On Border Violence, Truth Pales Compared to Ideas

[pauldun170]

When Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Democrat of Arizona, announced that the Obama administration would send as many as 1,200 additional National Guard troops to bolster security at the Mexican border, she held up a photograph of Robert Krentz, a mild-mannered rancher who was shot to death this year on his vast property. The authorities suspected that the culprit was linked to smuggling.

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Associated Press
Robert Krentz
“Robert Krentz really is the face behind the violence at the U.S.-Mexico border,” Ms. Giffords said.

It is a connection that those who support stronger enforcement of immigration laws and tighter borders often make: rising crime at the border necessitates tougher enforcement.

But the rate of violent crime at the border, and indeed across Arizona, has been declining, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as has illegal immigration, according to the Border Patrol. While thousands have been killed in Mexico’s drug wars, raising anxiety that the violence will spread to the United States, F.B.I. statistics show that Arizona is relatively safe.

That Mr. Krentz’s death nevertheless churned the emotionally charged immigration debate points to a fundamental truth: perception often trumps reality, sometimes affecting laws and society in the process.

Judith Gans, who studies immigration at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy at the University of Arizona, said that what social psychologists call self-serving perception bias seemed to be at play. Both sides in the immigration debate accept information that confirms their biases, she said, and discard, ignore or rationalize information that does not. There is no better example than the role of crime in Arizona’s tumultuous immigration debate.

“If an illegal immigrant commits a crime, this confirms our view that illegal immigrants are criminals,” Ms. Gans said. “If an illegal immigrant doesn’t commit a crime, either they just didn’t get caught or it’s a fluke of the situation.”

Ms. Gans noted that sponsors of Arizona’s controversial immigration enforcement law have made careers of promising to rid the state of illegal immigrants through tough legislation.

“Their repeated characterization of illegal immigrants as criminals — easy to do since they broke immigration laws — makes it easy for people to ignore statistics,” she said.

Moreover, crime statistics, however rosy, are abstract. It takes only one well-publicized crime, like Mr. Krentz’s shooting, to drive up fear.

It is also an election year, and crime and illegal immigration — and especially forging a link between the two — remain a potent boost for any campaign. Gov. Jan Brewer’s popularity, once in question over promoting a sales tax increase, surged after signing the immigration bill, which is known as SB 1070 but officially called the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act.

No matter that manpower and technology are at unprecedented levels at the border, it may never be secure enough in Arizona’s hothouse political climate when Congressional seats, the governor’s office and other positions are at stake in the Aug. 24 primaries.

It took the Obama administration a few weeks to bow to that political reality and go from trumpeting the border as more secure than it had ever been to ordering National Guard troops to take up position there — most of them in Arizona, Mr. Obama assured Ms. Brewer in a private meeting — because it was not secure enough.

Crime figures, in fact, present a more mixed picture, with the likes of Russell Pearce, the Republican state senator behind the immigration enforcement law, playing up the darkest side while immigrant advocacy groups like Coalición de Derechos Humanos (Human Rights Coalition), based in Tucson, circulate news reports and studies showing that crime is not as bad as it may seem.

For instance, statistics show that even as Arizona’s population swelled, buoyed in part by illegal immigrants funneling across the border, violent crime rates declined, to 447 incidents per 100,000 residents in 2008, the most recent year for which comprehensive data is available from the F.B.I. In 2000, the rate was 532 incidents per 100,000.

Nationally, the crime rate declined to 455 incidents per 100,000 people, from 507 in 2000.

But the rate for property crime, the kind that people may experience most often, increased in the state, to 4,082 per 100,000 residents in 2008 from 3,682 in 2000. Preliminary data for 2009 suggests that this rate may also be falling in the state’s biggest cities.

What is harder to pin down is how much of the crime was committed by illegal immigrants.

Phoenix’s police chief, Jack Harris, who opposes the new law, said that about 13 percent of his department’s arrests are illegal immigrants, a number close to the estimated percentage of illegal immigrants in the local population. But the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the jail for Phoenix and surrounding cities and is headed by Joe Arpaio, a fervent supporter of the law, has said that 19 percent of its inmates are illegal immigrants.

Scott Decker, a criminologist at Arizona State University, said a battery of studies have suggested that illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes, in part because they tend to come from interior cities and villages in their home country with low crime rates and generally try to keep out of trouble to not risk being sent home.

But he understood why people’s perceptions of crime might lag behind what the statistics show. “Hard as it is to change the crime rate, it may be more difficult to change public perceptions about the crime rate, particularly when those perceptions are linked to public events,” Mr. Decker said.

He added, “There is nothing more powerful than a story about a gruesome murder or assault that leads in the local news and drives public opinion that it is not safe anywhere.”

Kris Kobach, a University of Missouri law professor who helped write the Arizona immigration law, pointed to crimes like a wave of kidnappings related to the drug and human smuggling business in Phoenix, something Ms. Brewer herself noted when she signed the law.

Although the reports have dipped in the past couple of years, the police responded to 315 such cases last year.

“That’s scary to people, and people react to that all over the state,” Mr. Kobach said. “They are concerned. ‘That might happen in my part of the city eventually.’ ”

Terry Goddard, the state attorney general, who does not support the immigration law, said the drop in violent crime rates might not reflect the continued violence, often unreported, that is associated with smuggling organizations.

Mr. Goddard said he doubted that the immigration law would put a dent in the smuggling-related crime that grabs attention in the state. For that reason, Mr. Goddard, who is running to be the Democratic nominee for governor in the primary, said he backed the deployment of National Guard troops and supports increasing manpower and spending on police and prosecutor anti-smuggling units.

