# Immigrants are far less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 8, 2007, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/immigrants-are-far-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-native-born-americans/395050 "2007-03-08T03:02:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2007, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/immigrants-are-far-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-native-born-americans/395050/41 "2007-03-08T22:04:45Z")
> [@](#): > > It’s precisely the fruit picking, janitorial labor, etc. that are such badly underpaid trades. That’s the problem being faced in Colorado–as the pool of willing labor is chased out of town, so to speak, they are resorting to prison lines. I’m not arguing that that’s the best solution for the U.S. economy or for any particular party involved, but that the “Day Without Mexicans” scenario is not too far fetched in that if the labor reserve evaporates, industry stands still. [devil’s advocate] Those trades are badly underpaid because they have been allowed to rely on illegal immigrants, who have no qualms working for a pittance, to fill the roles. The real problem being faced in Colorado is that employers won’t raise wages to market price (otherwise Americans themselves would take the jobs), not that there’s a lack of labour. Instead of allowing the market to run its course and have businesses that fail to find employees via a fair wage shut down, the legislature replaces one set of indentured servants with another, Prisoners, retaining the status quo and exacerbating the problem. [/devil’s advocate] ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2007, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/immigrants-are-far-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-native-born-americans/395050/42 "2007-03-08T23:10:49Z")
[QUOTE=Dominic Mulligan] [devil’s advocate] Those trades are badly underpaid because they have been allowed to rely on illegal immigrants, who have no qualms working for a pittance, to fill the roles. The real problem being faced in Colorado is that employers won’t raise wages to market price (otherwise Americans themselves would take the jobs), not that there’s a lack of labour. Instead of allowing the market to run its course and have businesses that fail to find employees via a fair wage shut down, the legislature replaces one set of indentured servants with another, Prisoners, retaining the status quo and exacerbating the problem. [/devil’s advocate] [/QUOTE] “Devil’s advocate”? You mean factual argument? What fault could anyone find in this? ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/immigrants-are-far-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-native-born-americans/395050/43 "2007-03-09T02:04:18Z")
[QUOTE=pizzabrat] It sounds like two things are being conflated, purposefully to aid an agenda. What is the “immigration debate” and is it separate from the illegal immigration debate? If so, what does the fact that legal immigrants are usually a law-abiding populace have to do with illegal immigration? EDIT: And if not - then what debate? Is there a big debate going on now about whether we should be allowing immigrants at all? [/QUOTE] If anyone is doing any conflating here, it sure ain’t me. Although I am far more familiar with legal, employment-based immigration (it’s what I’ve earned my living doing for the past 8 years), I opened this thread for the simple reason that I’d never seen a broad-based national statistical study of the relationship between immigration and crime. I ran across the one linked above while doing some readin on developments in the field on [one of the primary places I catch up on my professional reading.](http://aila.org/RecentPosting/RecentPostingList.aspx) I found it interesting, and it’s a topic that’s been raised in the context of various immigration threads here before, but IMHO never addressed thoroughly beyond anecdote-slinging. Anecdote-slinging isn’t a terribly analytical or comprehensive way to address an issue that’s this complex, so I wanted to discuss the study. Nothing more, nothing less. I’d intended this thread to be a discussion of immigration and crime - the study doesn’t distinguish between lawfully and unlawfully present immigrants, but it appears that even if one includes those unlawfully present in the U.S., the lower degree of criminality among immigrants is quite striking - much more than even I had ever suspected. If you want to discuss other aspects of the immigration debate(s), it would be appreciated for purposes of this thread if you drew some relationship between those other aspects and crime among immigrants vs. native-born. We’ve had ample discussions of numerous other aspects of the immigration debate. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/immigrants-are-far-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-native-born-americans/395050/44 "2007-03-09T02:57:45Z")
[QUOTE=Lochdale] Either you’re missing my point entirely onpurpose or I’m simply not conveying it particularly well. Moreover, this is not how you staged your OP. The crime statistics are not relevant to the overall debate. [/quote] If you don’t think crime statistics are particularly relevant to the debate about whether, and how, the U.S. should change its policy approach to immigration, then dandy - neither do I. I’m raising the issue because I suspected that immigrants did not commit more crimes than similarly situated native-born Americans. I had no idea until reading the study that the disparities were possibly so drastic, however. > [@](#): > > I have no interest in going into the details of this study. Then why are you here? > [@](#): > > Further, that article does not appear to be entirely anecdotal given the stats it was quoting. The article is cherry-picking stats largely from two very specific locations that have a problem with gangs with an immigrant component, which is not at all the same thing as saying that even in those two locations, immigrants commit