Crime rates for immigrants

[Bootstrap]

In some ways, if people want to cherry pick statistics to make their point, it's kind of fun to go find some other statistics that contradict the narrative.
I could point out here as well that it is a crime to unlawfully enter the United States, so if we can accurately assume that an undocumented immigrant (I'm not sure if a person who overstays their visa is considered undocument or not) is also a person who entered the US unlawfully, then the crime rate is really 100%.

Don't be silly.

I quite literally went out and looked for summaries of crime rates for immigrants and posted the first credible research I found, no cherry picking involved, with a variety of measures. If you have better evidence, please provide it. So far, you haven't.

The people who are trying to scare us about immigrants imply that they are terrorists, rapists, that the crime rate will soar if immigrants come here. If those things are not true, that really matters. Nobody doubts that immigrants step on American soil. If people are lying to us about basic facts, encouraging us to hate and fear immigrants, we should pay attention to that.

[Ken]

In some ways, if people want to cherry pick statistics to make their point, it's kind of fun to go find some other statistics that contradict the narrative.
I could point out here as well that it is a crime to unlawfully enter the United States, so if we can accurately assume that an undocumented immigrant (I'm not sure if a person who overstays their visa is considered undocument or not) is also a person who entered the US unlawfully, then the crime rate is really 100%.

Don't be silly.

I quite literally went out and looked for summaries of crime rates for immigrants and posted the first credible research I found, no cherry picking involved, with a variety of measures. If you have better evidence, please provide it. So far, you haven't.

The people who are trying to scare us about immigrants imply that they are terrorists, rapists, that the crime rate will soar if immigrants come here. If those things are not true, that really matters. Nobody doubts that immigrants step on American soil. If people are lying to us about basic facts, encouraging us to hate and fear immigrants, we should pay attention to that.

Yes, people who overstay their visa are undocumented. As are those who come as tourists without visas (which are not required for Europe, Australia and other developed countries) and then choose to stay and work without proper authorization.

Undocumented doesn’t mean you lack any documents. It means you don’t have the proper documents to continue residing and working in this country. So yes, the 20 year old Australian college student who is taking a year off for a ‘walkabout’ and who decides to stay in NYC indefinitely to earn some money or because he found an American girlfriend is every bit as undocumented as a 20 year old guy from Guatemala working for a landscaping crew in Dallas.

[Bootstrap]

If immigrants commit significantly more crime, wouldn't regions where they gather have high crime rates. This should be easy to verify.

Here's one article that takes that approach.

The immigration–crime relationship: Evidence across US metropolitan areas

We combine 2000 US Census data and 2000 Uniform Crime Report data to explore how the foreign-born population influences criminal offending across a sample of metropolitan areas. After controlling for a host of demographic and economic characteristics, we find that immigration does not increase crime rates, and some aspects of immigration lessen crime in metropolitan areas.

[Ken]

If immigrants commit significantly more crime, wouldn't regions where they gather have high crime rates. This should be easy to verify.

Here's one article that takes that approach.

The immigration–crime relationship: Evidence across US metropolitan areas

We combine 2000 US Census data and 2000 Uniform Crime Report data to explore how the foreign-born population influences criminal offending across a sample of metropolitan areas. After controlling for a host of demographic and economic characteristics, we find that immigration does not increase crime rates, and some aspects of immigration lessen crime in metropolitan areas.

There is also the cause and effect problem. Immigrants (at least poor undocumented ones) tend to congregate in the poorest and highest-crime areas of big cities because that is all they can afford and those are the places where it is easier to find places to rent from landlords who don’t ask very many questions.

So you would actually have to dig deeper and see whether the higher crime rates in such areas are attributable to immigrants or if those areas were already higher crime and and they were all that immigrants can afford.

[Bootstrap]

If immigrants commit significantly more crime, wouldn't regions where they gather have high crime rates. This should be easy to verify.

Here's one article that takes that approach.

The immigration–crime relationship: Evidence across US metropolitan areas

We combine 2000 US Census data and 2000 Uniform Crime Report data to explore how the foreign-born population influences criminal offending across a sample of metropolitan areas. After controlling for a host of demographic and economic characteristics, we find that immigration does not increase crime rates, and some aspects of immigration lessen crime in metropolitan areas.

