# How many Canadians commit crimes in the US? How many are here illegally? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 3, 2017, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-canadians-commit-crimes-in-the-us-how-many-are-here-illegally/778875 "2017-02-03T02:29:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![sweeteviljesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@sweeteviljesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweeteviljesus)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-canadians-commit-crimes-in-the-us-how-many-are-here-illegally/778875/1 "2017-02-03T02:29:44Z")
This is really a GQ question, but you can probably see where I am going with this. Thanks, Rob ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-canadians-commit-crimes-in-the-us-how-many-are-here-illegally/778875/2 "2017-02-03T05:34:16Z")
To be honest, without context this question looks like it could be trying to establish some sort of unpleasant ethnic stereotyping about white Anglo immigrants not being disposed toward criminal conduct. I really don’t think that’s your intention, so perhaps you might consider clarifying. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-canadians-commit-crimes-in-the-us-how-many-are-here-illegally/778875/3 "2017-02-03T06:15:28Z")
Of course they commit crimes, but they always turn themselves in and apologize. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-canadians-commit-crimes-in-the-us-how-many-are-here-illegally/778875/4 "2017-02-03T06:24:56Z")
Interestingly, it turns out that immigration strongly correlates with **lowered** crime, [both in the US and in Canada](https://www.cifar.ca/assets/arrival-of-the-fittest-canadas-crime-rate-is-dropping-as-immigration-increases-is-there-a-connection/): > [@](#): > > Half of Toronto’s population now consists of those born outside Canada; notably, the city’s crime rate has dropped by 50 percent since 1991, and is significantly lower than that of the country as a whole. Could it be that immigrants are making us all safer? > > […] Two early studies that tracked crime in dozens of metropolitan areas discovered that cities with the highest increase in immigration also had the largest decrease in violent crime […] > > About a decade ago, [Harvard sociologist Robert J. Sampson] and his colleagues looked at violent acts committed over an eight-year period by some 3,000 men and women in 180 neighbourhoods in Chicago, a diverse city with a considerable population of Hispanic immigrants. What they found was that Mexican Americans were far less likely to be violent than African Americans or whites. When all variables were accounted for it became clear that this was in large part because a quarter of the subjects were born outside the US and more than half lived in communities where the majority of residents were also of Mexican heritage. Overall, first generation immigrants of any background were 45 percent less likely to commit violent acts than third generation Americans […] > > […] a University of Toronto study initiated more than thirty years ago provides some of the most convincing evidence to support the theory that more immigration equals less crime. > > In an office at U of T’s Centre of Criminology, overlooking the Ontario legislature in Queen’s Park, [study authors] Dinovitzer and Levi explain their findings. The overall rate of what they called “youthful illegalities” — drinking, taking drugs, petty theft, vandalism, fighting, and so on — was significantly lower in the immigrant-rich 1999 cohort, and in both groups immigrant kids were less likely than their peers to engage in delinquent behaviour. Also, as Sampson had discovered, the disinclination to commit crime extended across all nationalities; it didn’t matter whether a teenager’s family was from India or Trinidad or China. Specific cultural values were not at play; nor could behaviour be chalked up to a given ethnic group’s parenting style […] Tip of the green eyeshade to the editor who thought of titling that article “Arrival of the Fittest”, by the way. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-canadians-commit-crimes-in-the-us-how-many-are-here-illegally/778875/5 "2017-02-03T07:18:10Z")
Anyone concerned living within a 100 miles south of the border might like to establish volunteer foot-patrols to walk the boundary from end to end on their days off. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-canadians-commit-crimes-in-the-us-how-many-are-here-illegally/778875/6 "2017-02-03T09:50:35Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Of course they commit crimes, but they always turn themselves in and apologize. I hear there are some _mauvais hommes_ up there in Canada, though. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-canadians-commit-crimes-in-the-us-how-many-are-here-illegally/778875/7 "2017-02-03T12:26:19Z")
There are over 13 million admissions into the US from Canada every year. Roughly 460,000 aliens were apprehended in 2015 and around 700 were Canadian. [Yearbook 2015 | Homeland Security](https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/yearbook/2015#)\* ---
**Author:** ![sweeteviljesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@sweeteviljesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweeteviljesus)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-canadians-commit-crimes-in-the-us-how-many-are-here-illegally/778875/8 "2017-02-04T02:28:24Z")
I was actually trying to make the point that those darn canucks like my mom’s side of the family come across and commit crimes, and that anecdotes do not data make, for those who weren’t clear on my motives. That Trudeau isn’t sending his best. He’s sending rapists. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-canadians-commit-crimes-in-the-us-how-many-are-here-illegally/778875/9 "2017-02-04T02:59:21Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I hear there are some _mauvais hommes_ up there in Canada, though. I don’t think Trump speaks French as well as he does Spanglish. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-canadians-commit-crimes-in-the-us-how-many-are-here-illegally/778875/10 "2017-02-04T04:37:06Z")
Alex Lifeson assaulted a police officer in a throw-down in Florida in 2003. Not only did he skate on the charges (slap on the wrist), he ended up with a settlement from Ritz-Carlton. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-canadians-commit-crimes-in-the-us-how-many-are-here-illegally/778875/11 "2017-02-04T04:54:35Z")
Imitation maple syrup … there’s a crime for ya … ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-canadians-commit-crimes-in-the-us-how-many-are-here-illegally/778875/12 "2017-02-04T22:22:23Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > There are over 13 million admissions into the US from Canada every year. > > Roughly 460,000 aliens were apprehended in 2015 and around 700 were Canadian. > > [Yearbook 2015 | OHSS | OHSS - Office of Homeland Security Statistics](https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/yearbook/2015#)\* So Canada only contributed 700 “dos mouillés” out of 463,000 illegal aliens apprehended in 2015? Small wonder. Have you ever tried to swim across the St. Lawrence in January? Friggin’ cold, eh??? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-canadians-commit-crimes-in-the-us-how-many-are-here-illegally/778875/13 "2017-02-04T22:35:49Z")
Anecdote: My mother was in the US illegally for almost three decades. As far as I know, other than lying to border agents on a dozen or so occasions, she committed no crimes. Unlike my immigrant great-grandparents, who immigrated legally from Italy and committed a whole rash of crimes in the early to mid-20th century. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-canadians-commit-crimes-in-the-us-how-many-are-here-illegally/778875/14 "2017-02-04T22:59:24Z")
[These two murderers](http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Rafay-Burns-are-convicted-of-murder-1145787.php) were Canadian citizens. ---
**Author:** ![Julius\_Henry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8797f3/32.png) [@Julius\_Henry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Julius_Henry)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2017, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-canadians-commit-crimes-in-the-us-how-many-are-here-illegally/778875/15 "2017-02-05T00:55:59Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Imitation maple syrup … there’s a crime for ya … Have you seen the price of _real_ maple syrup. That’s the crime.