more crime than native-born Americans. Do you seriously not see how biased it is? > [@](#): > > Clearly this is something you take personally (out of curiosity, are you Mexican or of Mexican descent? ) No, I’m not Mexican (or even Hispanic), though I do have an undergrad degree in Spanish. You’d have to go back to my grandparents and great-grandparents to find someone not born in the U.S. I take the issue personally to the same extent I take it personally when I see an entire huge sector of society being blamed for a huge societal problem that the overwhelmingly vast majority of them haven’t created and don’t particpate in. And yes, also because I spend a large chunk of my waking hours dealing with the fallout of U.S. immigration policy and its (frequently quite poor) execution. > [@](#): > > You asked what relevancy this study had on the debate and I think I have answered. You said you didn’t think the crime issue was relevant to the larger issue of immigration policy overall; as mentioned above, I agree and think that’s just dandy. However, lots of other people disagree with you on that point and are using it as fuel for their restrictionist arguments, so to me, yes, in that sense it’s important to discuss the correlation between immigration and crime - and it appears to be a negative one. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/immigrants-are-far-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-native-born-americans/395050/45 "2007-03-09T03:30:05Z")
[QUOTE=Eva Luna] If anyone is doing any conflating here, it sure ain’t me. [/QUOTE] Perhaps not, but the study sure is, and I think **Pizzabrat** is right to be a bit suspicious. [QUOTE=Eva Luna] Quote: [li]The children and grandchildren of many immigrants—as well as many immigrants themselves the longer they live in the United States—become subject to economic and social forces, such as higher rates of family disintegration and drug and alcohol addiction, that increase the likelihood of criminal behavior among other natives; [/li][/QUOTE] Not only does this not surprise me, I’ve worked with enough illegal immigrant populations that I already knew it from experience. One of the best reasons to oppose illegal immigration is that it creates a racial underclass, marginized and fearful. Children raised in a home where they are outsiders to society at large, unable to access the opportunities and benefits everyone else is are going to grow up quite understandably angry. The fact that a kid is a US citizen on paper is irrelevant: he’s still going to be bitter because he grew up having to watch his mother earn sub-minimum wage, because INS deported his favorite uncle, because his cousin didn’t report her rape for fear of the same. The kid will have a lot of justifiable hostility and envy; and if the model his parents gave was that you shouldn’t let laws hinder you from securing the better life you want, it’s not hard to see why he might follow the example. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/immigrants-are-far-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-native-born-americans/395050/46 "2007-03-09T04:10:58Z")
[QUOTE=Nava] Oh, so the fed armoires whose chests were almost touching the door of an old lady’s house when they went there as part of a background check were afraid? The git whose spit flew in my face when he got closer to me to yell at me for pointing out that I’d already been screened twice in the same line? The other git who called two other rent-a-cops to grab me before accusing me of falsifying my passport because my kind of Visa didn’t appear in her list? The traffic cop who pulled me and a coworker over and who got within “if Joe breathes too hard, their chests will touch” distance? (Being a black man driving an expensive-looking car, often in the company of women who were considered white by comparison with him, Joe got stopped quite often) The traffic cop who made me spread 'em because he didn’t like that I was driving on a foreign license? [/QUOTE] I was responding to the “in-your-face” attitude, not blatant racism/biggotry. Outside of your example of the old lady, that’s just simple biggotry. Getting in-your-face even when dealing with old women is an example of what I meant. And actually there was a case a few months back (in Seattle?) where a 90 year old lady plugged three cops or something. So ya never know. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/immigrants-are-far-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-native-born-americans/395050/47 "2007-03-09T13:18:04Z")
[QUOTE=No Me Ayudes Compadre] I’m unfamiliar with the intricacies of agro economics, and please correct me if I’m wrong, but if farmers suddenly are paying around $18.00 an hour (corresponding to other physically intensive tasks such as repair work and construction sectors in the table), would that not set off a hyperinflationary chain of events (even without adding to the mix the apparent national apiary crisis that might set off massive price shifts)? [/QUOTE] I’m no student of the dismal science [i.e., economist] myself. But don’t free-market economists and conservatives always blather on about the invisible hand guiding prices to thier proper levels without government interference? Don’t they talk about market corrections? Maybe we should have massive price shifts. Maybe the use of coercion and extortion to hold some prices down should end, even if the results mean a short term crisis and far-ranging, long-term changes in the way we do things and pay for things. Sailboat ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/immigrants-are-far-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-native-born-americans/395050/48 "2007-03-09T14:52:02Z")
