How Much Crime Do Illegal Immigrants Commit?
You probably never heard of SCAAP, the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program. But I expect it will be showing up in the news a lot pretty soon.
This is what it does:
The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, administers SCAAP, in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). SCAAP provides federal payments to states and localities that incurred correctional officer salary costs for incarcerating undocumented criminal aliens who have at least one felony or two misdemeanor convictions for violations of state or local law, and who are incarcerated for at least 4 consecutive days during the reporting period.
Translation: state and local jurisdictions are compensated by the Federal Government for expenses incurred for holding criminal aliens. Why do the Feds pay? To quote from a letter signed by California’s Congressional delegation to key members of the House Appropriations Committee a few years ago:
As you know, SCAAP is a grant program that reimburses states and local governments for the cost of incarcerating undocumented immigrants convicted of crimes. By law, the federal government is ultimately responsible for immigration enforcement, including the incarceration of undocumented criminal offenders. When this is not possible, the law requires the federal government to compensate state and local governments for their incarceration costs.
So… the Federal Government is responsible for immigration enforcement, which is to say (in this context), preventing illegal immigration. Therefore, if a non-immigration related crime is committed by someone the Feds failed to keep out of the country, the Feds compensates state and local law enforcement.
The number of prisoners for which the SCAAP program provides compensation are hard to find. It is almost as if those figures are kept deliberately opaque. However, according to the General Accounting Office:
The number of criminal aliens in federal prisons in fiscal year 2010 was about 55,000, and the number of SCAAP criminal alien incarcerations in state prison systems and local jails was about 296,000 in fiscal year 2009 (the most recent data available), and the majority were from Mexico.
The same GAO document tells us that there were about 10.8 million aliens with undocumented status in the US in 2009. 296,000 is 2.74% of 10.8 million, so about 2.74% of the aliens with undocumented status were incarcerated in the state prison system and local jails that year.
How does that compare to the population at large? According to Appendix Table 2 of this Bureau of Justice Statistics report, in 2009, the state prison population was 1,319,426 and the local jail population was 767,620 for a total of 2,087,046.
The US non-institutional population at the time was about 301,500,000, so add in the 2 million for state and local prisoners, and add in about 205K Federal prisoners, and you have a US population of about 303,705,000.
2 million and change divided by 303.7 million comes to less than 7 tenths of a percent of the US population ending up in state and local prisons. That is well under the 2.7% for the undocumented aliens. Or…illegal immigrants are around four times more likely to be imprisoned in a state or local jurisdiction than the population as a whole. (Note that this ratio is probably even more lopsided since SCAAP only applies to aliens with at least four consecutive days of time served.)
Now, illegal immigrants having 4x everyone else’s crime rate is a far cry from the often repeated claim that “illegal immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than the native born.” Thoroughly contradicting popular wisdom makes for an extraordinary claim, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. So let’s see if we can find some additional support for the claim.
As luck would have, it isn’t just state and local jurisdictions that imprison people. The Federal government does it too. The 2015 US Sentencing Commission Report states that:
A majority of federal offenders are United States citizens (58.5%). Most non-citizen offenders committed an immigration offense (66.0%).
So let’s assume that those who committed an immigration offense are innocent of any other offense, and disregard them completely.
Endnote 13 of the same document tells us:
Non-citizens primarily are convicted of immigration crimes. Non-citizens were the offenders in only 14.1 percent of all other federal crimes in fiscal year 2015.
According to Pew Research undocumented aliens accounted for about 3.5% of the total population in 2015.
So 3.5% of the population represents 14.1% of Federal prisoners incarcerated for non-immigration related crimes. That is to say, illegal immigrants were four times as likely to be in a Federal prison for a non-immigration related crime as the rest of the population in 2015, which is about the same proportion we see in state and local jurisdictions in 2009. Coincidence?
You don’t have to like something for it to be true. But the relative crime rates of the illegal population are what they are. Now perhaps you don’t think crime rates matter to the illegal immigration debate. Fine. That’s a topic for another day.
What I think is more topical, though, is that sooner or later the Trump administration is going to figure out that SCAAP exists, that it is part of the Federal Budget, and that it can be used as a cudgel against the sanctuary movement. And frankly, stopped clocks being right twice a day and all, they will have a point when they do so.
Demanding compensation from the Feds’ for their failure to enforce a law while simultaneously preventing the Feds from doing so seems very squirrelly. I am no attorney, but it seems like the sort of argument even the team Trump has put together might be able to win in court.
—
Corrections (May 29, 6:45 AM PST)
1. Reader Longtooth notes that the GAO link mentioned in the post is severed. This one works as of this writing.
2. Reader Longtooth also notes that I missed something in that document – not all criminal aliens are in the SCAAP program. For more detail, see the comments, but, about two-thirds of the criminal aliens are either known to be in this country illegally, or “unknown.” The latter group is believed by the states to be in this country illegally, and eligible for SCAAP funding. As far as I can tell, they are essentially aliens who cannot be shown to be in the country legally but have not, at the time they were arrested, come to the attention of the Department of Homeland Security. I think this needs a further look, but based on various statements in the GAO report, I now believe that illegal aliens are not 4X more likely to end up in state and local jails, but rather somewhere between a bit more than one and a bit less than 3 times more likely.
Leaving aside the question of crime rates among the undocumented, there is the issue that the SCAAP program deal involves taxpayer dollars. This information should be readily available, whether from the Justice Department or the General Accounting Office.
Well, Mike, this is interesting data, and you may be right that at some point Trump et al will cite it in their arguments. I had never heard of it before, and maybe it is right, that illegal immigrants have much higher crime rates than others in the US.
I am wondering how this data squares with a lot of other data that seems to show just the opposite. Two very recent studies are by The Sentencing Project and the Cato Institute. Their numbers are for immigrants as a whole, so it may be that this is a legal versus illegal immigrant issue, and their numbers do not agree with each other, so there may be inaccuracies here. But something is going on here that needs explaining.
Furthermore, there is other data that suggests that both legal and illegal immigrants have lower crime rates. This is the data on cities and their crime rates. We hear it anecdotally,but I just went and eye balled the basic numbers, and it certainly looks like high crime cities tend to be ones with the fewest immigrants of either sort and vice versa.
So, there are apparently 18 metro areas in the US with violent crime rates above 1,000 per 100,000 population per year. Of these I could identify only 3 that I think have immigrant populations above average: Oakland, DC, and Miami, with the latter two having their violent crime rates only barely above that 1,000 cutoff. Most of the cities among this 18 are older and depressed former industrial cities, places like Cleveland, Baltimore, Millwaukee, Detroit, and so on. (Oh, I think this data is at the city level, not the metro area level).
I also looked at one city that has been in the news on this, one with one of the highest levels of immigrant population, San Diego. Its latest violent crime rate is 227 per 100,000, one of the lowest in the nation.
Probably should run a regression or something to verify that indeed there appears to be a pretty strong negative correlation between immigrant population percentage and violent crime rate, but it certainly looks like it is there.
So, Mike, do you have any explanation for the apparently large discrepancy between what this data source you report on shows and what appears to be the case from most other available data?
Being a contrarian may seem clever, but https://www.policefoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Appendix-D_0.pdf
Mike is looking at rates of incarceration, not violent crimes. He isn’t looking at the likelihood of false incarceration, erroneous over identification of racial minorities as perpetrators, incarceration prior to and after conviction, etc etc. Plus he is doing tons of ballparking on his figures, and using one source for data.
Carol:
Minorities are more likely to be incarcerated than the white majority, much of it due to lack of funds and also plea-bargaining.
Carol & Run,
Your hypothesis implies that illegal/undocumented/unauthorized aliens/immigrants/migrants are at least 4x more likely to be incarcerated for the same conviction as a non alien/immigrant/migrant. That doesn’t fit with my intuition, but I would be happy to believe if shown credible data.
Barkley,
First, a correction. I provided two data points – one based on state & local incarceration rates in 2009, one based on Federal incarceration rates for non-immigration related offenses in 2015. For the 2009 point, I did most of the algebra. For the 2015 point, I essentially copied a footnote straight from a report issued by the Justice Department while Loretta Lynch was in charge of it.
So… why the discrepancy between the data I pointed out and the reality as reported widely in the media, think tanks, and academics?
First, I like to think that going back to Presimetrics, and certainly to my current blogging, I have shown a tendency to state what I think the data shows as opposed to what I want to be true. There have been more than a few posts where I have noted facts that go against my own best interests. For example, I currently (knock on wood that it stays that way)would personally would benefit more from a low tax, extremely high government deficit environment, but I have written a very large number of posts arguing against such an environment. Why? Because the data shows that what is best for me is not best for society, and I will note what the data shows. I make mistakes now and then, but I try not to shade the data one way or the other. With all due respect to the entities you mentioned, they do not have reputations for doing that.
Second, as I noted in the post, information on this topic is deliberately opaque. I would say that is for both good reasons and bad. So many of the sources of estimates will use indirect methods for making their estimates. But I went to the one place where there is some accountability – the money trail. Now, it is possible that states like California are deliberately inflating numbers to get more funding, while deliberately deflating the same numbers to meet certain other claims made in public. However, I doubt it. The first doc to which I linked provides information for, among other things, the documentation required for reimbursement, and that requires actually identifying the incarcerated individuals. Unless the states are deliberately scamming the Federal Government Bernie Madoff-style, the SCAAP numbers would seem to be accurate. The Dep’t of Justice under Loretta Lynch also doesn’t seem like it was likely to end up reporting inflated data of this sort.
