Immigration and Crime

An oft-repeated claim in the debate over Arizona’s harsh anti-immigrant law, SB 1070, is that tough immigration-enforcement measures are needed to prevent violent crime from engulfing the state.  In particular, supporters of SB 1070 often cite kidnappings in the state’s capital, Phoenix, as a reason to crack down on unauthorized immigrants.  Arizona politicians such as U.S. Senator John McCain and State Senator Russell Pearce, for instance, have justified their calls for more immigration enforcement by claiming that Phoenix is the “the number two kidnapping capital of the world” after Mexico City.  Not only is this claim false, but it ignores two inconvenient facts.  First of all, the victims of most kidnappings in Phoenix are unauthorized immigrants.  Second, crime rates in Arizona have been falling for years.  Cracking down on the unauthorized immigrants upon whom so many kidnappers prey is a classic case of blaming the victim.  Moreover, this blame-the-victim posture diverts attention from the fact that the broken U.S. immigration system has created a lucrative market for kidnappers.

The claim that Phoenix is “the number two kidnapping capital of the world” is untrue.Read more...

Published On: Thu, Aug 26, 2010 | Download File

While immigrant communities across the nation endure the long wait for immigration reform, there are roughly 19 million immigrant women and girls currently in the U.S. Immigrant women, particularly the undocumented, are often more vulnerable than their male counterparts, lack the same economic opportunities, and experience exploitation while crossing the border, while working and even in their own homes. In short, immigrant women have become the silent victims of a broken immigration system.

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Published On: Mon, Jun 28, 2010 | Download File

Updated 06/22/10

Supporters of Arizona’s harsh new immigration law claim that it is, in part, a crime-fighting measure.  For instance, the bill’s author, Republican State Senator Russell Pearce of Mesa, confidently predicts that the law—which requires police to investigate the immigration status of anyone who appears to be unauthorized—will result in “less crime” and “safer neighborhoods.”  However, Sen. Pearce overlooks two salient points: crime rates have already been falling in Arizona for years despite the presence of unauthorized immigrants, and a century’s worth of research has demonstrated that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes or be behind bars than the native-born.  While much has been made about kidnappings in Arizona, law-enforcement officials indicate that most of these involve drug smugglers and human smugglers, as well as smuggled immigrants themselves—not the general population of the state.  Combating crime related to human smuggling requires more trust between immigrants and the police, not less.  Yet the undermining of trust between police and the community is precisely what Arizona’s new law accomplishes.  In the final analysis, immigration policy is not an effective means of addressing crime because the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.

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Published On: Wed, Apr 28, 2010 | Download File

Anti-immigrant activists and politicians are fond of relying upon anecdotes to support their oft-repeated claim that immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, are dangerous criminals.  This mythical claim is usually based on rhetorical sleight of hand in which individual stories of heinous crimes committed by immigrants are presented as “proof” that we must restrict immigration or “get tough” on the undocumented in order to save the lives of U.S. citizens.  While these kinds of arguments are emotionally powerful, they are intellectually dishonest.  There is no doubt that dangerous criminals must be punished, and that immigrants who are dangerous criminals should not be allowed to enter the United States or should be deported if they already are here.  But harsh immigration policies are not effective in fighting crime because—as numerous studies over the past 100 years have shown—immigrants are less likely to commit crimes or be behind bars than the native-born, and high rates of immigration are not associated with higher rates of crime.  This holds true for both legal immigrants and the undocumented, regardless of their country of origin or level of education.

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Published On: Wed, Sep 10, 2008 | Download File