Low Crime among Illegals an Illusion

Dana Mathewson

If this twit keeps talking this way, she's going to make some real enemies!

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ocasio-cortez-blasts-trump-speech-suggests-illegal-immigr ants-more-american-than-him

Tim adds:

Occluded Cortex says:

"In the actual address, there was falsehood after falsehood and we have to make sure that we get our facts straight. Everyday immigrants commit crimes at a far lower rate than native-born Americans,” Ocasio-Cortez told MSNBC host Rachel Maddow"

End quote.

Shemp Smith, the Fox News stooge, said that immediately after Trump's address (he despises Trump) and it is based on A CATO Institute Report that says both legal and illegal immigrants are less likely to be convicted of crimes than native born. CATO is a Libertarian organization, and is decidedly pro-open borders; Libertarians think borders are wrong because they prevent people from doing what they please.

First, how do we know? By definition these are ILLEGAL aliens, outside of any documentation. We don't even know how many there are, so how can we say uncategorically that they commit fewer crimes? Unless the criminals are actually caught (and the majority of crimes go unsolved) there is no way of knowing the immigration status of the criminal.

The author, Alex Nowrasteh, states:

This is exactly what one would expect under the current situation. Legal immigrants are in fact likely to have lower levels of criminal activity precisely because they can be booted out of the country. As a result, judges are more lenient with them because the punishment is greater, and often liberal judges do take pains to avoid their being convicted. Also, there is a decent sized industry in the legal profession devoted to helping immigrants avoid being deported, and oftentimes they manage to make plea deals with prosecutors to avoid criminal convictions. And that is the LEGAL immigrant. The illegal can often just disappear into the bowels of the alien community. How do you know who is the accused? Most of these guys never see the inside of a courtroom unless they are actually caught and held - and immigration advocates work diligently to get them out. It's at a point where crimes are simply ignored rather than prosecuted; there is no point.

It should be pointed out that, According to the Pew Center:

In 2017, only 45% of violent crimes tracked by BJS were reported to police. And in the much more common category of property crime, only about a third (36%) were reported.

[...]

Most of the crimes that are reported to police, meanwhile, are not solved, at least based on an FBI measure known as the "clearance rate.” That’s the share of cases each year that are closed, or "cleared,” through the arrest, charging and referral of a suspect for prosecution (or through "exceptional means,” such as the death of a suspect or a victim’s refusal to cooperate with a prosecution). In 2017, police nationwide cleared 46% of violent crimes that were reported to them. For property crimes, the national clearance rate was 18%.

End excerpts.

And, it should be pointed out, the Obama era saw great pressure on the states to avoid such prosecutions, and also pressure to manipulate statistics.

According to the CATO report, aliens were more likely to be convicted of gambling, kidnapping, smuggling, and vagrancy but that makes up just ,1j8% of crimes in Texas. Strange;

Funny; liberals find it VERY significant when they claim industrial emissions have warmed the planet at about this same rate, but it is immaterial in crime statistics.

But notice; these are the only stats that supposedly claim aliens are AHEAD OF native born, not that they aren't committing plenty of other crimes. In point of fact, even if the crime rate is lower among illegal aliens (and there is much effort being expended by these studies to confuse the illegal with the legal) it would be NONEXISTENT among the class if they weren't here. In other words, all of the crime committed by illegals would not be happening. The percentage is unimportant. The ideal is no crime at all. Yes, we understand that there is going to be crime, but like the medical profession attempts to stamp out all illness while realizing there is going to be some we try to stamp out all crime while realizing there is going to be some. But we have an easy way to prevent a sizable chunk of it, only in this instance we are told to suck it up, when there is no benefit to the American People to accept this extra crime in our society.

Another point to ponder; this sort of criminality is rather like a disease, to continue the medical analogy, as crime tends to beget crime. Even if all they are saying is true, the fact is the crime rate will very likely rise as these "immigrants" become more comfortable. The original invaders may simply work hard and try to make a better life, but their children are not going to accept their parent's burden. Many of the kids will wind up joining the gangs. We've seen this in the black community where many young black kids turn to crime, thinking it a better way than the hard road taken by their overworked parents. Coming into America now, in this fashion - breaking our laws to start their new lives - may lead to an immediate effort to keep a low profile, but once the younger generation gets implanted here?

And bear in mind, every last one of them is a criminal; they have already broken at least one law of their adopted homeland.

Another point; the weak economy of the Obama era meant fewere were drawn into the U.S. and as a result there were fewer crimes committed by illegals than in past years. I suppose if we want to wreck our economy we can avoid problems with illegal alien crime. Portugal, for instance is quite poor and they have actually been trying to recruit Syrian and other "refugees" to come but none of the aliens are willing to go there; they all aim for Germany, or another rich country. Poverty is wonderful if you don't want to share it.