As to the high crime – low immigrant cities such as San Diego… this is another indelicate subject. It seems that different groups in the US commit crimes at different rates. Some groups commit relatively high proportions of crimes, some groups commit relatively low proportions of crimes. (The reasons for that are beyond the scope of this already long comment.) Many cities that are high crime – low immigrant have very different US citizen demographics than cities that have low crime rates.
To focus on your example of San Diego… I believe the Asian American community tends to have a low crime relative to other ethnic groups in the US. Asian Americans are 16% of the San Diego population, or 2.8X their total US proportion of 5.6%. On the other hand, for other cities you named, Asians only make up 1.3% of Detroit’s population, 2% of Cleveland’s, 2.7% of Baltimore’s and 3.7% of Milwaukee’s population. If Asians are proportionally less likely to commit crimes, having proportionately fewer Asians means having proportionately more people from groups that are proportionately more likely to commit crimes.
Additionally, in some high income areas (some neighborhoods of San Diego and San Diego adjacent certainly qualify), the immigrant population fills roles in the labor market that cater toward the wealthy. (E.g., gardeners, maids, etc.) Depending on geographical constraints, nobody who isn’t either wealthy or catering to the wealthy can afford to live there.
Finally, one other reason comes to mind. There is some evidence that people who are not in the country legally are less likely to report victimization, and more crimes occur within rather than across communities. (I have seen news reports that there is less crime reporting this year because illegal immigrants are afraid to come to the attention of authorities in the era of Trump.) This may be true even of murder – after all, it is easier to make a body disappear if nobody even knew that the person was in the area. Indirect methods of counting may be more prone to missing crime in communities with large numbers of illegal immigrants than incarceration. (Note – even incarceration rates would understate such crimes if this were the case.)
run,
One other comment. I have seen articles purporting to show that one group gets a longer sentence than another for the same crime. But the articles I have seen have not taken into account a number of factors. One that jumps out at me is prior crimes. If, in proportion to their population, Asians commit fewer crimes than undocumented aliens, then on average, an Asian being convicted of, say, assault is likelier to be on his first conviction than an illegal immigrant being convicted of the same thing. The person on his first offense is more likely to get a lighter sentence.
Many of your points are valid, Mike. Cato certainly has biases, I do not know much about the other group. I grant that there is no reason for states or the feds to be lying or scamming here. I did not mention you had two data sources simply because they basically found the same result apparently.
However, I remain unconvinced by your arguments about cities, although you score some points there. Maybe San Diego has a low crime rate because there are lots of Asians there and the Hispanics all have jobs with rich people. Certainly some of the cities I mentioned with high crime have few Asians and lots of African Americans. But there are some others in that above 1,000/1000,000 that do not and also do not have lots of immigrants. I am thinking of Kansas City, Minneapollis, Nashville, and Indianopolis, just to name four. However, I have not dug through all the data too deeply.. Maybe there is something else going on here, and I suppose it could have to do with urban/suburban/rural differences as well, although offhand those do not seem obvious.
So, I remain somewhat mystified by why or how there is this apparent big discrepancy between your data source and what other sources of data seem to show, and while maybe Cato and Sentencing are wrong, pretty much every other study out there so far has supported their conclusions. Something very odd is going on here, but I do not know what, and maybe you do not either.
“So… the Federal Government is responsible for immigration enforcement, which is to say (in this context), preventing illegal immigration. ”
The context of the data is NOT preventing illegal immigration, it is incarceration.
“Your hypothesis implies that illegal/undocumented/unauthorized aliens/immigrants/migrants are at least 4x more likely to be incarcerated for the same conviction as a non alien/immigrant/migrant. That doesn’t fit with my intuition, but I would be happy to believe if shown credible data.”
You are the one using incarceration as a proxy for crime rates. I am aware that incarceration rates are not uniform with respect to socioeconomic status, so my intuition says it is likely to be a lousy proxy. I think it is on you to show why I should believe it is credible.
Arne,
“The context of the data is NOT preventing illegal immigration, it is incarceration.”
I don’t think you understood the point of the California Congressional delegation – they argued that it is on the Feds to pay for the incarceration of people who would not have committed crimes in California had the Federal government done its job and enforced the border. That’s their argument, not mine.
“I think it is on you to show why I should believe it is credible.”
I disagree. I had a post on this before. If, for instance, you feel that Black people or poor people are punished more harshly than White people or rich people, for the same crime, you either believe that crime rates are lower in Black and poor neighborhoods, or you feel that elevated crime rates in Black or poor neighborhoods are due to White people or rich people descending in large numbers on Black neighborhoods or poor neighborhoods to commit crimes. If there is a third option, I don’t see it.
Barkley,
At this moment in time, I cannot provide more of an explanation than the one I just did. I can only say this – I believe the brain trust that Trump has brought with him will, sooner or later, glom onto the existence of the SCAAP program and use it as a cudgel. Because it involves money, that may bring sudden clarity to the debate. I am willing to bet that SCAAP figures are correct because they tend to be arrived at with the least amount of handwaving and the most transparency.
Mike Kimel,
For 2009, 20% of illegal aliens’ crimes were related to drugs. (Based on US Sentencing Commission data)
See page 23: https://books.google.com/books?id=aTbEMNSH9iIC&pg=PA50&lpg=PA50&dq=SCAAP+data+base&source=bl&ots=TRCY_RRWPa&sig=DYck7jHlUvHPORRNvG2wZsNcbUs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjYiseFyPnSAhWHyyYKHUtdCKoQ6AEIMTAE#v=onepage&q=Crime&f=false
We are currently seeing a rapid rise in deaths caused by heroin and fentanyl drugs.
Do you know what crimes the arrested illegal aliens committed in 2015 or 2016? I can not find that data.
geez
Half of the Federal prisoners are serving time for drug offenses, but let’s try to blame ” a rapid rise in deaths caused by heroin and fentanyl drugs” on drug offenses committed by illegal aliens.
BTW,
When you can tell me what theses drug offenses were, I might listen. Doubtful, as our citizens are just as criminal, and for the same offenses.
However, I would love to know how many of these offenses were possession of marijuana without the intent to distribute. Not hard to see an ICE agent salivating after breaking into an illegal immigrants home and seeing him smoking a joint.
Jim H,
Sentencing commission tables – start here. Click on “Primary Offense and Offender Characteristics.” Go to table 9. It won’t give you illegal aliens, but it will give you non-citizens, and my guess is that illegal aliens are the majority of non-citizens doing time in Federal Penitentiaries.
EMichael,
Follow the link provided to JimH right above. There are tables that will show what you want. That is, if you believe the tables. You might not, if you believe your own statement of “[h]alf of the Federal prisoners are serving time for drug offenses.”
OK. I take back absolutely everything I ever wrote blaming a rapid rise in deaths on heroin and fentanyl drugs on illegal aliens. Unfortunately, I never wrote anything about that all.
That would be table 36 – again, links provided above in this comment. You are right about the same proportions, if you assume that non-citizens are a quarter of the US population.
I don’t talk to you Kimel, I was addressing JimH. If he responds to me I will answer him and his questions. You, not interested.
EMichael,
Whatever works for you. But why are you so certain JimH won’t call out blurted falsities? I mean, I’m not going to be the only one whose eyebrows go up when someone writes “Half of the Federal prisoners are serving time for drug offenses.” For what little its worth, I would imagine you’d be a happier person in the long run if you made an effort to check data (or at least fire up your BS detector) before making a pronouncement. Sure, you’ll find that those who don’t occasionally berate you for failing to conform with their prejudices and myths, but having facts on your side is liberating.
Mike Kimel,
Thanks, but as you say they give us no information about crimes committed by illegal immigrants.
My point in my last comment was that though the number of crimes committed by illegal immigrants seemed to be small, there could still be substantial damage to society.
Here is Politifact in 2016 acknowledging Mexico as the source country for the heroin and fentanyl entering the US.
See: http://www.politifact.com/ohio/statements/2016/mar/14/rob-portman/most-heroin-us-comes-over-mexican-border/
And those drugs kill Americans.
It seems to me that if Mexicans are desperate enough to enter the US illegally then some small percentage of them are probably desperate enough to smuggle heroin and fentanyl into the US too. (Or to sell them, once in the US)
As I said, i would answer him. But the facts are the facts.
“Almost 50% (92,000 prisoners) of sentenced federal prisoners on September 30, 2015 (the most recent date for which federal offense data are available) were serving time for drug offenses (table 10) (appendix table 6). An additional 36% of federal offenders (67,500 prisoners) were imprisoned for public order offenses, including 30,200 (16% of all federal prisoners) for weapons offenses and 14,900 (8%) for adjudicated immigration crimes. While 53% of sentenced state prisoners were serving time for violent offenses, 7% of federal prisoners (13,700 prisoners) were serving sentences for violent crimes.
“Among female federal prisoners, 59% were serving sentences for drug offenses, compared to 49% of males. A larger proportion of white prisoners in federal prison (42%) were serving time for public order offenses on September 30, 2015 than blacks (32%) or Hispanics (37%). More than half of black (51%) and Hispanic (58%) federal prisoners in 2015 were convicted of drug offenses.” –
(Federal Drug Prisoners by Offense, 2004) According to the Justice Department, 5.3% of drug offenders in federal prisons are serving time for possession; 91.4% are serving time for trafficking offenses; and 3.3% are in for “other.”
