The Quote Below—More Misinformation from the Media
“Former president Donald Trump on Thursday seized on the arrest of an undocumented man in a high-profile murder in Georgia to underscore his assertion that many migrants are dangerous and “coming from prisons.”
“But research suggests immigrants actually commit fewer crimes than people born in the U.S.
” ‘The findings show pretty consistently undocumented and illegal immigrants have a lower conviction rate and are less likely to be convicted of homicide and other crimes overall compared to native-born Americans in Texas,’ Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C., told USA Today.
“Speaking in Eagle Pass, Texas, Thursday, Trump cited the case of Laken Riley, a 22-year old nursing student, who was brutally murdered last week by a Venezuelan migrant.
“He referred to ‘Biden migrant crime’ and blamed President Joe Biden for allowing millions of people to come into the U.S. from other countries.
“And they’re coming from jails and they’re coming from prisons and they’re coming from mental institutions and they’re coming from insane asylums and they’re terrorists,” Trump said, adding that jails from all over the world are ‘emptying out’ into the U.S.
“None of the data analyzed by researchers supports those accusations.
“According to Nowrasteh’s findings from 2012 to 2022, undocumented immigrants have a homicide conviction rate 14 percent below that of native-born Americans. Immigrants have a 62 percent lower homicide rate and undocumented immigrants have a 41 percent lower total criminal conviction rate than native-born Americans.
“Most of the data on crime and immigration status in the U.S. comes from the Texas Department of Public Safety, the only agency that keeps such detailed records. Texas has the nation’s second-highest population of undocumented immigrants after California, Nowrahsteh said, adding that he believes national data would be similar.
” ‘I don’t think that Trump’s statements accurately convey the reality of immigration,’ “ Nowrasteh said. . . .” – No, Immigrants Aren’t More Likely to Commit Crimes, Than U.S.-Born, Despite Trump’s Border Speech, Terry Collins, USA Today [Link}
Fact Check of Above Quote: This article is misleading to the point of outright dishonesty. It begins by claiming that “research” shows that “immigrants” are less likely to commit crimes than natives. And exactly what immigrants are those? This may be true of legal immigrants, people we are usually able to screen for criminal backgrounds. But it certainly isn’t true of illegal aliens. One hundred percent of them, by definition, are lawbreakers who have violated our immigration laws. And their lawbreaking doesn’t stop there. To live and work in the U.S. they commonly commit document fraud, along with tax evasion and tax fraud. They take jobs and public benefits which rightly belong to citizens and legal residents. We seldom convict illegal aliens of these crimes which they commit after they arrive, but that doesn’t mean, as illegal alien advocates often claim, that they are victimless crimes.
Ignoring all of these points, the article maintains that illegal aliens commit fewer crimes of violence than natives. Illegal alien advocates commonly express great certainty about this claim, but they don’t have any strong basis for doing so. As the article concedes, only one agency, the Texas Department of Public Safety, that keep tabs on crimes by illegal aliens. Alex Nowrasteh claims that its statistics reveal a lower crime by illegals. The Center for Immigration Studies disagrees, noting that it takes time for the Texas agency to determine who is an illegal alien and who isn’t. The final tabulation reveals that illegal aliens in Texas commit more homicides and sexual assaults than natives.
Our broken border is just one facet of our country’s faltering rule of law. It’s interesting that George Soros, the billionaire who bankrolls open border organizations, is also a big financial backer of soft-on-crime district attorneys who have undermined law enforcement in a number of our cities. This lawlessness no doubt will serve as a magnet for foreign criminals to come to America to ply their shady trades. As they get a better life for themselves, their American victims won’t be so fortunate.