There is also the cause and effect problem. Immigrants (at least poor undocumented ones) tend to congregate in the poorest and highest-crime areas of big cities because that is all they can afford and those are the places where it is easier to find places to rent from landlords who don’t ask very many questions.

So you would actually have to dig deeper and see whether the higher crime rates in such areas are attributable to immigrants or if those areas were already higher crime and and they were all that immigrants can afford.

I think that's why they controlled for demographic and economic characteristics.

If you don't do that, I don't think you have a valid study.

[temporal1]

What’s the point?
It’s ok to commit crimes if you’re a nice person who generally obeys laws?

i can’t imagine banking on that as i illegally enter another country, nor do i presume i would be allowed reentry into the U.S., without meeting rules to reenter. i would expect the same of anyone on this forum - and other legal U.S. citizens.

What is this continual urge to create “super citizens”/special ones who are not subject to ordinary laws??

Interesting how God in the OT, and Jesus, NT, didn’t factor political or socioeconomic status to Truth/commands.
One Truth fits all??!

[Bootstrap]

What’s the point?
It’s ok to commit crimes if you’re a nice person who generally obeys laws?

It's not OK to make up lies about a group of people in order to encourage people to hate and fear them for political purposes. That's the point.

That has led to really, really dark places.

[temporal1]

What’s the point?
It’s ok to commit crimes if you’re a nice person who generally obeys laws?

It's not OK to make up lies about a group of people in order to encourage people to hate and fear them for political purposes. That's the point.

That has led to really, really dark places.

i agree. any evidence of this in present company?
Is this reason to not have laws, respect them, defend them?

[Ken]

What’s the point?
It’s ok to commit crimes if you’re a nice person who generally obeys laws?

i can’t imagine banking on that as i illegally enter another country, nor do i presume i would be allowed reentry into the U.S., without meeting rules to reenter. i would expect the same of anyone on this forum - and other legal U.S. citizens.

What is this continual urge to create “super citizens”/special ones who are not subject to ordinary laws??

Interesting how God in the OT, and Jesus, NT, didn’t factor political or socioeconomic status to Truth/commands.
One Truth fits all??!

No one here is arguing for the creation of “super citizens” who are not subject to ordinary laws.

Some of us are simply pushing back on the lie that immigrants commit crime at higher rates than citizens. Which was an assertion made by a forum member recently in another thread.

And as for lawbreaking? It happens all the time in every community in the US and yes, by plain Mennonites too. Just in my own extended rural Menno family I have seen or heard about:

Tax evasion in numerous creative ways that some family members actually brag about.
Failure to follow health codes
Failure to follow building codes
Failure to follow speed limits and other forms of reckless driving
Illegal modification of diesel engines
Illegal filling of wetlands
Wage theft (failure to follow wage laws). A young cousin of mine was victimized in this way by a Menno-run business.

Honestly when you add it all up it is a pretty impressive family crime wave. How do those crimes compare to an immigrant who is here without proper authorization? Some of them are less serious. Some of them are actually more serious (criminal penalties for tax evasion are higher than for being out of immigration status).

So yes, many undocumented immigrants have violated immigration laws in some fashion. We have a broken immigration system. But no, that doesn’t mean they commit other crimes at higher rates than Americans. In fact, all evidence points to the opposite.

[Josh]

It is all the same thing frankly in terms of immigration status. For example, bars and restaurants in NYC and Boston are full of Irish and Aussies working under the table waiting table and tending bar. They are white and have "cute" accents so no one cares and ICE never hunts them down. Technically they haven't even overstayed a tourist visa because those countries are visa waiver countries. But they are here illegally and not authorized to work. Absolutely no different from say a Guatemalan landscaper who crossed the border on foot.

Speaking as someone who has attended plenty of bars and restaurants in NYC and Boston I can attest that I have encountered a great deal of Hispanic, Latino (some legal residents or citizens and some illegal aliens, I'm sure), and have run in very, very few Irish or Australian staff.

And, in fact, most immigrants these days actually cross at regular border crossings and make asylum claims. So they aren't in fact, here illegally. They are here legally. What they don't have (because it takes over a year to get) is work authorization.

So, according to you, Ken, all someone has to do is intend to make an asylum claim and they're magically a legal immigrant?