@WarChiefZeke What is your take on the study that @Grond0 linked? If I understood it correctly, its findings seem to suggest that immigrants are less likely to commit violent crimes as well. Not just petty ones as you seem to suggest.
My take is written in the abstract, really.
"Since that time, we are aware of only one study in which the association between unauthorized immigration and violence was investigated. In that study, Green (2016) found that undocumented immigration is generally not associated with violent crime, though unauthorized immigration from Mexico may be associated with higher rates of violence."
Only 2 studies ever done on the matter, one which seems to paint mexican illegal immigration as a violent crime issue. I would have just pulled the study from the reference list but it's acting up on my phone. I'd like to see more of these things broken down into specifics like that, since not all migrants from all places of the world, and not all crime for that matter, are equal.
I'm just curious, did anyone actually say illegals commit more crime in general? As far as I can see this is a plain strawman, being beaten with vigor.
"Victims of illegal migrants are not being shrugged off. The facts are that the illegal migrants are making everyone safer, not the reverse."
Illegal migrants are making everyone safer, man what a huge leap...I hate to repeat myself, but according to data presented in this thread:
"Of the 46 crimes for which we have arrest data, there were higher arrest rates for illegal immigrants relative to natives for the seven crimes of commercial sex, federal offenses, gambling, kidnapping, sexual assault, violations of Texas tax law, and vagrancy. "
So again, I guess if you don't mind more sexual assault and kidnapping, you could say you are safer. I think it is more accurate to say it is safer for *men* to be around illegals.
I can't speak for others, but I was responding in particular to your statement: "Weaponizing victimhood in action: victims of terrorism or migrants are shrugged off as minor statistics in a bigger picture, unworthy of broader consideration." In my earlier response I presented detailed evidence that, while in an ideal world there would be no victims, in the world we have you become less and less likely to be a victim in States the greater the proportion of illegal immigrants they have.
Your post might be taken to suggest that the Cato Institute report provides evidence opposing the study I linked previously, but that's not the case. This is the conclusion of the Cato report: "The homicide conviction rate for illegal immigrants was 25 percent below that of native-born Americans in Texas in 2015. The conviction rates for illegal immigrants were 11.5 percent and 79 percent below that of native-born Americans for the crimes of sexual assault and larceny, respectively. Illegal immigrants were more likely to be convicted of gambling, kidnapping, smuggling, and vagrancy than natives, but those crimes constituted only 0.18 percent of all convictions that year in Texas. For all criminal convictions in Texas in 2015, illegal immigrants had a criminal conviction rate 56 percent below that of native-born Americans. Legal immigrants had a criminal conviction rate 85 percent below that of native-born Americans."
The bulk of the report (like the conclusion) is around numbers of convictions, but the report does also cover arrests data. Personally I think that the data on convictions is likely to be sounder as the evidence required for convictions is greater than for arrests - thus removing a potential source of bias in the data. However, the overall picture in relation to arrests is consistent with that for convictions, though on a lower base. You quoted from the report about the seven types of arrests for which illegal immigrants have higher arrest rates than native-born Americans, but didn't give any context for the importance of that: - those 7 types of arrest covered only 1.9% of all arrests in Texas. - the arrest rate for illegal immigrants for all crimes was 40% below that of native-born Americans.
Would you like to explain what the relevance of this report is? It appears from the time you posted it to be a reaction to the discussion about illegal migration, but it's not clear why you posted it.
The only thing in the report that seems to have any relevance to the topic of illegal migration is a chart that reviews the influence of various factors on offences carried out by gangs. That shows migration (covering both legal and illegal) to be the least important of the factors reviewed and declining further with importance in recent years.
I'm wondering how the hell MS-13 got rolled into the illegal immigration debate anyway based on numbers I just pulled up (well, I know exactly why, but I digress).
In a May anti-gang operation, ICE arrested 1378 individuals. 933 of them were US citizens. A similar action in March arrested 1133, and 894 of them were citizens. Added together that is almost 75%.
A few points. 25% is over representation of illegals, not under, meaning they are more likely to engage in gang activity. I also don't think it's particularly accurate to use a single arrest as a representative sample of a whole especially when the other singular example had 90% as illegals.
But no matter which example you use, this supports my point.
From what I've seen I agree with you here - it does seem likely that illegal immigrants are slightly over-represented in gangs (though note that the 25% is all non-citizens, so the proportion of illegal immigrants will be rather lower).
However, even taking account of that over-representation in gangs, there are still considerably fewer crimes committed by illegal immigrants. Rather than targeting illegal immigrants as a group to try and reduce crime, it would therefore make far more sense to target gangs.
@WarChiefZeke What is your take on the study that @Grond0 linked? If I understood it correctly, its findings seem to suggest that immigrants are less likely to commit violent crimes as well. Not just petty ones as you seem to suggest.
My take is written in the abstract, really.
