President Trump focuses on gang groups like MS-13 in Los Angeles who are criminals and are terrorizing the community. The trump administration is saying that “Every day, sanctuary cities release illegal immigrants, drug dealers, traffickers, gang members back into our communities,” (Donald Trump) Donald Trump is categorizing all immigrants as drug lords, criminals and describing them as the “problem” for the increment of crime in the United States. Many of the immigrants are workers, children who are running away from a corrupt government, to save their lives and for better opportunities. “The American Dream”.
Although the president is claiming this, there is no actual data that links immigration to the crimes in the United States. There are studies that disprove trump's claim. For example, in Anna Flagg study done in 2018, she is comparing the immigrant population to crime in America and how if it affects one another. Anna Flagg found that “the immigrant population in the county has more than doubled since 1980, overall violent crime has decreased by more than 50 percent.” (Flagg) This shows how the growth of immigration has nothing to do with crimes in America. Another example of this is shown in a study done by Walter Ewing with the American immigration council where it states that in the “FBI data indicate that the violent crime rate declined 48 percent—which included falling rates of aggravated assault, robbery, rape, and murder. Likewise, the property crime rate fell 41 percent, including declining rates of motor vehicle theft, larceny/robbery, and burglary.” Once again this proves how the increment of immigration is actually lowering crime rates. Also, immigrants are less likely to commit any type of crime compared to a Native born.
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| "The myth of the criminal immigrant" Anna Flagg, New York Times March 20,2018 |
The data disproves president Donald Trump claims against immigrants, but it proves that the people who are committing these crimes are American citizens. In Emily Moons article it talked about how, “homicide conviction rates were 16 percent lower for immigrants than for native-born Americans in Texas in 2015, and criminal convictions overall were 50 percent lower for immigrants.” This is proven in different events that happened in the United States in the past years where there has been school, church shootings caused by a white person. Also, how these people are not convicted because of their “mental health” issues but if it would have been a Hispanic person, they would be convicted to many years in prison without thinking that they might have a mental health issue. Citizens are the one who is making the United States unsafe.
Finally, some might argue how 22% of the population in prison are Hispanic and must have committed a crime.
“They’re in Prison for being immigrants not for being criminals” (Anna Flagg)
Bibliography
Ingraham, Christopher. “Two charts demolish the notion that immigrants here illegally commit more crime” Washington post. Accessed April 24, 2019.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/19/two-charts-demolish-the-notion-that-immigrants-here-illegally-commit-more-crime/?utm_term=.16b9ec9a84ca
Moon,Emily “research tells us that immigration does not lead to higher crime rates” psmag. Accessed April 24,2019 https://psmag.com/social-justice/research-tells-us-that-immigration-does-not-lead-to-higher-crime-rates
Misra, Tanvi “ For the last time, here's the real link between immigration and crime”citylab.Accessed April 24, 2019 https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/02/crime-immigration-city-migrants-refugees-state-of-the-union/582001/
Flagg, Anna “The myth of the criminal immigrant” nytimes. Accessed April 24,2019
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/30/upshot/crime-immigration-myth.html?smtyp=cur&smid=fb-nytupshot
Ewing, Walter “The criminalization of immigrants in the United States” Accessed April 24,2019
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/criminalization-immigration-united-states
I think this is a very important topic to address given the President's claims and the lack of evidence he gives to support the claims that immigrants are one of the causes of crime in the US. One thing, though, is that the study done by Flagg doesn't seem to mention any other factors that could contribute to lower crime rates, and it might be a bit out there to say that immigration is lowering crime rates. There's definitely something to be said about the findings but its hard to draw a correlation between them if you're not looking at other things that contribute to lower crime rates since the 1980s. I do really like your other graph though that shows the amount of crime being committed by native-born and immigrants, because that completely disproves Trump's claims and shows that he manipulates the public's perceptions enough to make us believe that immigrants are a main source of crime.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting social issue to be discussing. The President has continually used this rhetoric in his speeches about immigration and to support his ban on immigration. What I think is also really interesting to me is how people continue to believe him. Almost every time he brings this up, statistics are then used to disprove him. Yet, people still support him which shows a real example of confirmation bias where people believe what they already believe and don't accept new information. Anyone else have any theories for why people continue to believe him?
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post and I think this is a really important topic to discuss right now. It's frustrating how President Trump is continuously categorizing all immigrants, and specifically Latin Americans, as dangerous people. It's interesting how these claims can be so blatantly disproven yet he continues to advocate for discriminatory policies that target immigrants. I was very intrigued by your post because it provides a lot of background information for what I was trying to get at in my post about the citizenship question on the 2020 census. It's obvious that the Trump administration is using this question to underrepresent Latin American immigrants in our political system, and your post reveals that their motives for this are extremely inaccurate.
ReplyDeleteThis blog post relates to the sociological perspective of conflict theory as well as some of the main points made in Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. For example, immigrants from Latin America are frequently already disadvantaged when they arrive in the United States and then they are further targeted and stereotyped by politicians, such as President Trump, as scapegoats for problems that they are not a part of, like increasing crime rates. President Trump, in particular, often uses immigrants of color as a way to further his own political agenda and draw attention away from his own issues and failures as well as gain support from those who hold similar beliefs. This shows how a group that is already disadvantaged is used by those who are already in power to benefit and become more powerful while causing additional harm to that group. The last point made in the blog post specifically relates to The New Jim Crow because of its connection to how people of color are targeted by America’s criminal justice system. Immigrants of color are additionally discriminated against and harassed by those who hold power in the justice system, such as police.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post about the differences between Trump's claims about immigration and crime. I think there are two things that stood out to me here as being more noteworthy. First, the lowered violent crime rate but increased panic regarding immigrants can probably be expanded to many facets of how our society works - violent crime has decreased significantly since 1980, but the increased fear surrounding the topic would likely lead to many people believing the opposite if they have not seen the statistics.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, there are probably a lot of people who would find any way they could to argue against the legitimacy of the statistics you provided... I wonder if there would be a way to analyze the power of pathos based arguments in our society today - a lot of the panic surrounding crime and immigration definitely leans that way.
This issue is one of the most contentious of our time. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of it stems from the fact that crossing the border without documentation is, in fact, illegal; this itself is a crime, regardless of the reasoning behind it, or the qualities of the people who commit it. While Trump's rhetoric around enforcing border security is undoubtedly uninformed and bigoted, in my opinion part of the reason that it is so widely accepted at face value by so many Americans is that it stems from very real issues. Gang violence and drug cartels are a serious issue, in central/south America and the U.S alike, and these are issues that have been very publicly explored, through huge headlines relating to the capture of kingpins, to pop culture portrayals of gangsters, and popular TV shows, such as Narcos. The stereotypes that arise from these cultural phenomenons undoubtedly have an effect on those who view them, and the lack of representation of regular people from these commonly portrayed groups only contributes to this. However, this is changing quickly in our time - representation is becoming more of an issue in the public eye, and more and more people are coming to the defense of immigrants across the country. Entering the country illegally, however, remains a crime - until we reform our own border policies in a manner that allows for these ordinary people to enter, they will continue to legally remain criminals, and bigoted rhetoric will likely continue to be present.
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