The Washington Post cites a study published in the journal Criminology claiming illegal aliens are less likely to commit crimes based on overall crime stats. According to the [linhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/19/two-charts-demolish-the-notion-that-immigrants-here-illegally-commit-more-crime/]Washington Post:

"Do places with higher percentages of undocumented immigrants have higher rates of crime? The answer, as the chart above shows, is a resounding no.

States with larger shares of undocumented immigrants tended to have lower crime rates than states with smaller shares in the years 1990 through 2014. "Increases in the undocumented immigrant population within states are associated with significant decreases in the prevalence of violence," authors Michael T. Light and Ty Miller found.

That's just a simple correlation, of course, and it's well documented that many factors beyond immigration can affect the crime rate. So Light and Miller ran a number of statistical analyses to more clearly isolate the effects of illegal immigration from those other factors. Among other things, they find that the relationship between high levels of illegal immigration and low levels of crime persists even after controlling for various economic and demographic factors such as age, urbanization, labor market conditions and incarceration rates.

All told, Light and Miller sliced the data 57 ways to see whether there was anything they missed, but not one of their analyses showed any positive relationship between illegal immigration and crime. They concluded that not only does illegal immigration not increase crime, but it may actually contribute to the drop in overall crime rates observed in the United States in recent decades.

End excerpt.

Horse hockey! For one thing, crimes in high illegal areas go unreported for obvious reasons. And who is collecting this data? Does anybody really have faith in California crime stats?

In point of fact, how do Light and Miller explain this in light of falling crime rates nationwide in the last thirty years? Crime has dropped in every category, and it should not be surprising if that includes in the alien communities. There are a variety of reasons for that, much of which ties to technology. What they have done, more than likely, is isolate the fall in crime in general from the illegal community (and again, where do they get their data on the "illegal community"? From the illegals themselves, perhaps?).

How, too, do they explain low crime levels when these are people coming from areas of very high crime? Even if one assumes the people are coming to get away from crime, do criminals let their patsies leave them that easily? of course not, and therefore it is absolutely logical to assume high crime rates in these communities. Criminals are predators, and where their prey travels the predator will follow. So how can anyone claim LOWER crime rates among illegals?

The Center for Immigration Studies argues that the apparent low levels of immigrant crime is an illusion.

From the report:

Immigration enthusiasts might be prone to use such research as evidence that widespread fear of immigrant crime is an irrational, if understandable, response to sensationalized anecdotes.14 But such a view may be hasty in its own right. Many immigrant crimes are not reported, and possibly in greater proportion than the crimes that the U.S.-born commit. Many victims of immigrant criminals fear reporting crimes to the police because their victimizers are of the same nationality, and thus are more likely to retaliate in ways that would dissuade the victim from calling police.

This is especially true with immigrant crime rings. As illegal economic activity, organized crime requires an unusually high level of trust to maintain a veil of secrecy from police and mob rivals alike. A common language and experience, apart from the larger American one, can link such people. "Criminals," writes immigration critic Peter Brimelow, "prefer to deal with co-conspirators they understand and trust in economist-speak, it reduces their transaction costs. And such tightly-knit groups, operating in a foreign and sometimes obscure language, are notoriously difficult for the police to penetrate."15 This is why for many decades newcomer ethnic groups from all parts of the world, in varying types and locations, each have set up their own versions of the Mafia. These organizations could be seen, at least initially, as ethnic protection societies, providing members with jobs, housing, and other necessities. But their dominance in exerting informal social and economic control over immigrants enabled leaders to successfully coerce business rivals and community members.

A special report released in 1990, based on the Justice Department's National Crime Victimization Survey, which annually samples about 100,000 persons aged 12 and over in roughly 50,000 U.S. households, suggests underreporting among Hispanics, the nation's largest ethnic grouping, occurs often and more so than among non-Hispanics. While it is true "Hispanics" is a far from perfect proxy for "immigrants," not the least of the reasons being that many Hispanics are native-born, the data show significant differences. During the period 1979-86 Hispanics failed to report crimes of all types at a rate nearly twice the rate that they did report; even for violent crimes alone the unreported offenses outnumbered the reported ones. The violent crime victimization rate for Hispanics also exceeded that for non-Hispanics, 39.6 versus 35.3 offenses per 1,000 households, with household crime (burglary, larceny, vehicle theft) showing the greatest discrepancy, 265.6 versus 204.5 crimes per 1,000 households.16

End excerpt.

