Immigration Crime

Although illegal immigrants only make up less than four percent of the total population in the United States, five percent of the population in both state and federal prisons is made up of those who are not United States citizens. Between 2010 and 2014, 121 illegal immigrants who were released from immigration custody were later charged with murder (Shoichet, 2015). Figures show that immigrants are three times more likely to be convicted of murder than the general population. Each year, approximately 900,000 legal and illegal immigrants are arrested, and 700,000 of these end up being released. Illegal immigrants account for 12 percent of murder sentences, 20 percent of kidnapping sentences, and 16

A couple of facts that counters the image of illegal immigrants as criminals include, “The anti-immigrant forces draw, for example, on the ‘2006 (first quarter) INS [immigration and Naturalization service/FBI statistical report on undocumented Immigrants’ with its array of alarming statistics about illegal immigrants and crime to make their case that undocumented immigrants not only break the law entering the country but also break the laws, with a proclivity to violent crimes, once they make their homes here.” And, “One of the most disturbing findings of the IPC study was that immigrant children and immigrants with many years in the country are more likely to become criminals than first-generation immigrants or those with less than 15

The author focuses on Hispanic/Latino immigrants and the views on immigrants who commit crime. In this study, the author’s findings come from the public perceptions. The perceptions of the public in local communities, towns, and cities, discriminate due to the increase in Hispanic/Latino immigration. The public’s view in the study were discriminative against Hispanics/Latinos who migrated to the United States. Sohoni found that societies perceptions in surveys propose a great quantity of Americans that consider immigration will indicate abnormal criminality. On the contrary, the author found that immigrant Hispanic/Latino youths were less likely than Hispanic U.S. Americans to participate in crime.

What role will immigrants have in the future of American crime? Unlike the past and the present, it is difficult to determine exactly what sort of role immigrants will play in the future. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2010) “The next half century marks key points in continuing trends — the U.S. will become a plurality nation, where the non-Hispanic white population remains the largest single group, but no group is in the majority” (p. 11). Estolano LeSar Perez, a researcher with Los Angeles 2050, says this could have a real impact on something that preoccupies many Americans: crime.

Lee, Matthew T. (2003). Crime on the Border: Immigration and Homicide in Urban Communities. New York: LFB Scholarly Publishing.

According to several studies, there is no correlation present between the immigrants and the cities they live in. One graph shows the most dangerous cities in the United States based on violent crimes committed per 100,000 residents. It says that Detroit, Michigan is the most violent city with 2,123 violent crimes per 100,000 residents and St.Louis, Missouri in third place with 1,777 violent crimes per 100,000 residents ("The 10 Most Dangerous U.S. Cities"). Another table shows the list and percentages of the metropolitans with the highest amount of foreign borns in their population. Miami has the largest share of immigrants at 38.5% and San Jose is a close runner up with 36.8% foreign born residents. (Florida). Comparing the two data, the cities from the dangerous city graph were absent in the high foreign born table. In fact, another table, which showed the metropolitans with the least foreign born born populations, included the names of four cities from the violent crime graph e.g. St.Louis, Missouri and Memphis, Tennessee. With the clear absence of the dangerous city names, no relationship is shown between crime rates and immigrants. Not only that, but these foreigners do not have much incentive to commit crimes. A study shows that “first-generation immigrants [are] 45 percent less likely to commit violence than third-generation Americans"

Concerns about the connection between immigration and crime have a long-standing history in the United States, dating back to colonial times. Increased immigration was believed to be associated with increased criminal activity” (Immigration and Crime, 2009). In recent years, concerns about negative consequences of immigration to the United States have been based on the assumption that immigrants have caused many social problems to U.S. society, including changing the American ways of life, depleting welfare resources, increasing unemployment among

According to Malia Zimmerman of Fox News, after an extensive study on crime rates and illegal immigrants, it was found that the 11.7 million illegal immigrants living in the US account for a total of 13.6% of all crime committed (Zimmerman). 13.6% may seem to be a small amount of crime, but it is not small when only 11.6 million of America’s 318.9 million person population are committing it. Additionally, approximately 12% of murder cases and 20% of kidnapping cases are committed by Illegal immigrants (Zimmerman). Another example of crime with illegal immigrants is in 2014 when the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) released 30,558 criminals back onto US streets. That group of 30,558 people had a total combined 79,059 criminal convictions, including 186 kidnappings and 86 homicides