Source:
Mumola, Christopher J., and Karberg, Jennifer C., “Drug Use and Dependence, State and Federal Prisoners, 2004,” (Washington, DC: US Dept. of Justice, Oct. 2006) (NCJ213530), p. 4.
http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/dudsfp04.pdf
– See more at: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Prisons_and_Drugs#sthash.Mt881nIa.S959ECOy.dpuf
See more at: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Prisons_and_Drugs#sthash.Mt881nIa.S959ECOy.dpuf
Now, scroll around and find out some facts other than your ideologically driven garbage.
Here’s a thought.
How man cops see a kid smoking a joint and arrest him for that? How many ice agents see a mexican smoking a joint and, when he grabs the kid and finds him too be an illegal immigrant does not add the drug charge.
You are watermelons to apples and think you have a point. Again.
BTW,
Anyone that pays attention to numbers generated in large part, by arresting people and convicting them of crimes, where the police financially benefit from such arrest is incredibly naive And should spend some time talking to defense attorneys that have some knowledge of our judicial system.
Or, watch the news.
“he Department of Justice confirmed yesterday what many of Ferguson’s residents have been saying, and protesting against, for months: the city racks up millions of dollars each year in fines and court fees by illegally harassing its black population. What the federal government did not say, however, is that the practice of criminalizing black people to raise money for police and court systems is not rare; local governments across the country have been doing it for years—ironically, to offset the spiraling costs of the incarceration boom of the past three decades.
In an afternoon press conference, Attorney General Eric Holder described Ferguson as “a community where local authorities consistently approached law enforcement not as a means for protecting public safety, but as a way to generate revenue.” Holder said the pressure to keep revenue flowing has generated constitutional violations at “nearly every level of Ferguson’s law enforcement system”—including inappropriate use of force.
“Once the system is primed for maximizing revenue—starting with fines and fine enforcement—the city relies on the police force to serve, essentially, as a collection agency for the municipal court rather than a law enforcement entity,” said Holder, later adding, “Our investigation showed that Ferguson police officers routinely violate the Fourth Amendment in stopping people without reasonable suspicion, arresting them without probable cause, and using unreasonable force against them.”
Holder’s conclusion, coming after an in-depth, six-month investigation in Ferguson, could have easily described many cities and local jurisdictions across the country.
As Nusrat Choudhury said in an ACLU statement back in January, “the vicious cycle of linking racial profiling and debtors prisons,” occurs nationally and “in the process, poor people—disproportionately people of color—and their families suffer from the collateral impacts of jailing on employment, and housing.”
In Louisiana and Washington State, for instance, those convicted of a crime are ordered to pay court and processing fees that can add up to hundreds or thousands of dollars. In Washington State, the minimum fees for a felony conviction add up to $800, and in 2004 they averaged nearly $1,400. Poor defendants often wind up indebted and put onto a payment plan where interest accrues. The inability to pay can easily land them back in prison.”
https://www.thenation.com/article/its-not-just-ferguson/
EMichael,
I see… you are looking at people currently in jail in 2015, I am looking at people sentenced in 2015. It would seem that on average, drug offenders spend longer in jail than other offenders. It may because drug offenses have longer sentences by themselves, or that drug convictions are more often associated with other convictions as well.
JimH,
The data is obviously available to the Justice Dep’t. It just hasn’t made it easily available to the rest of us.
EMichael,
WRT the Justice Dep’t Ferguson report, as I noted before, if crime (petty and otherwise) were being punished more harshly (and unreasonably so, in fact) in Ferguson than in other jurisdictions, then (assuming that the people of Ferguson are rational) the crime rate in Ferguson would have been exceptionally low.
The Nation story that you quote states that it happens in Black neighborhoods across the country. Again, assuming rational residents, that should lead to those areas having lower crime rates than other areas where the police and the courts are less unyielding (adjusting for income, education, etc).
We are, in no way, shape or form looking at different things despite the in jail and sentencing thing.
You, once again, are spouting numbers that match you ideology, without any basis of knowledge into what causes those numbers. You are comparing watermelons to oranges and think you have picked a plum.
I blame myself for answering you when you responded to me on my post to JimH.
And I will reiterate my point to JimH that he is inanely stupid for suggesting a relationship with the number of illegals sentenced for drug sentences and the heroin and fentanyl deaths are related, despiet his last “source country” comment.
Yeah, the cocaine epidemic was caused by Columbian illegals in the US.
Kind of the best explanation as to why this country has an ongoing drug war that fails. No one in power, and very few citizens have an idea what is going on, but they are good at casting blame on their current “causes”.
” Again, assuming rational residents, that should lead to those areas having lower crime rates than other areas where the police and the courts are less unyielding (adjusting for income, education, etc).”
motherf!cker, please
Yeah, cause the made up crimes and offenses have no effect on crime rates.
here’s a hint.
If the cops were suddenly allowed to commit illegal stops and searches in the most crime free cities in the country, the crime rate would blossom.
you just get worse every day
One last post to you.
Half my wife’s families are cops, most in a large city. Many of my friends have spent time as defense attorneys.
which group do you think has told me that innocent people are often convicted of crimes? And by what race groups does this occur more? And at what income level?
You will probably guess right because of the way I framed the question, but it still does not make it any better, and certainly shows how little your fen statistics mean.
EMichael,
In the world I live in, speeding drivers typically slow down when they see cop. What do they do in your world?
Mike,
You should control for socio economic class, possibly measured by income. Usually the lower income you are, the more criminal you are. My guess is that illegal immigrants are no more criminal than other groups of the same income level, possibly even less given the penalties for arrest/deportation. But that still begs your question: why are we allowing immigration that will increase the crime rate?
Mike,
You of course assume that an illegal stop is not an illegal stop.
Nice logic.
Perhaps you should get a clue.
BTW,
Driving while black or brown is not a legal stop.
BTW,
Gotta love that despite his constant leas that he is not a racist, he continues to show he is a racist.
He, and people in his world, when speeding and see a cop, they are smart enough to slow down.
Black and brown people aren’t.
Emichael,
“He, and people in his world, when speeding and see a cop, they are smart enough to slow down.
Black and brown people aren’t.”
Who’s the racist here?
Umm, Kimel.
He said it, not me.
Sorry Emichael that’s a quote from your 8:29 post….. very racist by the way. Maybe the most racist post ever on this blog. Maybe you should look in the mirror before posting another multiple “racist! comment. It’s getting really tiresome.
EMichael,
Not what I said. I asked a question. You linked to a story that says that people in places like Ferguson are disproportionately likely to be stopped by the police, even for relatively petty offenses. That would imply that people are more careful not to commit such offenses since the likelihood of punishment is higher in those areas. And yet, those neighborhoods are less safe than other neighborhoods.
So… either the narrative of the story to which you linked is wrong, or the people are not rational. I noted that in my world, people are rational, so I believe the problem is that the story to which you linked is outlandishly wrong. I assume you don’t or you wouldn’t have linked to it. Which is to say, you assume people behave irrationally around cops. So I was wondering what it is people do around cops in your world.
As to your attorney & cop story…. I know attorneys and cops. My experience is that like anyone else, both groups talk their book. And both attorneys and cops generally try to live and work far away from the neighborhoods where the defense attorneys’ clients tend to live despite the lower cost of living in such neighborhoods. (In fact, the defense attorneys usually manage to live farther away.) Both are voting with their feet, but the cops’ story line is generally more consistent.
African American and minority citizens are more likely to be stopped by police. African American and minority citizens are more likely to plea bargain than white citizens. African American and minority citizens are more likely to receive harsher sentences than white citizens. You can sit there and argue this all you want to; however, you are wrong.
Sammy,
I quoted what he said. The thread makes the context obvious to anyone wiht a 5th grade reading level
Mike,
“a story that says that people in places like Ferguson disproportionately likely to be stopped by the police, even for relatively petty offenses.”
Holder, later adding, “Our investigation showed that Ferguson police officers routinely violate the Fourth Amendment in stopping people without reasonable suspicion, arresting them without probable cause, and using unreasonable force against them.”
F off.
Sorry Run. I tried. I am done now. And he is a racist that should have the right to post his breitbart columns
Your post is what is known as a “Freudian Slip” Anyone who accuses everyone of being a “Racist!” has race foremost on their mind. Nothing in Mike’s comment that you referenced can be construed as racist. Only a true racist would post what you did. You are the racist.
“should not”
Sammy,
I am sorry for your reading disability.. Hopefully it is caused by ideology.
EMichael,
If Holder was right, then either a) Ferguson was a fairly low crime place before the Michael Brown incident or b) the residents of Ferguson were irrational. Again, I believe people generally behave rationally (at least in short run interactions, and avoiding pissing off cops are among those interactions). And Ferguson was not a fairly low crime place. So to me, Holder was wrong. Period.
Your insistence that Holder was right and that Ferguson was not a low crime jurisdiction requires that you believe that the population of Ferguson was irrational. You haven’t provided any support for your belief that they behaved irrationally, but you have chosen to keep calling me racist. That seems like an odd argument.
Emichael,
What did I misread? Or are you now attacking disabled persons as well as minorities?
Sammy,
You misread the entire thread.
Your last comments are beyond silly.
Emichael,
You need a new debate strategy beyond calling people racists. In fact, you are the one here that is obsessed by race. Which makes you a “_________” (fill in the blank).
Emichael,
I gave you the perfect “in” earlier in the thread when I suggested that Mike test for socio economic class. It may not be that it is race, but class, that accounts for different incarceration rates. Instead of researching this, you opt for the lazy and virtue signaling “racist” tact .If you are out of arguments, throw down the race card and insult away.