Yes, crime is seriously under-reported in immigrant communities, and especially in the illegal camps. Claims that there is less crime among illegal aliens than native born Americans is ridiculous on the face of it. And of course, even one American life lost is too many when it is so unnecessary. The Progressives love to make that argument when speaking about things like police shootings or wars but seem surprisingly reticent to accept it in this instance.
Here is an article at American Greatness that echoes my own here. Here are a few highlights:

"In fact, an internal Texas Department of Public Safety report revealed that between 2008 and 2014, 177,588 illegal alien defendants were "responsible for at least 611,234 individual criminal charges over their criminal careers, including 2,993 homicides and 7,695 sexual assaults.” Maybe the Texas authorities didn’t trust Cato with the good stuff. Or maybe Nowrasteh didn’t ask.

One thing is certain: the more substantive TDPS report paints illegal immigration in a much less favorable light than does the report selected by Cato and promulgated by NPR.

But the TDPS report also comes with a glaring caveat. "The 177,588 criminal aliens identified by Texas through the Secure Communities initiative only can tag criminal aliens who had already been fingerprinted,” writes J. Christian Adams, a former U.S. Justice Department employee.

"That means that the already stratospheric aggregate crime totals would be even higher if crimes by many illegal aliens who are not in the fingerprint database were included,” Adams concludes. "

[...]

"Crime statistics, however, aren’t always accurately reported—remember that Steinle’s killer won’t be reported as a homicide conviction. Although crime has decreased nationwide, it has risen in certain cities and counties. A "macro-level” glance might miss that.

In counties like Los Angeles, which has a high concentration of illegal aliens, authorities don’t have the best track record when it comes to accurately reporting crime, prompting investigations every now and again. Nevertheless, Los Angeles County has also seen crime rates increase, while they have fallen elsewhere across the nation.

[...]

"Neither Burnett, Cornelius, nor Lopez understand why "14 Southern California cities and two counties have passed ordinances, and in some cases filed lawsuits,” against state sanctuary laws. After all, say the experts, sanctuary policies don’t protect bad guys; and noncitizens—specifically illegal alien Latinos—are less likely to engage in crime than the "native-born” population anyway."

{...]

"Manhattan Institute Fellow Heather Mac Donald recounts how a "confidential California Department of Justice study reported in 1995 that 60 percent of the 20,000-strong 18th Street Gang in southern California is illegal; police officers say the proportion is actually much greater.” The 18th Street Gang collaborated with la eMe "on complex drug-distribution schemes, extortion, and drive-by assassinations, and commits an assault or robbery every day in L.A. County”; and the gang "has grown dramatically over the last two decades by recruiting recently arrived youngsters, most of them illegal, from Central America and Mexico.” As early as the 1990s, Latinos were importing narcoculture to the United States.

"In 1997, the INS simply had no record of a whopping 36 percent of foreign-born inmates who had been released from federal and four state prisons without any review of their deportability,” writes Mac Donald. "They included 1,198 aggravated felons, 80 of whom were soon re-arrested for new crimes.”"

[...]

"Still, none of this seemed troubling enough to cinch up the border at the time. By 2000, "nearly 30 percent of federal prisoners were foreign-born,” Mac Donald writes. She adds that the L.A. County Sheriff also "reported in 2000 that 23 percent of inmates in county jails were deportable.”"

[...]

"Between 2005 and 2012, the Los Angeles Police Department incorrectly classified 14,000 assaults as minor offenses, "making the city’s crime rate look significantly lower than it really is.” Josh Sanburn reports that the LAPD routinely classified aggravated assaults as "simple assaults,” therefore artificially reducing the city’s numbers for violent crime."

[...]

"A look at U.S. Sentencing Commission data from 2016, pertaining to 67,742 felony and Class A misdemeanor cases, shows noncitizens accounted for 41.7 percent of all offenders. Further broken down: noncitizens accounted for 72 percent of drug possession convictions, 33 percent of money laundering convictions, 29 percent of drug trafficking convictions, 23 percent of murder convictions, and 18 percent of fraud convictions. Commission data doesn’t report on state and local prisons and jails, but the Government Accountability Office does.

The GAO found that among 251,000 criminal aliens incarcerated in federal, state, and local prisons and jails, these criminal aliens were arrested 1.7 million times, for nearly 3 million combined offenses. Fifty percent had been arrested at least once for assault, homicide, robbery, a sex offense, or kidnapping—around half had been arrested at least once for a drug violation. The GAO consistently reports the number of noncitizens (legal and illegal aliens) constituting 25 percent of the federal prison population. That slice of the pie would require noncitizens to commit crimes around three times the rate of citizens.

Not only do these data show 7 percent of the population accounts for one-fifth of all federal murder convictions, but when Rizzo excludes non-violent crimes, he clearly excludes a staggering lot. Thus, Rizzo deliberately avoids confronting a mountain of data that directly contradicts his narrative. "

End excerpts.

It is clear that the "low crime rate" of "immigrants" is an illusion, a magic show designed to lull Americans into a false sense of security. Don't fall for it!

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:42 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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