Anti-immigration activists often sound the alarm of lock your doors (and lock and load), because the immigrants are coming! Sorting through data on the subject is frustrating at best. Most sources have an agenda - either because of their ideology, funding or both.
I try to present objective facts in this blog, and will continue to do so here. My agenda? I don't have one. Whether I represent immigrants for a living or not is largely irrelevant, because, first, the vast majority of our clients have never committed crimes. Aside from that, I frankly don't like people who commit crimes, no matter whether they are immigrants or not. They're selfish, lazy, and generally, a pain in every one's rear side. Do I profit from immigrants who commit crimes? Usually not, because most are not eligible for any relief once they are convicted of wrong-doing. Having said that, I do defend, and profit from some immigrants who commit petty crimes (misdemeanors that are non-violent in nature) and are eligible for relief that Congress has authorized. But, whether immigration causes crime is an issue that is disconnected from that small part of my practice. If it does, so be it - and if so, Congress should enact even tougher laws barring immigrants from staying in the U.S. If it doesn't, then a whole bunch of folks are lying.
What I equally despise is slanting facts.
Steven Chapman wrote an interested op-ed piece in the Chicago Tribune this week on the subject, called Porous border not so scary. It appears here. The facts it sets forth are fascinatingly different than what you usually see in the press, and focuses on the huge wage of immigration that occurred as a result of the 1986 in the wake of President Reagan's signing of amnesty into law. It allowed nearly 3 million undocumented immigrants to become permanent residents, many of whom eventually became citizens. The merits of the program creates a firestorm or controversy, and is not what this post is about; rather, Chapman alludes to it because if immigration creates crime, one would certainly expect such a huge influx of immigrants to, well, bring in a crime-wave of epic proportions.
Not so much. Since 1986, the crime rate has dropped across the board. As Chapman points out, the U.S. murder rate has dropped by 37 percent since 1986. He cites Chicago's plummeting numbers as well - homicides last year were down to 460 from 747 in 1986. Rape has dropped 23 percent. Drunken driving fatalities are down by more than half. Sure, these rates are almost surely due to a conglomerate of factors, but clearly, immigration has not caused a spike in our crime rates.
Chapman, continues: "The phenomenon is so evident that it was even recognized in a recent article in The American Conservative — a magazine founded by the lusty nativist ("we're gonna lose our country") Patrick Buchanan. It was written by Ron Unz, who made some enemies among Latinos by pushing a California ballot initiative to sharply limit bilingual education in public schools, but who knows better than to regard Latinos as the enemy. Unz points out that in the five most heavily Hispanic cities in the country, violent crime is "10 percent below the national urban average and the homicide rate 40 percent lower." In Los Angeles, which is half Hispanic and easily accessible to those sneaking over the southern border, the murder rate has plummeted to levels unseen since the tranquil years of the early 1960s."
So, who is this Chapman? What liberal state is he from? Um, Texas. And what about that Chicago Tribune Paper - it must be liberal, right? Uh, no. The Chicago Tribune is a famously libertarian and republican leaning paper. Until it endorsed Barack Obama for President, it never endorsed any Democrat for President since it began printing in 1847. Yes, that 1847, as in, pre-Civil War. Well, Chapman must write mostly for liberal sources. Actually, not. He's written for the National Review (as in, William F. Buckley, and self described as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for Republican/conservative news, commentary and opinion"), the Weekly Standard (a neocon opinion magazine), among other conservative publications.
Chapman is, at worse, a centrist, writing for a conservative newspaper. He's either seen God in his hot-toddy while discussing politics at the country club and turned lefty, or he's telling the truth.
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