Like I said, it’s tiresome, very 80’s. Mike is no more a racist than you or I, maybe less so considering your comments on this thread.
Sammy,
Yes, you did give me a pass.
Now, tell me why kimel did not take that pass. And has never taken any such pass.
this has been going on for months
You do not need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out kimel’s purpose.
I’l answer that. I forgot to put up a comment in response. The comment would have said: “I have searched for that data on a granular enough level to make use of it but I haven’t found it.”
That comes back to the comment about how this data is seemingly deliberately opaque. I doubt the current administration will change that, but it is possible. After all, such data is likely to show results that are in line with its political views on this particular issue. On the other hand, this administration seems no less inept, and in a number of ways, more inept than the previous administration. In plain English – if the Obama administration wanted that information easily available, it would be easily available. The current administration may be populated by individuals too dense to realize that on this issue, at least,, they will gain politically by releasing more information.
Mr. Kimel,
I have been trying to square your data with the conclusions you draw for the past day. I find several discrepancies with your data.
1. The Federal prisoners numbers you cite from the GAO is for aliens, no illegal aliens. Though it varies by year, at least 50% of aliens in the US (not citizens or naturalized citizens) are NOT illegal aliens. You are assuming all alien Federal prisoners are illegal aliens when that’s not what the GAO defines “alien” to be. I can find no data at the federal level that relates incarcerations to illegal aliens (undocumented aliens) and legal aliens.
2. The supporting link you give for the Federal GAO incarceration data is “NOT FOUND”
3. The data you cite from the GAO says 10.8 million undocumented aliens in 2009. You then normalize incarcerated criminal aliens in State/Local facilities by undocumented aliens. Your division (normalizing) is Applies divided by (normalized to) Oranges.
4. Since there are at least as many legal aliens and undocumented aliens in the nation in any given year, you cannot with any legitimacy decide unilaterally that all incarcerated aliens are illegal aliens, even after omitting the immigration related offenses.
Some other things I think your data doesn’t properly treat the evaluations you did.
1) Incarcerations are >= 18 year olds (adults only) All younger (juveniles) are not counted by State/Local or Federal as “incarcerations”. The juveniles are either remanded to their parents / legal guardians, or held in juvenile detention facilities.. juvi isn’t “jails or prisons”. Therefore your normalizations can only include the adult illegal aliens or adult aliens (total of legal and illegal) and can only compare to US non-alien adults (e.g. non-alien = citizens & naturalized citizens) .
2) By assuming all incarcerated (non-immigration crimes) aliens are only the undocumented aliens you’re showing a bias, and thus doing your normalizations by using only the estimated total undocumented population you’re using that bias.
3) For an honest evaluation, unbiased, you need the following data:
a) Use only adults >= 18 years of age for all data values & populations.
b) Citizen incarcerations / Total Citizens
c) Alien incarcerations / Total Aliens
d) Undocumented Alien incarcerations / Total Undocumented Aliens
Using only adults is required since otherwise you must assume each group above has the same proportion of children to adults, which is elsewhere shown to not be the case.
4) As I’m sure some other commenter(s) must have pointed out already, incarceration has little to do with “criminal” designation. An arrest does not mean guild is implied — which is the reason we have such a thing as courts and lawyers. YET, you titled your post as:”How Much Crime Do Illegal Immigrants Commit?” while using incarcerations (of 4 days or more) equated to guilt of crimes. What is the relationship of incarcerations to guilt of crime for adult citizens, adult aliens, adult illegal aliens when crime and guild thereof exclude immigration infractions? You didn’t even make any attempt to show any relationship or even mention that incarceration doesn’t mean Crime as your title “Crime” term then must imply.
5. Do undocumented immigrants get the same level of defense or have the same means to defend themselves as documented immigrants, or as citizens?
6. Are undocumented or documented immigrants generally not subject to racial animus by police? Are either type of immigrant profiled by racial characteristics, or English language accents, or last or first names in practice (whether technically illegal or not)?
7. I can tell personal directly observed stories in the late 60’s, 70’s, and even last year about racial profiling of US natural born citizens … black and Hispanic. I won’t tell them, but they were clear and more than obvious racial profiling to “stop and detain” persons who “looked out of place”… right! No more out of place than the color of their skin in a White privileged racist nation.
8. I can tell stories from my two neighbors who were city policemen and who were unabashed about “stopping and detaining” and irritating and provoking black and Hispanics at any opportunity whenever they wanted to get some excitement on the job. A standard method of getting one of these profiled stoppees arrested and charged with a crime was to carry a baggie of pot with them.. which when they decided the profiled guys were being “uncooperative”.. meaning giving the cops back-talk, it was simple to drop the baggy into the vehicle or “find it” on their person “because of smelling the odor of pot”. This is true stuff.. not amazing, but very true.. and it occurred in liberal California .. Northern California in fact. Fortunately (but tragically) one of these neighbor cops overdosed on some drug and died at 45. The other one finally retired. You have no idea how many legal pretexts the police have at their disposal that all hold up in court on their “sworn” testimony. I had no idea either until they would tell me all these methods. When I’d protest to them that this was blatantly racist and illegal they both thought and felt strongly, to their bones, that they were in the right … getting these “n…s” and “wet-backs”, “gang members” and “drug dealers” off the streets or to “know their place”. Yep.. .liberal Northern California in the Bay Area.
Mr. Kimel,
I found the following in a single google search “crime by undocumented immigrants”
http://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Immigration-and-Public-Safety.pdf
In Figure 5 of that report, with the source data from:
Source: United States Sentencing Commission. 2015 Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics. Table 9: Citizenship of Offenders in Each Primary Offense Category. Retrieved from http://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/annual-reports-and-sourcebooks/2015/Table09.pdf
Figure 5. Federal Criminal Sentences for Non-Citizens by Offense, 2015
29,166 Sentences”
66% immigration offenses. Therefore 44% non-immigration crime sentences =
9,916 Total non-immigration crime sentences
Total Immigrants (legal and illegal) in 2015 less naturalized citizen immigrants: (see Source 1)
22.59 million non-citizens
Est. undocumented immigrants in 2011 = 11.5 million (source 2)
Est. undocumented immigrants in 2012 = 11.4 million (source 2)
Est. undocumented immigrants in 2014 = 11.1 million (source 3)
All Sentences Rate of non-citizen immigrants (% of non-citizens):
0.044%
All Sentences Rate of non-citizen immigrants (% of undocumented immigrants in 2014)
0.081% (this assumes all sentences are for undocumented immigrants only –a known and patently false assumption. I show it only to compare with Mr. Kimel’s rate where he makes this patently false assumption in his conclusion, but does not disclose to readers that he made this assumption.
Of the 9,916 total non-immigration crime sentences:
Drug Related Crimes = 7000 sentences
0.031% of non-citizens
Other Non-Violent Crimes = 2333 sentences
0.01% of non-citizens
Violent Crimes = 583 sentences
0.0026%
The above DO NOT INCLUDE State/Local Crime Sentencing.
Mr. Kimel shows 296,000 State/Local Incarcerations in 2009 (NOT crimes or guilt of crimes, but simply the number of non-citizen aliens (both legal and undocumented aliens) in State Prison’s and Jails.
Mr. Kimel cites 55,000 Federal Incarcerations in 2010 (NOT crimes or guilt of crimes) for non-citizen aliens (both legal and undocumented aliens).
The approximate ratio of State/Local to Federal Incarcerations is 5.38x in 2009/2010 time frame.
If one assumes the ratio of State/Local incarcerations in 2009/2010 is the same in 2015, AND that the same ratio applies to the numbers of State sentences as Federal sentences in 2015. AND that the same 66% of sentences are for immigration related crimes,
THEN in 2015
there were 1.592 million State/Local non-citizen alien Incarcerations in 2015 (= 296k x 5.38).
Of these 34% assumed to be for non-immigration incarcerations, thus 541,443 incarcerations for non-immigration offenses.
For All non-immigration incarcerations in 1015
2.34% of non-citizen aliens incarcerated in State/Local facilities
This is 53.18 times the rate (= 2.34% / 0.044%) of Federal crimes sentenced for non-citizen aliens in 2015 for sentences unrelated to immigration related offenses.
Is it likely or probable that States/Counties/Municipalities in the U.S. are finding 53 times the crime rate by non-citizen aliens than Federal courts are finding?
This is not only highly unlikely and improbable, but if it were the case or even close to this there would have been more than ample public awareness through the media.
In fact, it appears quite the reverse according to data on incarceration rates for native born and foreign born residents of the US in the 2000 US Census:
“As Table 1 shows, 3 percent of the 45.2million males age eighteen to thirty-nine were in federal or state prisons or local jails at the time of the 2000 census (a total of over 1.3million, coinciding with official prison statistics). However, the incarceration rate of the U.S-born (3.51 percent) was five times the rate of the foreign-born (0.68 percent). The latter was less than half the 1.71 percent rate for non-Hispanic white natives, and seventeen times less than the 11.6 percent incarceration rate for native black men. ”
Source:
https://www.policefoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Appendix-D_0.pdf, Appendix D, page 126
Table 3 from the same source shows that the longer a foreign born person resides in the US the greater the rate of incarceration… for example for men 18-39, 0-5 Yrs = 0.5%, 6-15 Yrs = 0.77%, 16+Yrs = 1.39%.