Although events such as San Bernardino in 2015 provide anecdotal evidence of immigrants committing acts of extreme violence, these events are extremely rare. Nonetheless, tragedies such as these inevitably grab headlines and capture the attention of millions of Americans across the country. Tragedies such as the attack in San Bernardino hold strong emotional appeal to proponents for restrictive immigration policy. However, these rare and uncontrollable events should not provide the base of logic for America’s national immigration policy as they are not a proxy for immigrant behavior as a whole. Various statistics regarding crime among immigrants may reveal an underlying reason for lower crime rates, which is that the majority of immigrants understand the implications of committing a crime and know that it would not be in their best interest as a new member of the country they wish to call home. Natives, moreover, have crime rates five times that of immigrants. This demonstrates the potential positive externalities that immigrants contribute to the social sphere by lowering the crime rate and acting as models within urban America.

The immigrant youth surveyed in this social research endeavor were not much different from the U.S. born youth. The journal points out that the common methods used to handle issues like juvenile delinquency may not apply equally to immigrant youth in violence prevention (Almeida et al, 2010).

It is proven that immigrants are far more afraid and less likely to as well participate in any crime involved activities, quit their jobs, shoplift, hurt others in any way, shape or form, or do something that could get them arrested. It’s the sense of fear they have for getting deported, but it may also be that good spirit in which they truly came here to start a better life with no problems. Many comparisons between cities, communities and counties are done by economists to differentiate the links of local concentration of immigrants and the rates of crime and violence in that specified area. Results showed that the higher number concentration of immigrants, the lower crime rate. There is no proven connection found between immigrants and higher crime

we obligated to “round them up” to go back home (Coulter,2016, p 42). For example, convicted rapist Mohammed Mukhtar agreed to deportation after his sentence, but it is unlikely that his home country of Somalia will accept him back. So, when the authors of Governing Immigration through Crime, describes a “shadow cast” among Latinos, Arabas, Muslims and South Asians (Dowling & Inda, 2013). Coulter believes that these immigrants shouldn’t feel like they are living in the shadows, Americans should be feeling that way since these immigrants are the ones coming into their country committing crime and breaking the law to get here (Coulter,2016). Illegal immigrants should feel uncomfortable living in our country, it’s supposed to be an uncomfortable feeling when you break the law. She then asks, “how did all these illegal aliens get into the shadows in the first place?”, and makes a valid point that they weren’t kidnapped or dragged into our country they chose to come here (Coulter,2016, p.5).

The amount of Illegal immigration causing the crime level to escalate is through the roof. Just in the year 2002 “3,400 criminal immigrants were relisted” (Robert). And these 3,400 immigrants “were convicted with rape, murder, and assault” (Robert). This was only 2002 fifth teen years ago and this number has increased substantially in the past fifth teen years. The largest problematic issue is that there is no record for illegal immigrants so when they do a lawbreaking action, it is very challenging to find or catch them if they do get away. And illegal immigrants are gradually being given amnesty. Which will only source to additional crime and illegal immigration. Let alone being an illegal immigrant already makes them a criminal which causes illegal immigrants to do further crimes in the future.

Throughout the years, several studies have been conducted on the relationship between crime and undocumented immigrants. According to Special Report by a non-partisan organization, American Immigration Council (Ewing, Martinez & Rumbaut, 2015), which indicated two authoritative facts. From 1990 to 2013, Foreign-born share of the U.S. population raised from 7.9% to 13.1%. From 1990 to 2012, the number of unauthorized immigrants raised from 5.7 million to 11.2 million. FBI, Uniform Crime Reports showed that in the same period both

The reason we should not get rid of immigrants because they have lower crime rates than Americans. Illegal immigrants have the incentive to avoid committing crimes to minimize the risk of deportation (Griswold 42-46). Why would the immigrants want to commit crimes to attract attention to themselves? The pattern upends popular stereotypes. Most people think immigrants would be driving the crime rate up in America, but immigrants seem to appear less violent than people born in America (Sampson 28-33). A study of nearly 3,000 males and females in Chicago ranging in age from 8 to 25, study was shown that whites, blacks, and hispanics from 180 neighborhood Hispanics had lower rate of violence than African-Americans and whites (Sampson 28-33). You would think immigrants are causing crime rates to increase because of their culture or religions , but it is us