Illegal immigration crime wave that local authorities refuse to address!

Comparing crime rates between undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants, and native-born US citizens in Texas

 See all authors and affiliations


Image result for illegal alien criminals in texas
  1. Edited by Douglas S. Massey, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved October 5, 2020 (received for review July 13, 2020)

Image result for illegal alien criminals in texas

Significance

Despite its centrality to public and political discourse, we lack even basic information on fundamental questions regarding undocumented immigrants and crime. This stems largely from data constraints. Going beyond existing research, we utilize data from the Texas Department of Public Safety, which checks and records the immigration status of all arrestees throughout the state. Contrary to public perception, we observe considerably lower felony arrest rates among undocumented immigrants compared to legal immigrants and native-born US citizens and find no evidence that undocumented criminality has increased in recent years. Our findings help us understand why the most aggressive immigrant removal programs have not delivered on their crime reduction promises and are unlikely to do so in the future.

Abstract

We make use of uniquely comprehensive arrest data from the Texas Department of Public Safety to compare the criminality of undocumented immigrants to legal immigrants and native-born US citizens between 2012 and 2018. We find that undocumented immigrants have substantially lower crime rates than native-born citizens and legal immigrants across a range of felony offenses. Relative to undocumented immigrants, US-born citizens are over 2 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over 4 times more likely to be arrested for property crimes. In addition, the proportion of arrests involving undocumented immigrants in Texas was relatively stable or decreasing over this period. The differences between US-born citizens and undocumented immigrants are robust to using alternative estimates of the broader undocumented population, alternate classifications of those counted as “undocumented” at arrest and substituting misdemeanors or convictions as measures of crime.

The tripling of the undocumented population in recent decades is one of the most consequential and controversial social trends in the United States (1). Backlash regarding the criminality of undocumented immigrants is at the fore of this controversy and has led to immigration reforms and public policies intended to reduce the crimes associated with undocumented immigration (2). As recently as June of 2020, the debate on undocumented criminality made its way to the US Supreme Court, where the US solicitor general sought to invalidate California’s “sanctuary” policies because “[w]hen officers are unable to arrest aliens—often criminal aliens—who are in removal proceedings or have been ordered removed from the United States, those aliens instead return to the community, where criminal aliens are disproportionately likely to commit crimes” (3, p. 13).

Image result for illegal alien criminals in texas

Indeed, concerns over illegal immigration have arguably been the government’s chief criminal law enforcement priority for years, to the point where the federal government now spends more on immigration enforcement than all other principle criminal law enforcement agencies combined (4, 5). These policies, practices, and pronouncements, however, have far outpaced our empirical understanding of undocumented criminality. That is, while research suggests that immigrants generally tend to be less crime prone than their native peers (6), we still lack basic information on fundamental questions specific to undocumented immigrants and crime. How does the criminality of undocumented immigrants compare to legal immigrants or native-born citizens? Does this differ by the type offense, such as property, violent, or drug crimes? And how has undocumented immigrant criminality changed over time?

Image result for illegal alien criminals in texas

Each of these questions represents remarkable gaps in our scientific and policy understanding of undocumented immigration. This dearth is largely due to data limitations. Calculating group-specific crime rates is straightforward: It is the number of arrests within a particular group divided by its population (expressed per 100,000). In the case of undocumented immigrants, however, for years we lacked reliable estimates for both the numerator and the denominator required for such calculations. Regarding the number of undocumented immigrants (the denominator), data quality has improved in recent years as the Center for Migration Studies and the Pew Research Center now produce annual state- and national-level estimates of the undocumented population, ranging from 10.5 to 10.7 million in 2017 (1, 7).* Data on undocumented criminality (the numerator), however, have actually gotten worse over time. Despite the increasing centrality of local police in immigration enforcement (9), information on immigration status is remarkably scarce in most crime databases. Among the most widely utilized crime data sources, neither the Uniform Crime Reports, the National Crime Victimization Survey, nor the National Incident-Based Reporting System record information about immigration status. In addition, California stopped reporting the number of noncitizens in their custody to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in 2013 and in 2017 became a “sanctuary state” by limiting information sharing between local criminal justice officials and federal immigration authorities (10). In 2016, they along with Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, and Oregon did not report information on citizenship in their prison populations, and the BJS speculates that other states “likely provided undercounts” (11, p. 13).

Image result for illegal alien criminals in texas

This article is a notable exception to this trend in that, after review for scientific merit, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) granted our research team access to case processing information for all arrests recorded between 2012 and 2018. The DPS data are unique in that they fully cooperate with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to check and record the immigration status of all arrestees throughout the state, including their legal status (21). Using these data, we address the empirical shortcomings that have hampered prior work in this area by accomplishing three interrelated objectives.

