Immigrants Less Likely to Commit Crimes

[Toro]

By conventional wisdom, El Paso, Texas should be one of the scariest cities in America. In 2007, the city's poverty rate was a shade over 27 percent, more than twice the national average. Median household income was $35,600, well below the national average of $48,000. El Paso is three-quarters Hispanic, and more than a quarter of its residents are foreign-born. Given that it's nearly impossible for low-skilled immigrants to work in the United States legitimately, it's safe to say that a significant percentage of El Paso's foreign-born population is living here illegally.

El Paso also has some of the laxer gun control policies of any non-Texan big city in the country, mostly due to gun-friendly state law. And famously, El Paso sits just over the Rio Grande from one of the most violent cities in the western hemisphere, Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, home to a staggering 2,500 homicides in the last 18 months alone. A city of illegal immigrants with easy access to guns, just across the river from a metropolis ripped apart by brutal drug war violence. Should be a bloodbath, right?

Here's the surprise: There were just 18 murders in El Paso last year, in a city of 736,000 people. To compare, Baltimore, with 637,000 residents, had 234 killings. In fact, since the beginning of 2008, there were nearly as many El Pasoans murdered while visiting Juarez (20) than there were murdered in their home town (23). ...

Numerous studies by independent researchers and government commissions over the past 100 years repeatedly and consistently have found that, in fact, immigrants are less likely to commit crimes or to be behind bars than are the native-born. This is true for the nation as a whole, as well as for cities with large immigrant populations such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Miami, and cities along the U.S.-Mexico border such as San Diego and El Paso. ...

Opponents of illegal immigration usually do little more than cite andecdotes attempting to link illegal immigration to violent crime. When they do try to use statistics, they come up short. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), for example, has perpetuated the popular myth that illegal immigrants murder 12 Americans per day, and kill another 13 by driving drunk. King says his figures come from a Government Accountability Office study he requested, which found that about 27 percent of inmates in the federal prison system are non-citizens. Colorado Media Matters looked into King's claim, and found his methodology lacking. King appears to have conjured his talking point by simply multiplying the annual number of murders and DWI fatalities in America by 27 percent. Of course, the GAO report only looked at federal prisons, not the state prisons and local jails where most convicted murderers and DWI offenders are kept. The Bureau of Justice Statistics puts the number of non-citizens (including legal immigrants) in state, local, and federal prisons and jails at about 6.4 percent (pdf). Of course, even that doesn't mean that non-citizens account for 6.4 percent of murders and DWI fatalities, only 6.4 percent of the overall inmate population.

The El Paso Miracle: How can a comparatively poor, high-immigration town that sits across the border from super-violent Ciudad Juarez be one of the safest big cities in America? - Reason Magazine

 

[LaLinda75]

El Paso TEXAS, is also the ONLY state that carries out executions. Anybody who claims that capital punishment is not a deterent has mush for brains.

'Opponents of illegal immigration usually do little more than cite andecdotes attempting to link illegal immigration to violent crime. '

If ONE illegal kills ONE american, it's ONE TOO MANY.

 

[Oddball]

How is your link to Reason working while nobody else seems to be able to access the site??

 

[AllieBaba]

Everyone in El Paso packs.

 

[Toro]

How is your link to Reason working while nobody else seems to be able to access the site??

It must be down.

 

[Oddball]

 

[Toro]

You're welcome.

 

[Terral]

Hi Toro:

Nobody can possibly be this wrong about practically EVERYTHING.

"Immigrants Less Likely To Commit Crimes"

This is absolute NONSENSE. Illegal Alien Foreign Nationals break the "Rule Of Law" by simply coming here in the middle of the night ILLEGALLY. They steal identities from U.S. Citizens to then steal a JOB very much ILLEGALLY the very same way. These people drive on our roads ILLEGALLY and kill 25 U.S.Citizens EVERY DAY (12 by murder), which amounts to 10,000 U.S. Citizens killed every damned year.

El Toro cuckoo is trying to paint a happy face on Lawlessness and the Murder of innocent Americans by dirt-bag scum evil that is NOT EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE HERE and Senor Obama (like Senor Bushie, Kennedy and McCain) want to reward Illegal Alien Foreign Nationals 'and' their unscrupulous employers with Illegal Amnesty (story) as a 'reward' for perpetuating LAWLESSNESS every damned day . . .

Welcome to the Fascist State CanAmeriMexico (pic) where 10,000 subjects are killed every year by people who are not even supposed to be here . . .