Brian L. Livingston, executive director of the Arizona Police Association, said he would prefer more attention on the border, too. But until then, he said, laws like Arizona’s are necessary.

“We know the majority of people crossing across are not criminal, but unfortunately some criminal elements are embedded with them,” he said, adding, “Governor Brewer gets that.”

As Ms. Brewer put it just after signing the bill: “We cannot sacrifice our safety to the murderous greed of drug cartels. We cannot stand idly by as drop houses, kidnappings and violence compromise our quality of life.”

[Amorok]

“Their repeated characterization of illegal immigrants as criminals — easy to do since they broke immigration laws — makes it easy for people to ignore statistics,”

Right so they broke the law, and that makes it easy to characterize them as criminals. Well, no shit.

Crime figures, in fact, present a more mixed picture, with the likes of Russell Pearce, the Republican state senator behind the immigration enforcement law, playing up the darkest side while immigrant advocacy groups like Coalición de Derechos Humanos (Human Rights Coalition), based in Tucson, circulate news reports and studies showing that crime is not as bad as it may seem.

I always get a laugh when some Senator or governor named Jim or Steve wants more border security and the only people on the other side refuse to even translate the name of their organization into English. You think that might be why they can't get any support? That and maybe we know that they have to say their name in Spanish since that's the only language their customers or clients or whatever speak? Little things like that make a difference, people.

[pauldun170]

Originally Posted by Amorok

Right so they broke the law, and that makes it easy to characterize them as criminals. Well, no shit.I always get a laugh when some Senator or governor named Jim or Steve wants more border security and the only people on the other side refuse to even translate the name of their organization into English. You think that might be why they can't get any support? That and maybe we know that they have to say their name in Spanish since that's the only language their customers or clients or whatever speak? Little things like that make a difference, people.

(awkwardly raises hand)
Technically it is only recently that they criminalized having an illegal immigration status and even then its a state crime and not a federal crime so while Arizona has suddenly given itself the legal standing to label all illegals as criminal simply because they snapped a switch with a law doesn't mean that illegal immigrants by definition are criminal. Also since technically other states do not have to honor Arizona's law anyone outside of Arizona can ignore the "criminal" label.
Also TECHNICALLY the statistics show, backed by expert testimony from law enforcement that illegal immigrants are not predisposed to commit criminal acts.
Academically (aka fag speak) laws reflect the values and beliefs of the society, meaning the law is after the fact. So faggotly speaking illegals were "criminal" prior to being "real criminals" because society decided we don't accept the behavior characterized by those who do not honor the processes whose history dates back to 1882 (aka immigration processes). Technically those who ignore said processes are simply entering the country without following procedure are using the processes in place from 1776 to 1882 and therefore are simply entering the country by "illegal means" to please all those assholes who claim to be a constitutional conservative or a strict constructionalist.
Therefore fuck all those assholes who claim to be constitutional conservative or a strict constructionalist. They created this mess

As for the say your name in spanish bit...you can blame citizens for that and all the stupid embrace diversity bullshit. Statistics show that immigrants, illegal or not are very aggressive at learning the language. The issue is that learning a new language when you have some years under your belt is tough and a long process.

As for border security. Moats with alligators and sharks with gatlin guns on their head. To bad we signed that mine treaty.

[goof2]

Originally Posted by pauldun170

To bad we signed that mine treaty.

Never happened.

[Homeslice]

Originally Posted by pauldun170

(awkwardly raises hand)
Statistics show that immigrants, illegal or not are very aggressive at learning the language.

Asians more so than Hispanics, in my experience.

And as far as statistics "proving" that illegal immigrants are "less likely to commit crime"..........I would like to see those statistics, and the methodology used. Seeing as how nobody knows the total number of illegal immigrants, nor does anyone know the total number of crimes ever commited (especially since many crimes in immigrant neighborhoods never get reported or investigated)

[pauldun170]

Originally Posted by goof2

Never happened.

Shit really?
Damn your right.

[Amorok]

I'm not getting into a semantics game where you debate what the word criminal applies to and I get disgusted. Tell you what. Walk through the open door past my no trespassing sign one Saturday and see what happens. One of us will have to go somewhere in a vehicle with flashing lights. Here's a hint, it won't be me. That's pretty much my view and no amount of arguing is gonna change it. I have sympathy for people who are trying to make a better life for themselves and I don't blame them for hopping the border. But that's not the case for all of them, and until you can weed out the bad ones crossing illegally, fuck em all.

[pauldun170]

Originally Posted by Amorok

I'm not getting into a semantics game where you debate what the word criminal applies to and I get disgusted. Tell you what. Walk through the open door past my no trespassing sign one Saturday and see what happens. One of us will have to go somewhere in a vehicle with flashing lights. Here's a hint, it won't be me. That's pretty much my view and no amount of arguing is gonna change it. I have sympathy for people who are trying to make a better life for themselves and I don't blame them for hopping the border. But that's not the case for all of them, and until you can weed out the bad ones crossing illegally, fuck em all.

I wasn't debating you.
fucking asshole....
i was lecturing you.
learn the difference

[Smittie61984]

Originally Posted by pauldun170

Shit really?
Damn your right.

Canada and Mexico did so we should be in the clear.

Now if we could line both borders with those old school German flame thrower mines then we'd be in business. We keep the Mexicans and the arabic Mexican look-a-like terrorists from coming in from the south and those Canadians from bringing us Curling from the north.

[101lifts2]

We need to secure the borders regardless of the number of "incidents" by illegals.