Image result for illegal alien criminals in texas

First, we offer a detailed contemporary assessment of the comparative criminality between native-born US citizens, legal immigrants, and undocumented immigrants. The limited information we do have about undocumented criminality is not only conspicuously scant but also highly inconsistent. A 2018 report from the Cato Institute found that arrest and conviction rates for undocumented immigrants are lower than those of native-born individuals (12). Research by the Crime Prevention Research Center in that same year, however, reached the exact opposite conclusion (13). Neither of these studies was peer-reviewed, and thus, their data and methodologies have not been subject to scientific scrutiny. Given the salience of this research for informing contemporary public and political dialogue, the time has come for a thorough inquiry into the nexus between undocumented immigrants and crime.

Image result for illegal alien criminals in texas

Second, going beyond general differences in crime, we calculate comparative crime rates across multiple offense types. These distinctions are essential for both theoretical and empirical reasons. Though the evidence linking immigrants (generally) to violent crime is markedly thin (14), there are compelling theoretical reasons to think that undocumented immigrants may have divergent effects on violent and nonviolent crime. Most notably, lacking legal status limits their legitimate economic opportunities, and thus, undocumented immigrants may turn to illegitimate economic pursuits (15). From an empirical perspective, the federal government’s increasing reliance on collaborations with state and local law enforcement complicates the picture of immigrant criminality because many immigrants held in local jails are booked on federal immigration charges, not local criminal charges. A focus on the overall rates of crime obscures this critical distinction.

Image result for illegal alien criminals in texas

Views: 162

Comment

You need to be a member of 12160 Social Network to add comments!

Join 12160 Social Network

Comment by Doc Vega on November 21, 2021 at 7:11pm

This blatant violation of the US border sanctioned by a rogue federal government! 

"Destroying the New World Order"

TOP CONTENT THIS WEEK

THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING THE SITE!

mobile page

12160.info/m

12160 Administrators

 

Latest Activity

tjdavis posted a photo
1 hour ago
Doc Vega commented on Doc Vega's blog post Americans You’re Being Squeezed Out!
"Cheeki kea always nice to her you chime in and you're damn right! "
15 hours ago
Doc Vega commented on Doc Vega's blog post Americans You’re Being Squeezed Out!
"Les Prone thanks for your support Dude! "
15 hours ago
Doc Vega posted blog posts
16 hours ago
Doc Vega posted a photo

The inconvenient truth

Trump spells it out!
19 hours ago
Sandy posted a photo
yesterday
Less Prone favorited Doc Vega's blog post What Made the Founding Fathers of America so Brilliant?
yesterday
Less Prone commented on Doc Vega's blog post Why didn't the Archeological World Announce Proof that Jesus Lived?
"Motives of Joe, to shit in the well by showing totally irrelevant proof?"
yesterday
Doc Vega commented on Doc Vega's blog post Why didn't the Archeological World Announce Proof that Jesus Lived?
"Less, Motives of Wyatt or Joe? What archeologist wouldn't want proof of Jesus as part of his…"
yesterday
Doc Vega commented on Doc Vega's blog post Why didn't the Archeological World Announce Proof that Jesus Lived?
"Less Prone, Considering Joe Rogan to be the gatekeeper of anything is just short of ridiculous the…"
yesterday
MAC posted a video

Don't Go To Hong Kong Now (Even on Connecting Flights)

Secure your privacy with Surfshark! Enter coupon code laowhy86 for an extra 3 months free at https://Surfshark.deals/laowhy86Article 23 in Hong Kong is real,...
yesterday
cheeki kea commented on cheeki kea's video
Thumbnail

Terrorist Attack on Moscow - Ukraine Committing Suicide? | Larry C. Johnson

"...And I guess I'll just park this you tube here also for something to ponder from last year.…"
Tuesday
tjdavis posted photos
Tuesday
Less Prone posted a video

Climate: The Movie (The Cold Truth) NL

Deze nieuwe documentaire van de Britse filmmaker Martin Durkin toont aan dat klimaatalarm een verzonnen doembeeld is zonder enige wetenschappelijke basis. He...
Monday
Less Prone commented on Doc Vega's blog post Why didn't the Archeological World Announce Proof that Jesus Lived?
"It can be true, but why isn't he offering real evidence? What are his motives?"
Monday
Less Prone favorited Doc Vega's blog post Americans You’re Being Squeezed Out!
Monday
cheeki kea favorited Less Prone's blog post Going against the stream of lies and death
Monday
cheeki kea commented on Doc Vega's blog post Americans You’re Being Squeezed Out!
"You're spot on in regards to the the real estate component of this mass migrant mess Doc V and…"
Monday
cheeki kea commented on cheeki kea's video
Thumbnail

Terrorist Attack on Moscow - Ukraine Committing Suicide? | Larry C. Johnson

"This video out 2 days ago but the 4 terrorists already caught and 11 others involved identified…"
Monday
cheeki kea posted a video

Terrorist Attack on Moscow - Ukraine Committing Suicide? | Larry C. Johnson

Larry C. Johnson is a veteran of the CIA and the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism. He is the founder and managing partner of BERG Associates, w...
Monday

© 2024   Created by truth.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service

content and site copyright 12160.info 2007-2019 - all rights reserved. unless otherwise noted