[QUOTE=Nava] Oh, so the fed armoires whose chests were almost touching the door of an old lady’s house when they went there as part of a background check were afraid? The git whose spit flew in my face when he got closer to me to yell at me for pointing out that I’d already been screened twice in the same line? The other git who called two other rent-a-cops to grab me before accusing me of falsifying my passport because my kind of Visa didn’t appear in her list? The traffic cop who pulled me and a coworker over and who got within “if Joe breathes too hard, their chests will touch” distance? (Being a black man driving an expensive-looking car, often in the company of women who were considered white by comparison with him, Joe got stopped quite often) The traffic cop who made me spread 'em because he didn’t like that I was driving on a foreign license? Dunnow, I find the theory that “they wanna be John Wayne and don’t even know who John Wayne was” more believable. And it’s still scary and nasty. [/QUOTE] Get cute - I used to carry ID cards that confused any locals, also laminated letters of introduction (lamination is easy 🙂 ) Once you look out of their league, people seldom f/ck with you. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/immigrants-are-far-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-native-born-americans/395050/49 "2007-03-11T00:13:13Z")
[QUOTE=Nava] I’m a law-abiding citizen in general, but I know that in the US I was terrified of the cops; [/QUOTE] [This tale](http://tractioncontrol.well-regulatedmilitia.org/?p=405) of abuse of power can but reinforce that fear. See also [this thread](http://www.allenonline.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=37785&page=0&fpart=2&vc=1) on a local messageboard. If verified, of course. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/immigrants-are-far-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-native-born-americans/395050/50 "2007-03-11T01:00:26Z")
[QUOTE=Sage Rat] And actually there was a case a few months back (in Seattle?) where a 90 year old lady plugged three cops or something. So ya never know. 😉 [/QUOTE] Atlanta. And the investigation is ongoing and looking ever more dismal for the cops who tried to execute a no-knock entry and search on a frightened woman based on false (or falsified) information. (The lady wounded three cops, but they killed her.) There is an ongoing (and very long) [**Pit** thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=397241) following the story. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2007, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/immigrants-are-far-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-native-born-americans/395050/51 "2007-03-12T04:34:09Z")
[QUOTE=Fear Itself] So they should be grateful that they are offered jobs at all, is that it? Look, goverment statistics are irrelevant if we are operating in a free market. If nobody wants to do the work for the pay you are offering, you are not paying enough. [/QUOTE] I guess there is a brand of politics out there that thinks people should take whatever job they can get if they are unemployed. The people who subscribe to this brand of politics are often the same people who claim that Americans would take up the slack for any jobs left open when we chase out the illegal aliens. Maybe people are just stereotyping you. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2007, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/immigrants-are-far-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-native-born-americans/395050/52 "2007-03-12T13:02:33Z")
[QUOTE=col\_10022] I guess there is a brand of politics out there that thinks people should take whatever job they can get if they are unemployed. The people who subscribe to this brand of politics are often the same people who claim that Americans would take up the slack for any jobs left open when we chase out the illegal aliens. Maybe people are just stereotyping you. [/QUOTE] This is one of the weaknesses in economic theory. Sure these guys might pick watermelon for $200,000 a year, but no one would buy watermelon when those costs are passed along. And the people who won’t take these jobs at “more than minimum wage” are content with being unemployed, making ends meet in whatever fashion they can, rather than work a difficult job for not much of a difference in their standard of living. Some people think that a very minimal standard of living is worth not having to hold a job. I’ve known a number of “itinerant RenFaire performers” who live in an old van, make enough money to feed themselves (though dumpster diving isn’t above them) and pay for enough gas to get to the next Faire (which they may, in fact, ‘borrow’ from a well meaning “Festie with a nearly real job,” like delivering pizza - or their suburban parents) and are wonderfully content with their lives (at least for a few years). Some people are really content on the edge, if it doesn’t mean having to hold a job. $200,000 a year to dress in a professional fashion, show up to work every day, and work for “the man” wouldn’t cut it - even if they did nothing more taxing than warming a chair. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2007, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/immigrants-are-far-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-native-born-americans/395050/53 "2007-03-13T02:45:40Z")
[QUOTE=Eva Luna] I opened this thread for the simple reason that I’d never seen a broad-based national statistical study of the relationship between immigration and crime. I ran across the one linked above while doing some readin on developments in the field on [one of the primary places I catch up on my professional reading.](http://aila.org/RecentPosting/RecentPostingList.aspx) I found it interesting, and it’s a topic that’s been raised in the context of various immigration threads here before, but IMHO never addressed thoroughly beyond anecdote-slinging. [/QUOTE] In addition to what has been offered here regarding the study, you may find [this article](http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2007/3/12/73702.shtml?s=al&promo_code=2F21-1) interesting. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/immigrants-are-far-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-native-born-americans/395050.md?page=2)