What we need in the USA is a New Revolution that begins by lining up every member of the Corrupt Congress and the out-of-control Obama Administration against the wall . . .

When nobody will 'hire' the Illegal Alien Foreign Nationals (stop calling them 'immigrants' you idiot), they will find their own way back home . . .

GL,

Terral

 

[Oddball]

Reason magazine is hardly a panderer to the open borders crowd.....In fact, they're one of the most thorough, well sourced, and largely neutral sources you'll find.

Your strawman fails here, Terral.

 

[Toro]

Nobody can possibly be this wrong about practically EVERYTHING.

And yet you are.

Only 16 more days until the 1,000,000 foreign troops begin exercises on American soil and start the bio-war event!

 

[Toro]

Welcome to the Fascist State CanAmeriMexico (pic) where 10,000 subjects are killed every year by people who are not even supposed to be here . . .
l

Er, Terral, if it is, indeed, the fascist state, CanAmeriMexico, then all the illegal Mexican immigrants are already here...

 

[LaLinda75]

'if it is, indeed, the fascist state, CanAmeriMexico, then all the illegal Mexican immigrants are already here... '

If such is the case, then by all accounts, illegals DO commit many of the crimes claimed they do not.

 

[Oddball]

Welcome to the Fascist State CanAmeriMexico (pic) where 10,000 subjects are killed every year by people who are not even supposed to be here . . .
l

Er, Terral, if it is, indeed, the fascist state, CanAmeriMexico, then all the illegal Mexican immigrants are already here...

I strongly suspect that the anti-immigrant crowd counts the illegals' immigration status in their crime statistics, as merely being here is in fact a crime.

Insofar as El Paso is concerned, the Barrio Aztecas export their victims to and commit most of their violent crimes in Juarez, because the police are both corrupt and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of brutality in the streets.

 

[SW2SILVERQUASI]

El toro, you know "bull" alright. Common. What will y'all post next? The sun rises in the south? So, quoting crap off some website that you cherry pick proves how good you are at deluding yourself. My Mexican neighbors, they aren't so damned lovable or as innocent as you project here. My home owners, auto insurance rates aren't getting any lower with each illegal alien that we get. Oh, yes, there's a difference between an illegal alien and an IMMIGRANT. Would you care to guess what that is? Anyway, Illegal aliens practically drive out any kind of diversity in the name of diversity. Sort of a ethical conundrum, if you really want true diversity. Crime rates in my area are the highest in the metropolitan area. After it became Tijuana Norte, that is. I can thank BS artists like YOU for spreading lies about this situation and sugar coating it with deluded half truths. Let me be blunt: Illegal aliens suck the cosmic wangerdoodle. This is an Eyewitness account, up close and in your face. There is no way around that. Don't believe me, either. Get your gobacho ass to the nearest barrio, and try living there for a few years. It isn't nirvana. It's more like the Warsaw Ghetto, but it's HISPANIC! Goody gumdrops. Oh, and the and the inmates in this shit hole willingly impose themselves to this apartheid system, and allow themselves to be exploited as long as WE allow them to stay. What a freakin bargain. Faust would have loved that one.

 

[xsited1]

Immigrants Less Likely to Commit Crimes

In El Paso...

Mexican police are corrupt and ineffective. Texans carry guns and are tough on crime. You murder somebody in Texas and you get executed. It's a nice 'feel good' article, but it draws the wrong conclusions.

 

[Oddball]

I'm a big, BIG fan of Reason and agree.

The hard core violent crimes are exported to Juarez.

 

[Toro]

The hard core violent crimes are exported to Juarez.

Yeah, we're offshoring it...

 

[Oddball]

As I already pointed out, the cops in Juarez are too corrupt, and the few that aren't are too overwhelmed with the sheer volume of violence of the Barrio Azteca.

Why commit your brutal beatings and murders in El Paso, where your chances of being caught are geometrically higher, when you can drag your victims a mere few blocks across the river??

El Paso is a terrible meta-example to try and prove a point.

 

[xsited1]

The hard core violent crimes are exported to Juarez.

Yeah, we're offshoring it...

That's too simplistic. The article left out a few details, such as this:

Illegal Immigrant Gangs Commit Most U.S. Crime | Judicial Watch
http://www.fbi.gov/page2/jan08/ms13_011408.html

 

[Oddball]

I'm seriously disappointed with Reason on this one....And have told them so.