In other words, all data, both federal and State show that non-citizens and foreign born residents (citizens or not, legal or illegal residents) have by far lower crime rates and lower incarceration rates than native born residents.
This is precisely the opposite of Kimel’s conclusion, no matter how he tries to cut it..
Sources:
1) http://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/immigrant-population-over-time?width=1000&height=850&iframe=true
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states#Naturalization
2) http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states#Unauthorized
3) http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/03/5-facts-about-illegal-immigration-in-the-u-s/
Correction (to Longtooth note at 2:47 a.m.):
“Therefore 44% non-immigration crime sentences =….”
should read
“Therefore 34% non-immigration crime sentences =….”
The resultant values are correct.. based on 34% (difference of 100% minus 66%).
I will only add the following link for those who tend to look at objective data.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_crime#United_States
United States
“There is no empirical evidence that immigration increases crime in the United States.[106] In fact, a majority of studies in the U.S. have found lower crime rates among immigrants than among non-immigrants, and that higher concentrations of immigrants are associated with lower crime rates.[107][108][109][110][111][112][113][114][115][116][117][118][119][120][121][122][123][124][125][126] Some research even suggests that increases in immigration may partly explain the reduction in the U.S. crime rate.[7][127][128][129][130] A 2005 study showed that immigration to large U.S. metropolitan areas does not increase, and in some cases decreases, crime rates there.[131] A 2009 study found that recent immigration was not associated with homicide in Austin, Texas.[132] The low crime rates of immigrants to the United States despite having lower levels of education, lower levels of income and residing in urban areas (factors that should lead to higher crime rates) may be due to lower rates of antisocial behavior among immigrants.[133] A 2015 study found that Mexican immigration to the United States was associated with an increase in aggravated assaults and a decrease in property crimes.[134] A 2016 study finds no link between immigrant populations and violent crime, although there is a small but significant association between undocumented immigrants and drug-related crime.[135]”
[nnn] are cited studies in the references list
I don’t know if anybody else has commented to point out that the articles that come from groups opposed to immigration or that cite basis of crimes by undocumented immigrants to use as justification for deporting them all (e.g. Trump supporters for example) use numbers of crirmes rather than crime rates.
There’s a difference.
By far the vast bulk of all research show that the crime rate (n crimes per k population size) is insignificantly different for native born v immigrants (legal or illegal), or that in most cases of research the crime rate for immigrants is lower than for natives.. in fact that the immigrants with the least time in the US have lower crime rates than when here for a decade and more.
If the crime rate is the same, then deporting a group of the population doesn’t change the crime rate.. it only reduces the numbers of crimes because the population size was reduced.
In any community of people, what they care about is how many crimes are committed in their community (pick any size community… village to nation).
If the crime rate is constant then sending half the community A to community B, reduces the number of crimes in community A by half. Now consider that to eliminate nearly all crimes in community A nearly the entire population of A must be eliminated.
The point is only that it is a false premise which assumes that the population is better off if the population size is reduced to reduce the number of crimes. The crime rate doesn’t change though, so the probability of a resident being the subject of a criminal act remains constant… the probability of being burgled didn’t change.
The way society therefore tries to reduce the probability of a resident being the subject of a criminal act is to identify the persons who are committing those acts and doing something to inhibit or prevent those criminals from acting in the future — criminal prosecution and convictions with incarcerations, or fines or some other means of preventing or mitigating the persons from committing future crimes. (child welfare helps for example).
Anyway this is why those who are actually opposed to immigration for racial or ethnic reasons cite the racial or ethnic immigration group having higher crime rate than the indigenous population… it’s a way to oppose immigration without citing racial and ethnic foundations for obtaining their desired result.. which is simply to prevent or eliminate the indigenous population from being diluted with another race or ethnicity.
So be careful of using just numbers of crimes or numbers of criminals in any given group to infer or imply that the probability of a crime being committed per person in the population will be reduced..It will not be if the crime rates are the same between different groups — as nearly all the academic and criminal statistic show is the case in fact…
Longtooth,
Good point. I missed that. I need to learn to read documents in their entirety…. OK…
I am on the run right now, so hopefully I am not making a mistake right now, but….
1. Try this link: http://www.gao.gov/assets/320/316959.pdf
2. From that link:
Note the presumption that unknown aliens are illegal – otherwise they would not be eligible for reimbursement. They are essentially unknown because they have no documents.
From footnote 19:
3. The SCAAP program only applies to state and local jurisdictions.
4. So of the 296,000 criminal aliens, 204,000 were aliens on whom the SCAAP paid out.
5. So the payout rate was on 1.9% of the estimated illegal alien population, not 2.7% as stated in the post. Still quite a bit higher than the 7 tenths of a percent US citizens in state and local jails.
Note from the same document – my figures may be understated:
Also note that the Federal prisoner data is unchanged by this.
Some support for a lower number, though, than what I noted also in the same report:
204,000 / 296,000 (i.e., known illegal aliens, plus unknown aliens* divided by total criminal aliens) * 6% = 4.1%
Still above the 3.5% of the population made up of illegal aliens.
(* From the definition of unknown aliens:
)
Longtooth,
Correction issued at the bottom of the post. I will be otherwise engaged all day today (a full time job & family obligations do that to you) but it would be interesting to have this information. It should not require algebra and reading footnotes. It is an issue on which the public has been debating for a long time, and the Federal government has the definitive data. It wouldn’t have taken much for the Obama administration to release the data if they had chosen to do so. The Trump braintrust, on the other hand, probably still doesn’t realize the data is there and probably won’t for a while.
Obviously, The incarceration rate for illegal aliens is going to be much higher than the rest of the population because, the federal govt pays the local govts to incarcerate illegal aliens.
As a consequence when the illegal alien is caught with a joint or stopped for a broken tail light they go to jail for at least a few days while the ordinary citizen does not. I know a local dairy farmer that employs illegal aliens. He says that they are reliable workers except when they get thrown in jail for meaningless offenses.
The incentive to arrest illegals on meaningless charges goes beyond the federal govt payola for housing illegal aliens. There is also the fines and forfeitures that make arresting illegals a very lucrative business for local jurisdictions because illegals pay the fines and generally never contest charges for fear of being incarcerated again just for showing up for a court hearing.
“The Trump braintrust, on the other hand, probably still doesn’t realize the data is there and probably won’t for a while.”
Trump is not so ignorant as you might believe.
Trump’s budget kills the SCAAP program
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/03/16/trump-budget-cuts-immigration-aid-and-local-police-stunned/99271652/
The reason, I suspect, is that the program is obviously a govt boondoggle with perverse incentives and thus perverse consequences. Killing the program will obviously bring down the incarceration rate for illegals and then Trump can claim victory for getting rid of the “bad guys”
Jim,
And this incarceration for profit has been done before.
“But what I did was I went across Alabama and Georgia and Florida and really all of the Southern states, but I went courthouse by courthouse across key areas of the Deep South and discovered enormous numbers of records which really hadn’t been looked at in a hundred years and which made it very clear that among these thousands of people who were arrested and forced into this form of forced labor, that huge numbers of them had committed no crimes at all, or they had been arrested and convicted on the most frivolous charges, like vagrancy or the inability to prove that they had a job at any time, which was something that almost no one could do in an era without pay stubs.
It was against the law in the South for a farm worker to change jobs, to move from one landowner to another landowner without the permission of the first landowner. Now, that law didn’t say it would only be applied to African Americans, but overwhelmingly it only was enforced against African Americans, with the specific purpose of making it impossible for huge numbers of black people to have any kind of economic mobility or to break free from this life of de facto slavery. And that was happening in a pervasive way in every Southern state by the beginning of the twentieth century.
JUAN GONZALEZ: You talk in particular about a brick factory in Atlanta, where you are based, and say that the modern city of Atlanta depended basically on this new enslaved labor to lay out its physical structure.
DOUGLAS BLACKMON: At the end of the nineteenth century, there was this enormous brick-making concern on the outskirts of Atlanta. And, in fact, the company still operates today in a somewhat different form. It was owned by one of the most prominent men in the city. He had been the mayor of Atlanta in the 1880s. His name was James English. He was a famous Confederate war veteran. He was politically the most powerful man in the city. And by the beginning of the twentieth century, he probably was the wealthiest man in the Southern United States and one of the wealthiest men in America.
He had many business concerns, but at the base of his wealth and the base of his enterprises was this brick-making factory, which was worked entirely with these forced laborers who had been acquired from jails and also simply purchased from men who had kidnapped black men from the roadways of the South, which became an incredibly common phenomenon as this new market for black labor developed. And the Chattahoochee brickyard, as it was called, was a place that generated millions and millions of bricks. ”
https://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/11/slavery_by_another_name_author_douglas
But I am sure it is just coincidence that it keeps happening of people of color.
EM:
You forgot the coal mines.
For what it is worth, not precisely connected to all this, but sort of, I just saw a study that shows that there is a statistically signifcantly lower crime rate in sanctuary cities than in non-sanctuary cities.
Run,
Yeah, I could not find it. Those stories(GE, wasn’t it?) were frightening. They simply pulled innocents off the street and worked them to death.
EM:
If you go back to EV and read Krugman trying to discuss ACA/PPACA, I posed a very long answer to PGL on Medicare-for-all and the cost of it rather than another Anne C&P. Krugman misses the true issues as well at the 99% of the EV readers.
EM,
Jeez, these stories were from 100+ years ago. You are living in the past. Let it go.
