was arrested in Santa Rosa on charges of inflicting injury on a spouse, but was released days later despite requests from federal authorities. Another case of this is man named Bernabe Garcia-Lopez, a citizen of Mexico, who was arrested on DUI charges in Riverside county, and despite prior convictions of rape and hit-and-run, he was released the next day. My final example is with Santos Lopez-Avila, a citizen of Honduras, who has been deported three times (2010, 2013, & 2015). He was arrested for possession and sale of cocaine and other charges, but released shortly only to be arrested another two times on the same charges. Despite incidents of immigrant crime in sanctuary cities, in the past few decades immigration rates have been going up and overall violent crime has been going down.
According to an article by the Oxford Research Encyclopedia, their data has shown that undocumented immigrants usually don't tend to cause crime in the US. They say that unauthorized immigrants travelling to the United States are coming to make money, and creating crime would draw unnecessary attention that could lead to them being deported. However, they also say that when there is an increase in population, poverty, and diversity in race and ethnicity, crime will in fact increase. For example, they use data in their article that shows that Mexican American youth in poor neighborhoods tend to commit more violent crimes than born citizens. In an article by the New York Times, the author uses many studies to show that immigrants don't drive crime. He uses data from a collaboration between four universities to show that in the past few decades, immigrant populations in the US have been growing rapidly, but crime has been moving in the opposite direction, being well below what it was in 1980. Since 1980, the United States' immigrant population has gone up 109%, the overall violent crime rate has gone down 23%, murders have gone down 40%, assaults have gone down 13%, and robberies have gone down 42%. The data used in this experiment fails to show a correlation between immigration and crime rates in the US.
While it is fact that crime rates have been going down in the past few decades despite a growing immigrant population, I still believe that there are many other forces that can drive crime rates down. For example, improvements made by law enforcement and recent policies could be helping slow down crime in the US. Although there doesn't seem to be a correlation in the data used by New York Times, it is unfair to say that immigrants aren't at all to blame for any crime in the US. The data about crime in sanctuary cities shows that there is a higher crime rate in those places, which often inhibit high volumes of immigrants. With the research and data we have right now, it is hard to determine exactly whether or not immigrants bring substantial crime to the US.
Sources
NY Times: The Myth of the Criminal Immigrant This source is where I found most of the data I used regarding violent crime rates and immigration rates since 1980, including the graph above
Oxford Research Encyclopedias: Immigration and Crime This article is where I found information on goals of undocumented immigrants, and circumstances where more immigrants will commit violent crimes
PBS: Fact Check: Immigration Doesn't Bring Crime into US This source is where I got my second photo above
White House: Criminal Aliens Set Free By Sanctuary Cities This website is where I found information on specific instances of criminal immigrants being unlawfully released from prison by sanctuary cities
Valencia: The Politics of Refuge: Sanctuary Cities, Crime, and Undocumented Immigration This report is where I got a graph displaying difference in violent crimes in sanctuary versus non-sanctuary cities
Pew Research: Unauthorized Immigrants in the US This source is where I found information on the volume of immigrants living in sanctuary cities
I like your use of data to support your claims
ReplyDeleteVery good essay. I really enjoyed how you used the example of sanctuary cities to show the whole picture of crime and immigration.
ReplyDeleteYou did a good job showing that there isn't a clear answer to this topic. I liked how you used lots of evidence and statisticsThis was really interesting, good job!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed hearing statistics about this topic especially the specific immigrants and their lives. Make sure to say where the percentages are from, but other than that great job!!
ReplyDeleteI like how you present data from each side. Though I think it gets a bit confused in the presentation of data.
ReplyDeleteAlex,
ReplyDeleteCheck out this link: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/28/5-facts-about-illegal-immigration-in-the-u-s/
It illustrates the decline in immigration, not and increase - as you stated: "in the past few decades immigration rates have been going up." Your important research relies heavily on data and evidence, which is good. It can, however, also be difficult, when you have several categories of information that overlap. For example, you note that "however there does seem to be higher crime rates in sanctuary cities," but the question is, higher than what? Statistics are useful as the allow us to identify trends and understand things by comparing them to other things. You did an excellent job establishing the lack of correlation for the immigrants-crime linkage. On the specific sanctuary city issue, however, a comparative or context for the correlation you do identify (higher immigrant rates, higher crime rates in sanctuary cities) is not established. Does the increase in crime in those cities correlate with the rise of immigration to those cities? But I commend you for making major progress in the direction of thoughtful conversation about these kinds of stats. I think another thing that might have strengthened your argument is to dig deeper into what it means to be a so-called sanctuary city. From the perspective of local law enforcement, the lack of documentation of your legal status is not a crime that is the concern of say, Huntsville's Police Dept. They are charged with enforcing the criminal statutes (law code) of the state of Alabama. So, for example, they aren't going to do the work that is the responsibility of the Sheriff's Department or the State Highway Patrol, or the Federal Government. The idea is that they should not have to use local resources to help another law enforcement agency (in this case, ICE) do it's job. Leaders of "sanctuary cities" are proactive in stating their intention to not be co-opted to use local resources (say, jail space) to take care of another agency's mission, but it might have been interesting to look into the ways in which sanctuary cities differ from cities in general, in terms of their policies. That's a lot of feedback , I know. What i also want to make clear is how much I appreciate your diligence and effort and desire to improve our conversation about these issues. I am proud of your effort to delve into evidence and ask great questions. Thanks for all your work!