Election 2008: What’s At Stake?

The Federation for American Immigration Reform and other restrictionist groups have long perpetuated an image of illegal immigrants as criminals who endangers the lives and property of American citizens. These groups point to incidents like the murder of Tony Bologna by an illegal immigrant in San Francisco, and the death of Amy Kortlang, who was killed by a drunk driver in the country illegally.

The idea that immigrants commit more crimes than American citizens is a way for restrictionists to appeal to people who might not otherwise care about illegal immigration. But, as a recent editorial in the Arizona Star found, immigrants are not responsible for more crimes than citizens. Some of their findings:

• Bureau of Justice Statistics data indicate that although the illegal-immigrant population doubled to about 12 million from 1994 to 2004, the violent-crime rate in the United States declined 35.1 percent in that period and the property-crime rate fell 25 percent.
• The decline in crime rates was not only national but also occurred in border cities and those with large immigrant populations, such as San Diego, El Paso, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Miami.
• The conservative Americas Majority Foundation reported this year that crime rates are lowest in states with the highest immigration growth rates. From 1999 to 2006, the crime rate declined 13.6 percent in the 19 highest-immigration states, compared with a 7.1 percent decline in the other 32 states.
• A June report by the Public Policy Institute of California found that foreign-born adults have lower incarceration rates, 297 per 100,000, than their native-born counterparts, 813 per 100,000.