Mr. Kimel,
As near as I can determine from your posts and comments, you are specifically interested in SCAAP Criminal aliens: To be specific the GAO definition of SCAAP Criminal alien’s:
“Noncitizens whom ICE verified were illegally in the United States at the time of incarceration “OR “Individuals whom states and local jurisdictions believe to be illegally in the United States”, but for which ICE no confirmation of immigration status.
They are “criminal aliens” because they’ve been convicted of a crime and jailed at any time for four or more days.. whether before or after the conviction.
So a SCAAP person is any alien with or without documented entry papers who is convicted of any crime *and* held for 4 or more days (cumulatively) in jails, or State or Federal Prison or holding facilities in connection with the crime. For example, awaiting trial or legal counsel because they don’t’ have bail.
Since, however there are up to about 1.5x as many documented legal aliens as undocumented aliens or at least as many, then according to the definitions it would appear that SCAAP applies to any alien convicted of a crime and held four or more days. Permanent resident aliens, foreign students on visa’s, tourists, work permit visa holders, etc.
That is however not in fact the case. SCAAP only applies to aliens who are NOT HERE legally.. but this also means that any legal alien that doesn’t or hasn’t abided by the terms of their visa is also a SCAAP person who’s crime was an immigration related crime — overstaying the length of their visa for example is the most common one.
In fact, according to the GAO and other sources, 2/3’s (66%) of all alien crimes are for immigration related offenses… these are all SCAAP people if they’ve been held in a local, state, or federal facility as a result for four or more days.
“SCAAP data does not represent the number of individuals since these individuals can be incarcerated in several facilities during each rporting period.” (GAO report, page 10, note 15).
This means that SCAAP numbers are greater than the actual number of criminal aliens. In point of fact, in 2009 California was the only State with more than 100k SCAAP incarcerations. The next three largest were Texas (~40k), Arizona, (~18k), & Florida (~17k) .. so of the 196k SCAAP values in 2009, ~175k (~59%) were in those four states.
Since SCAAP values are greater than the actual number of people incarcerated for crimes, and 66% of the crimes are for immigration violations, then less than 34% of the SCAAP values are for alien persons convicted of crimes *and* spending four or more days in a jail or prison or holding facility.
The GAO reported 296k SCAAP values in State and Local facilities (figure 3) ~ 53k in federal facilities (figure 1) in 2009, totaling .348.7.
Less than 34% of these are persons who committed crimes that were not immigration offenses, or < 118.7k . According to other reports (NOT GAO which makes a different break-downs by type of crime for SCAAP values — see below), ~24% of all alien crimes are for drug offenses, 8% for larceny, burglary, etc. and 2% for violent crimes. The other 66% are for immigration related offenses.
Therefore of the 118.7k SCAAP incarcerations for four or more days committed by all aliens in the US, 83.7k are drug related, 27.9k are larceny, burglary, etc., and 7k are violent crimes.
As a percentage of the 118.7 crimes,:
70% Drug Offenses
24% Larceny, burglary, etc.
6% Violent Crimes
GAO makes a slightly different breakdown for primary type of crime (figure 11).
68% for immigration related offenses
20% Drug offenses
10% Economic, & firearms offenses
2% Other (homicide, kidnapping, sex offenses, assault, arson, burglary, and auto theft)
So the GAO reports that in 2009, 32% of SCAAP values are for non-immigration offenses as primary crimes.
That gives us a lower number than the other (non-GAO) reported crime proportions by aliens. The GAO 2009 SCAAP values therefore report are 111.6 k crimes not due to immigration related offenses vs 118.6k or
6% fewer crimes than by using other reported immigration related offense proportions by academic studies.
As a percentage of the 111.6k GAO identified Crimes:
63% Drug Related
31% Economics, Firearms Offenses
6% Other (homicide, kidnapping, sex offenses, assault, arson, burglary, and auto theft)
According to the GAO report, "As of fiscal year 2009, DHS estimated that the total alien population in the United States was about 25.3 million."
Thus to evaluate the incarceration rate for aliens in the US, the normalization value (divisor) must be total aliens or 25.3 million.
So why not use the estimated number of undocumented Aliens (10.8 million in 2009) as the normalization?. Simply because the GAO report doesn't make any break-downs or estimates or even imply the proportion of aliens convicted and incarcerated for four or more days that are undocumented and those that are documented.
Another reason is that if we want to know the crime rate of aliens in the US, that is to say not citizens either natural born or naturalized, then it is the total number of aliens we need to use as the divisor. I may be that there is a greater crime rate of undocumented aliens than documented ones, but there is no data published by the GAO to support this if it is even the case at all.
Other academic sources of immigration crime rates show conclusively that the longer an immigrant is in the US the greater the crime rate of immigrants for any of the many alien nationalities. The GAO report has no information on the longevity of SCAAP incarcerations so there is no way to use that report to discern the composition of alien longevity in the US.
However, the longest longevities in composite are for documented aliens — since this group includes green-card holders, as well as work permit visa holders. Certainly there are also long term undocumented aliens as well (I even know some personally) , but most of those come and go from the U.S. depending on job prospects, family situations in their native country (Mexico, Guatemala). As such it is not at all clear what proportion of undocumented aliens spend continuous or near continuous residence in the U.S. There are known estimates of the influx and outflows of undocumented aliens on an annual basis so it is not the case that all undocumented aliens just flow into the U.S. rather than voluntarily also returning to their native country.
All we can reasonably know with any confidence is what the crime rates of aliens are n the U.S. For that reason the only normalization that can be used with any objective basis is the total number of aliens in the US at any given time.
Therefore the best estimate by the GAO data is that there were (in 2009) < 111.6k primary crimes by aliens and 25..3 million aliens or an alien crime rate of 0.44%. Even if this is subject to 10% error on the low side, it's still < 0.48%. If Mr. Kimel's domestic citizens crime rate at 0.7% is correct, then the alien crime rate is lower… not 3x or 4x greater.
This is by the GAO report using GAO data only which was the same report cited by Mr. Kimel. I've changed or interpreted no data from that report but nor have I made any assumptions or included my own biases.
Therefore the best objective estimate of alien crime rates is something less than 0.44%… not greater than that — in 2009. It' less than 0.44% because GAO states that the SCAAP values do not exclude individuals counted more than once in the period due to being incarcerated in more than one local, state, or federal facility.
Parenthetical note — The GAO report uses incarcerations as their measure and imputes crimes from sampling the inmate population for native country and convictions and using other sources rather than doing their own independent evaluations. As they say directly and multiple times in the report:.
"the data is sufficient for the purposes of the report. "
Accuracies uncertainties are not cumulatively provided. Remember this is the General Accounting Office.. they're reporting to congress on federal outlays for incarcerations of criminal aliens, and estimates of the proportion of criminal aliens from various nations.
It seems that Mr. Kimel is subjectively selecting a sub-set of the reported GAO information (actually a subset of DHS information) to give readers a false and highly misleading alien crime rate which is far greater than the actual.
My personal conclusion is that Mr. Kimel is highly biased against selective other cultures, races, & ethnicities .. specifically those that do not mimic the white christian culture he proposes is "best". This immigration crime rate post he made is one of several others related to race and cultures he's made with false &/or highly misleading and statistically invalid analysis and conclusions. I find Mr. Kimel's opinions and misleading information no different than the KKK's, and White Supremacist, or ultra-nationalist groups.. just differing only on the attributes he finds are "not desirable".
But Mr. Kimel's not alone in his universe of opinions… I have many friends, even a close relative or two that would support his opinions and biases as their own. In my very occasional in-depth discussions with them on these types of topics I have found in every case they basis their opinions on false but highly publicized information (propaganda), or on their basic belief laissez-faire type economics and libertarian ideologies (sometimes founded on biblical lore and their god's word) — because they sound good to them.. never-mind that they don't work and never have worked except in 3rd world dictatorships for the ultra-elites favored by the dictator and his allies.. They espouse and want a utopian world where everybody has their values… and if they don't they're undeserving (therefore deserve poverty and deprivations) or relegation to the gulag or some other hypothetical place separated from those that are deserving.
Longtooth,
This is the second time I fell for believing your wall of data. I reread the GAO report. I was mostly right the first time. I will have to write a new post.
Here are the facts, from that document summarized by two short quotes:
In other words… the 296K is the number of incarcerations of the illegal aliens only (and then only of time served of four days or more). That is not the total incarceration of illegal plus legal aliens.
So the total incarceration rate is, indeed, 296K / 10.8 million.
Sammy,
Those practices ran right up until WWII.
oops
and past WWII
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/called-747940-government-recently.html?utm_campaign=Opinions%20Newsletters&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=49580612&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9rCc2ZYZo3fdI2BG1LiuGIgSWjWWUBoseAX7oHeM9vtEb9Z9K0QCM-g6gICqJvSNmQoo9sXQfIr2fsxtTCO_21KEeVGA&_hsmi=49580612
“A new brief published by the Cato Institute found that, contrary to public perception, illegal immigrants are much less crime prone than native born Americans. By using a technique to identify illegal immigrants in the Census data, my co-author Michelangelo Landgrave and I find that they are about 44 percent less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans. Legal immigrants are even less likely to be incarcerated, at a rate 69 percent lower than that of natives.”
Mr Kimel:, you apparently don’t read very well… my comments or the GAO report itself. So let me try once more to help you figure out whty you’re in error..
The GAO reported 296k SCAAP values in State and Local facilities (figure 3) ~ 53k in federal facilities (figure 1) in 2009, totaling .348.7.
GAO breakdown for primary type of crime (figure 11).
