Illegal Aliens Are More Likely to Commit Crimes, Group Claims

Since 03-12-07

By Monisha Bansal
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
March 12, 2007

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200703/NAT20070312a.html

(CNSNews.com) - People who violate immigration laws are more likely to violate other laws, according to an immigration reform group that said the findings differ from previous studies showing that immigrants to the United States commit fewer crimes.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) said these previous studies - especially one last month by the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) - "are misleading because they lump legal and illegal immigrants together."

"The use of that [U.S. Census Bureau] data is virtually guaranteed to demonstrate a lower incidence of criminal activity because of the screening process to which legal immigrants and long-term foreign residents are subjected," Jack Martin, special projects director for FAIR, told Cybercast News Service.

Martin noted that legal immigrants are required to submit police reports and records of any criminal convictions that could exclude them from being issued a U.S. visa. Furthermore, non-immigrants planning to visit the U.S. and applying for a visa are also required to disclose any past criminal activity on their part.

"Our immigration law has a large number of exclusions covering previous criminal activity intended to protect the American public from possible future crime," he said.

FAIR said that "deportable aliens nationwide were nearly twice as likely to be incarcerated for crimes as their share of the population." The group adds that there is "mounting evidence that illegal immigration is directly linked to violent crime in this country."

"IPC, which is part of the network of advocacy groups lobbying for an illegal alien amnesty, is clearly fudging the facts to advance their political objectives," charged Dan Stein, president of FAIR.

"Local law enforcement authorities are correct to be concerned about growing populations of illegal residents because, on average, they are more likely to commit crimes," he said.

"Our failure to control illegal immigration poses a real and documentable risk to the security of the American people," Stein added. "Innocent Americans are often victims of personal and property crimes committed by illegal aliens."

IPC Director Benjamin Johnson defended the group's study and its use of Census Bureau data.

"We didn't distinguish between legal and illegal [immigrants], but we didn't exclude illegal aliens, or undocumented immigrants, in the study. They're in the data analysis as well," he said.

"The findings in our study are consistent with the findings of studies looking at this issue for the last 100 years," Johnson argued. "This is not new information. It is simply a reality that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes."

Turning the criticism around, Johnson took issue with the data FAIR uses from the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP). State authorities use the program to request reimbursement from the federal government for the money spent on detaining illegal immigrants.

"There are two problems with that data, and therefore two problems with FAIR's report," he said.

"Their data talks about days of incarceration," said Johnson. "The problem is we know that many of the same immigrants are picked up two or three times, so the problem with the data is that it counts the same person multiple times. It doesn't sort out whether those days reflect different people or the same people."

The second problem, he said, was the fact that much of the detentions for which the federal government is reimbursing states relate to people who may be deportable for status violations but "have not committed a crime."

"Many people never committed any crime," Johnson asserted. "It's an administrative violation. You have to think of it in terms of tax law - not everybody who makes a mistake on their taxes is guilty of the crime of tax evasion."

Martin defended FAIR's use of SCAAP figures, saying it was "the only data that offers a useful look at illegal status."