Illegal Immigrants and Crime
| National Review (TUCKER HAD THIS AUTHOR ON TONIGHT)
nationalreview.com
By PETER KIRSANOW
February 8, 2018 1:23 AM
Over at Reason, Alex Nowrasteh has taken issue with a Corner post in which I used SCAAP reimbursement figures (a program which reimburses states and localities for some of the cost of incarcerating illegal aliens and suspected illegal aliens) to do some calculations about illegal aliens’ involvement in crime. Before I address his objections, a few points:
- Illegal-immigrant crime calculations conveniently and invariably steal a base by leaving out the millions of crimes committed by illegal immigrants related to procuring fraudulent social security numbers, obtaining false drivers’ licenses, using fraudulent green cards, and improperly accessing public benefits.
- My SCAAP-extrapolated crime figures actually are lower than those calculated by John Lott. Using Arizona Department of Corrections data spanning 1985–2017, Lott calculates that illegal immigrants in Arizona aged 18-35, for example, are 250 percent more likely to commit crimes than young U.S. citizens. Further, such illegal immigrants commit more serious crimes — such as murder, robbery, and sexual assault.
- Illegal-immigrant crime data, regardless of source, likely understate crimes committed by illegal aliens. That’s because illegal-immigrant victims are less likely to report crime, and even if crimes are reported, illegal immigrants are less likely to appear as witnesses leading to conviction.
- Even if illegal immigrants didn’t commit crimes at a higher rate than U.S. citizens, they nonetheless commit crimes — each one of which is a crime that shouldn’t have been committed in the U.S.
- It’s peculiar that government agencies, notorious for aggregating the most obscure statistics imaginable, do not tabulate crime data for illegal aliens. Why do you think that’s the case?
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