68% for immigration related offenses
348.7k *(1-.68) = 348.7k * 0.32
= 111.58k
= 111.6 k for non-immigration criminal offenses (NOT 296k)
If you want to use the incorrect 10.8 million divisor then the incorrect
crime rate is:
= 111.6k / 10.8 million
= 0.1116 million / 10.8 million
= 1.03%
That is 1.47x what you reported as 0.7% for the non-immigrant population crime rate…. NOT 4x and NOT 3x
But you cannot support using the 10.8 million figure divison… that’s prurely an unfounded opinion, since any legally documented alien that breaks the immigration terms of their visa is no longer a legally documented alien.
As the GAO states clearly 62% of the SCAAP values are for immigration related offienses… e.g. they broke a term of their immigration visa condition(s) (such as for sample example overstaying their visa term limit)
Also note:
1) A “criminal alien”: Any alien convicted of a crime and jailed at any time for four or more days.. whether before or after the conviction. and whether or not documented or undocumented.
2) A SCAAP criminal alien: SCAAP Criminal alien:
“Noncitizens whom ICE verified were illegally in the United States at the time of incarceration “OR “Individuals whom states and local jurisdictions believe to be illegally in the United States”, but for which ICE no confirmation of immigration status.
Pay attention Mr. Kimel… SCAAP criminal alien:
1) alien verified legally here (but committed a crime)
2) alien (type 2)* not verified to be here legally or illegally (but committed a crime).
* alien (type 2) – alleged by State/Local to be an illegal alien, but with no basis other than “belief” that alien (type 2) is legally or illegally here. (but only that they committed a crime).
GAO and other gov’t’ official designations refer to aliens without documentation as UNDOCMENTED aliens.
If an alien entered legally with documentation but became illegal while here (e.g. overstayed visa) but having violated their legal status condition they are defined as UNAUTHORIZED aliens. Any alien who entered the US without permission or who entered with permision but violates a term of their entry is an UNAUTHORIZED alian.
An ILLEGAL alien is either an UNDOCUMENTED or UNAUTHORIZED or CRIMINAL Alien. A CRIMINAL alien is any alien legal or illegal who has committed a crime. Thus some UNAUTHORIZED aliens are also CRIMINAL aliens since the commit n immigration related crime to become UNAUTHORIZED.
For example, look at the Table on page 8 of this GAO report (2005 report).
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05646r.pdf
It lists on the vertical axis “criminal aliens” and “criminal aliens that entered illegally”, and the sum of these types of criminal aliens are listed as being “ILLEGAL Aliens”
Illegal Alien doesn’t just mean undocumented aliens. The 10.8 million value applies to UNDOCMENTED or those for which no DOCUMENTATION can be found by ICE.. Illegal Aliens applies to any alien who is either Unauthorized or Undocumented.
In the 2011 GAO document, the one from which you cite the data the 10.8 million reference is from the following sentence:
“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimated that as of fiscal year 2009 the total alien—non-U.S.-citizen—population in the United States was about 25.3 million, including about 14.5 million aliens with lawful immigration status and about 10.8 million aliens without lawful immigration status.
Then, the same report in the same paragraph defines a “criminal Alien”.. note Mr. Kimel, they didn’t use the term “illegal alien”
“Some of the alien population have been arrested and convicted of various crimes and incarcerated in federal and state prisons and local jails. DHS refers to these individuals as criminal aliens”
“some of the alien population….” become criminals which are then refered to as “criminal aliens”
The note 2 for that sentence says:
“2. As we reported in April 2005, criminal aliens are noncitizens convicted of crimes while in this country legally or illegally.”
Did you get that Mr. Kimel? “… convicted of crimes while IN THIS COUNTRY LEGALLY or ILLEGALLY.”
The report makes the following up-front explanation of SCAAP:
“As of fiscal year 2009, DHS estimated that the total alien population in the United States was about 25.3 million. Some of the alien population have been arrested and incarcerated in federal and state prisons and local jails, adding to already overcrowded prisons and jails. The federal government bears the total cost of incarcerating all criminal aliens in federal prisons and reimburses state and local governments for portions of their incarceration costs for certain criminal alien populations through SCAAP.”
“… bears total cost of incarcerating ALL CRIMINAL ALIENS … and remimburses …. portions of … incarceration costs for CERTAIN CRIMINAL ALIEN populations through SCAAP”.
There is further explanation (page 5):
” For each individual name submitted, ICE reports to DOJ that it
(1) verified the individual was illegally in the United States at the time of incarceration (called SCAAP illegal aliens),
(2) lacked documentation to confirm an individual’s immigration status (called SCAAP unknown aliens), or
(3) verified that the individual was an alien legally in the United States or a United States citizen and therefore not eligible for reimbursement under SCAAP.
Pay close attention to the above: I’ll translate for you since you’ve previously totally and completely misunderstood.
(1) A SCAAP ILLEGAL Alien = illegally in US at time incarcerated. This doesn’t mean they were not legally here initially (prior to arrest and incarceration) but only that they became illegal by law enforcement determination of their legal status having been revoked by not complying with the terms of their visa or entry, OR that the state/local law enforcement via ICE or by documentation determined that their alien status This SCAAP ILLEGAL alien applies to aliens with documentation and/or identified by ICE as having documentation or not having documentation.
(2) SCAAP UNKNOWN Alien = No documentation available or presented to State & local law enforcement. e.g. state/local law enforcement had no means of knowing or determining the alien’s immigration status.. legal, illegal or otherwise. The state/local law enforcement is thus assuming the person is an alien who is alleged to have committed a crime and or convicted of a crime and then incarcerated… hence bearing incarceration costs.
(3) NON-SCAAP = Crime or arrest for alleged crime by alien with legal immigration status or a U.S. Citizen (naturalize or by birth) A legal immigration status means the crime was not for an immigration related offense (since that puts them in the SCAAP ILLEGAL definition), but could be for any other type of crime (e.g. any crime any of us natural born citizen’s might commit).
So any SCAAP Criminal alien is either a documented alien or an undocumented alien, thus only the total alien population of 25.3 million, not just the 10.8 million undocumented aliens as you falsely and incorrectly assume by your unsubstantiated opinion..
This is further substantiated by the fact that the GAO states that 62% of Criminal Aliens (Federal and SCAAP) incarcerated are for immigration related crimes and an immigration related crime is any crime that is in violation of the terms of entry. This includes both documented aliens who’s crime is violating a term of their entry visa, and undocumented alien immigration related crimes (e.g. since an undocumented alien is violating an immigration related crime .. entering without permission).
Longtooth,
I will only say this. I have spent a few hours trying to make heads or tails of the data. This forensic reading of information is infuriating when it is obvious that the information is there and could be provided clearly.
How do I know the data is there? See table 3.2 here: https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fjs13st.pdf “Illegal alien” is a line item on that one table, and nowhere else in the report. Why would the government track illegal aliens among “released defendants” and nowhere else. If they know someone is an illegal alien if he’s released, presumably they know that person is an illegal alien if he’s not released.
It seems very, very odd that the executive branch would so deliberately not provide an easy answer to the question that so many people have.
Mr. Kimel,
Here’s some non-CBO information you may also find enlightening… on undocumented immigrants: It is dated March 30, 2017.. i.e. today.
“New estimates by Robert Warren and Donald Kerwin at the Center for Migration Studies found that 64 percent of illegal immigrants who entered in 2013 did so by overstaying a visa, not by crossing a border illegally. These people are not criminals under current law, although they can be deported”
This is the 3rd different source for this metric.. The numbers are 66% for an academic study, 62% from the GAO in 2009 data, and 64% in this citation.
Even though they aren’t criminals by current law, the GAO however includes that 64% in their SCAAP numbers (in their 2009 report).
And:
“As a percentage of their respective populations, about 1.53 percent of all native-born adults between the ages of 18 and 54 are incarcerated, compared to 0.85 percent of illegal immigrants and 0.47 percent of legal immigrants in the same age range.”
Just as an exercise since “legal” immigrants in 2009 are about 1.5x that of “illegal” immigrants (GAO data in 2009), then the combined result is 0.62%. However, this includes immigration related offenses. If ~ 2/3s’ of illegal immigrant incarcerations are for immigration related offenses, then the actually crime rate (0.85 * 1/3rd + 1.5* .47 )/(1+1.5) = 0.395 = 0.4%
o you think perhaps that this might not be just coincidentally nearly identical to the 2009 value 0.44% which is the crime rate from GAO data using the correct divisor to normalize.
And then there’s this:
“That illegal immigrant incarceration rate [includes those in immigration detention and those incarcerated for immigration crimes. Excluding them brings the illegal immigrant incarceration rate down to 0.5 percent — within a smidge of legal immigrants.”
The quoted values and statements are from this article:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/called-747940-government-recently.html
Interestingly this article is an opinion piece published by the Orange County Register.. which is eminently the most conservative piece of real estate in CA. The opinion piece is by another conservative source.. Alex Nowrasteh, who is described by the Register as “an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute.”. So the opinion piece was actually a plug by one of the authors of the Cato study .. a form of advertising their new study. This would normally make me suspect the Cato data is highly biased, but since their numbers appear to substantiate all the other studies, including the GAO’s, 2009 data in their 20l1 report (which is the data you’re using), then I would have to conclude, at least as a first pass assumption, that the new Cato study is at least as close to reality as the other studies I’ve read since you’re post, and the GAO data you cite.
