When I saw the headline above, I thought: Aha! This is the usual Leftist attempt to deceive by ignoring facts that do not suit. It is true that illegals do not have particularly high crime rates overall. BUT THEIR CHILDREN DO. So I was pleased to see that mentioned. I have highlighted in red why immigrant crime is low. But the kids are citizens so they do not have such incentives.
Note also that the report is about immigrants IN GENERAL. Very few illegal immigrants may have been included. Failure to note that explicitly was the real deception in the article. Do you think that illegal and legal immigrants might be kinda different?
Note also that even though the crime rate among illegals may not be high as a percentage, there are still a lot of criminal illegals so effective immigration law enforcement would still significantly reduce the number of crooks in the country.
Countering a widespread belief, a new report shows California’s foreign-born population — including illegal immigrants — makes up only a sliver of the state’s population of inmates. The report released Monday by the Public Policy Institute of California also suggests that the foreign-born population, which makes up more than a third of the state’s adults, plays a disproportionately smaller role in serious crime. “Crime, Corrections, and California: What Does Immigration Have to Do with It?” gives one of the clearest glimpses yet into the effect of immigrants and immigration on the state’s justice system. It also aims to dispel the perception that cities with large foreign-born populations are criminal hot beds, with several California cities showing a dip in police activity amid recent immigration waves.
But while the findings are surprising, they do not account for a complete relationship between immigration and crime. The report did not, for example, examine petty crimes such as shoplifting and vandalism, which would not necessarily result in jail time. The findings also do not take into consideration the effect that immigrants’ children might have on crime.
Kristin Butcher, one of the report’s co-authors, said the low rate of incarceration could be linked to U.S. immigration policies, which call for carefully weeding through visa applicants and deporting illegal immigrants accused of serious crimes such as gang involvement and murder. “The type of people who are immigrating are less likely to commit crimes because they’re here for jobs,” said Butcher, a professor at Wellesley College and a fellow for the nonpartisan policy research group.
The report underscores what Salvador Bustamante has been telling people for several years about the foreign-born population — and illegal immigrants in particular. “A lot of people have painted immigrants as the criminal element in our society, and that isn’t the case,” said Bustamante, Northern California director of Strengthening Our Lives, a statewide nonprofit group that works to empower immigrants. He said immigrants come to the United States to work, often trying to stay under the radar of authorities and away from criminal activity to avoid deportation. “The more we can do to dispel the myths that have been created about immigrants will help with immigrant rights and immigration reform,” he said.
The findings do not sit well with Bill Cole, an advocate for more stringent laws to make sure illegal immigrants who commit crimes are deported. Bill Cole’s ex-wife, Sara, was hit by drunk driver Lucio Rodriguez — an illegal immigrant previously convicted of driving drunk –in September, nearly severing her legs. Rodriguez has since pleaded guilty to drunk driving charges. “What we’re trying to do is make the community safer,” Bill Cole said.
The institute obtained its findings by examining the state’s foreign-born population, which includes anyone born outside the United States, regardless of their naturalization status, Butcher said. It then focused on men ages 18 to 40 in jails, institutions and state prisons, drawing comparisons with their U.S.-born counterparts using California Census data.