They all report about a 1.5% +/- (or more) non-immigrant crime rate (roughly double the value you used which was 0.7%), and something in the range of 0.4% crime rate for immigrants.
Now why would somebody find your ad-hoc use of data to find quite the opposite crime rates of all other studies to be more valid or nearer reality especially when the normalization divisor you used was completely and utterly in gross understated error?. That AB lets you get away with posting this junk is still beyond me.. though it clearly produces a ton of reader hits (therefore improves their advertiser’s links hit rates as well (presumably).
The author cites two data sources: “A new brief published by the Cato Institute …” and “Robert Warren and Donald Kerwin at the Center for Migration Studies” He also discloses that he’s one of the authors of the Cato Institute data source.
I’m not a fan of the Cato Institute and nearly never read any of their research publications unless it’s to show discrepancies to academic and /or other unbiased sources of data evaluations. I haven’t read their immigration paper cited either so I can’t say it’s valid or invalid, or in which direction it’s biased. But I did see that the Orange County Register was saying “Don’t Blame illegal immigrants”… and since Orange County is the conservative, furthest right bastion perhaps in the US as a concentrated county it caught my attention since I would have assumed the OCR would report on the opposing claim about immigration.
Mr. Longtooth,
I have been trying to understand the data, and have concluded that the numbers are not just higher than the numbers you cite, they are almost undoubtedly higher than I stated.
The reason is that many of the people who are locked up for immigration alone have actually committed other crimes, but are not getting the “credit” for being incarcerated for those other crimes in either the state or federal data.
To cite this law professor in the NYU Law Review in an article (http://www.nyulawreview.org/sites/default/files/pdf/NYULawReview-88-4-Eagly.pdf):
Whenever ICE detains a person – even if they are on trial for something else, even if they were convicted of a crime and are appealing the conviction, they don’t show up in the incarceration statistics as being associated with that crime. Instead, they show up on incarceration statistics as being incarcerated purely due to immigration.
Its a nice way to game the system. And the gaming isn’t just on pretrial release either. In some jurisdictions the authorities act in a way that is mindful of the fact that a noncitizen being sentenced is likely to come to the attention of ICE. For some jurisdictions, that is to be avoided. The result may be plea bargains which a citizen might not get in the same circumstances, or other forms of punishments specifically intended not to trigger ICE. Is that discriminating against citizens? Here she discusses the case of Los Angeles in particular:
It just doesn’t stop. More cherry picked, intentionally misread garbage.
I urge the readers in here to boycott Kimel’s posts.
Mr. Kimel,
I see that you have now apparently changed your argument from GOA’s data related to non-citizen alien crime SCAAP numbers to exclude all or a majority of the crimes related to immigration offenses and thus assume all such or a majority of such immigration related offenses are secondary so that all or a majority of immigration related offenses are deemed crimes not charged as crimes.
I read most (enough) of the link you cited, btw.. and I understand the implications (which in fact if you read the full GAO report, those implications are also cited, though in less detail). The implications however have nothing to do with making comparisons to the non-alien rates however, since as the linked report clearly shows and half of the report detailing there are several and various arbitrary ways of subjecting aliens the criminal justice system… stops, arrests, booking, jail time, criminal convections, etc. CA and LA County being the largest of immigrants by far, and I’d also say San Diego County in the US, use the least immigration status in their criminal justice systems… so these CA counties will in fact weight closer to the overall US arrest and incarcerations rates, than the Arizona County for example.
So is your new assertion now that immigration offenses should be counted as “other crimes” instead of being discounted from crimes?
If so then you allege that all arrests of all aliens (non – citizens that is not natural or naturalized citizens) reported by GAO’s SCAAP numbers (which only apply to jail time of four or more days) are crimes independent of immigration related offenses.
If that is what you are alleging and asserting then you must still use the 25.3 million aliens as the divisor (rather than your selection of 10.8 million undocumented aliens.
The only thing your new assertion changes is to not discount the 62% GAO cited immigration related offenses .. e.g. that these 62% of offenses are irrelevant since they must really be that crimes were committed first and jailed for four or more days.. .when in fact there’s no evidence that crimes were committed, but only that arrests with jail time occurred.
Because of this fact, then your new basis of assertions is that it’s not crimes rates you’re comparing, but rather arrests and booking rates…no crime convictions involved .. only be your inference or assertion, but not by any supporting data or facts.
If you use this assertion then you assume / assert that the 62% of immigration related offenses are all actually other criminal offenses. Using that basis then the maximum crime rate possible for the alien population is
348.7k total incarcerations in 2009 per GAO SCAAP numbers.
divided by
25.3 million total population of aliens in 2009 per GAO cited data
So the Crime rate is
=348.7k / 25.3 million
= 0.3487 million / 25.3 million
= 1.38%
From other data cited by the criminal justice system and FBI, the US *crime* rate is on the order 1.5% (not your own stated value of 0.7%). Crimes are convictions.
Therefore even with your purely self-described and asserted opinion and condition that ALL alien immigration offenses (62% by GAO’s stated percentage) are actually crimes for non-immigration related offenses, then the alien crime rate is STILL LESS THAN THE non-alien, US citizens crime rate… and certainly NO GREATER.
The comparative though are rates of arrests, since for your now deciding to use immigration related offenses as crimes, an arrest needs to be made first. With that then the following are comparatives. I can find the data for 2012 and for 2009 but the 2009 arrests are divided by the 2010 census data by race.. which I’m assuming is close enough to 2009’s populations for comparative purposes.
As a matter of documented fact, in 2012, arrests in the US for White Hispanic’s and Blacks the arrest rate was 3.48%
Source: Characteristics of Offenders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States
= 9.12 million arrests / 262.52 million population (White, Hispanic, Black)
In 2009 the Dept of Justice reported, for White (including Hispanics) and Blacks an arrest rate of 5.07%
https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/aus8009.pdf for number or Arrests
http://www.infoplease.com/us/statistics/us-population-by-race.html for population by race
= 13.3 million arrests / 262.5 (2010 census population of Whites, Hispanic, Blacks)
Thus even using your own opinions on the GAO data to include 62% of SCAAP and Federal numbers as crimes instead of immigration related offenses the rate for alien non-citizens is no larger than 39% of the citizen (non-alien) population (I assume a few thousand alien arrests per GAO numbers are rounding errors compared to millions of arrests).
For an economist you sure play fast and loose with data and interpretations of data That’s not very objective at all though, as your other culture (race) posts have shown as well.
Mr. Kimel,
I’ve attempted to point out your misuses of data and interpretations thereof both to provide you with some additional knowledge (call it continuing education), and to show readers what your errors are and to provide them with more objective information.
It is however very clear that your assertions of facts are your own fantasies and/or wished for results and have nothing to do with realities.
It is also clear that there are no unbiased academic studies, no GAO studies, no FBI studies, no Dept of Homeland Security studies that show or impute the immigrant population or the undocumented proportion of the immigrant population is more crime prone than the citizen population in the US. In fact on Applies to Apples comparisons, as close as they can be determined, the immigrant population is far less crime prone than the citizen population or the population at large.
I presume you’re trying to infer that the academics, GAO, FBI, and DHS are all avoiding to show what you want them to show because you believe immigrants and undocumented immigrants are far more crime prone than the general population or than the citizen population.
I presume you believe these independent assessment institutions are all covering up the truth (as you believe the truth to be) for political purposes .. perhaps to avoid backlash in voting by citizens who are relatives of immigrants or unauthorized immigrants, or who were at one time themselves also unauthorized immigrants (until Reagan gave them a pass).
But let me submit that there are ample academic institutions without political bias who would have by now clearly been able to show what you believe to the true if it were indeed true or even close to the truth. Ye they have not.. not in the very first assessment when congress asked for this comparative information, back in the 1800’s, or ever since then.
In point of fact there are even several academic studies that show the crime rate fell while illegal immigration grew by leaps and bounds…. and show that this may be because the immigrant crime rate is far lower than the citizen crime rate.
So you expose yourself in your post as a racist xenophobe whether you want to accept this about yourself or not. When you used objective data as a basis for subjective analysis (selected from the objective data to suit your unstated objective in findings of the date), and then continue to argue without a shred of validity that your assessments are true and correct even when shown to be patently false, you are clearly unable to discern truth from your fantasies and your racial cultural / xenophobic biases.(aka prejudices).
I’m not asserting that you are an overt racist or ultra-nationalist, but that you are a covert one…. what I refer to generally as “closeted” racists and white supremacist. Perhaps it is just that your xenophobia and racism applies to those who are born south of our border and to blacks and may also include Middle Easterners who are Muslim.
Or maybe it’s just economic bias .. which is to say “elitism”… immigrants who are already wealthy or who already have university professional degrees are acceptable (because they’re exceptions) but their fellow citizens are not..
Your immigration crime rate post (was not about crime, btw.. but about GAO SCAAP statistics which cited no crime rates at all) tried to make a case for undocumented / unauthorized immigrants being exported or actively arrested or prevented by building a wall . Since that group are clearly poor and with lower levels of education, you tried to show that they create a greater proportion of crimes than the indigenous population in order to support either your racists beliefs or your ultra- nationalists beliefs, or your “elitist” beliefs.
I’m absolutely sure that your post will resonate with the other racists, xenophobes, ultra-nationalist white supremacist, and elitist in the U.S. (and every where else for that matter) who harbor your same belief system and live in a fantasy world you would like to be the real world. Good luck in that. History shows you’ll fail..
LT,
Well done.
He is what he is.
An example I just read is here