"Since that time, we are aware of only one study in which the association between unauthorized immigration and violence was investigated. In that study, Green (2016) found that undocumented immigration is generally not associated with violent crime, though unauthorized immigration from Mexico may be associated with higher rates of violence."
Only 2 studies ever done on the matter, one which seems to paint mexican illegal immigration as a violent crime issue. I would have just pulled the study from the reference list but it's acting up on my phone. I'd like to see more of these things broken down into specifics like that, since not all migrants from all places of the world, and not all crime for that matter, are equal.
The numbers are clear at the aggregate level - there are fewer crimes (and fewer violent crimes) associated with illegal immigrants. The quote above is suggesting that there may be higher rates of violent crimes associated with Mexicans than other nationalities. However, given that Mexicans are such a large group, it can't be the case that Mexicans have a high rate of violent crime compared to native-born Americans.
I wouldn't trot out acquaintances as a defense against the accusation of racism, however--that's what the Site Rules are for. Accusing other forumites of being racist or having some other character flaw is against the Site Rules.
From the picture I believe you are a handsome young man with a pretty girlfriend. From your posts I'd say you have have been misled and have some views that aren't supported by facts.
From your posts I'd say you have have been misled and have some views that aren't supported by facts.
@smeagolheart Here's that mirror you need to look into. If you are on either side of the political ideologies that are present in America today, you are being mislead.
From your posts I'd say you have have been misled and have some views that aren't supported by facts.
@smeagolheart Here's that mirror you need to look into. If you are on either side of the political ideologies that are present in America today, you are being mislead.
False equivalence might argue that "both sides" mislead. The truth is different.
We've never seen a liar on the scale of Trump. There's no "both sides are wrong" about this.
Are you saying there's attacks on immigrants - scapegoating them as animals, infesting breeders, and ms13 criminals and there's people that don't say that. Gee there's no way to know the truth it must be somewhere in the middle. Someone said the earth was flat everyone else says its round. Gee must be somewhere in the middle.
From your posts I'd say you have have been misled and have some views that aren't supported by facts.
@smeagolheart Here's that mirror you need to look into. If you are on either side of the political ideologies that are present in America today, you are being mislead.
False equivalence might argue that "both sides" mislead. The truth is different.
We've never seen a liar on the scale of Trump. There's no "both sides are wrong" about this.
Are you saying there's attacks on immigrants - scapegoating them as animals, infesting breeders, and ms13 criminals and there's people that don't say that. Gee there's no way to know the truth it must be somewhere in the middle. Someone said the earth was flat everyone else says its round. Gee must be somewhere in the middle.
I've got some bad news for you. The Earth is neither flat, nor a perfect sphere. So, yeah, it kind of IS inbetween. Being an imperfect sphere.
From your posts I'd say you have have been misled and have some views that aren't supported by facts.
@smeagolheart Here's that mirror you need to look into. If you are on either side of the political ideologies that are present in America today, you are being mislead.
False equivalence might argue that "both sides" mislead. The truth is different.
We've never seen a liar on the scale of Trump. There's no "both sides are wrong" about this.
Are you saying there's attacks on immigrants - scapegoating them as animals, infesting breeders, and ms13 criminals and there's people that don't say that. Gee there's no way to know the truth it must be somewhere in the middle. Someone said the earth was flat everyone else says its round. Gee must be somewhere in the middle.
I've got some bad news for you. The Earth is neither flat, nor a perfect sphere. So, yeah, it kind of IS inbetween. Being an imperfect sphere.
haha. Yes well it certainly ain't flat saying so .... Not exactly in between the middle of the two positions but I'll give you one for humor.
Wait a minute, Sarah. How do you know this restaurant isn't just standing up for their "deeply held religious beliefs"?? Look what happens when this cat gets let out of the bag. Isn't that interesting. And look who immediately complains when it happens. I couldn't be happier this took place. This is the America those in favor of the Masterpiece Cake Shop owner wanted, so it's the America they get.
Mike Huckabee (Sarah Sanders' father) immediately supported her after this and accused the restaurant of bigotry. That was a few hours after he had posted this 'joke' on Twitter.
I initially resisted the temptation to post on the above as getting into a he said / she said argument is normally unproductive. However, I wanted to reinforce and clarify my essential argument on this issue and the above seemed to provide me with a starting point for that.
I've said before that this policy is (or possibly was if it's really ended) evil and explained why - it's a deliberate policy change, not a consequence of previous laws, and aimed at causing misery to promote political objectives. I've also given evidence to show that the underlying rationale put forward for this policy that illegal immigrants are likely to increase crime is inaccurate.
The reason I've spent so much time on this specific policy is not just because I think it's such a bad one, but because it provides a possible opportunity for people to stop and take stock of what's happening. There have been a couple of references recently to the possibility that minor changes can creep up on people and gradually accumulate to an extent that they find unacceptable in retrospect without ever having been able to point to any specific change that was unacceptable in itself. To me, family separation without good reason can not be classed as one of those minor changes and is something that should be seen as unacceptable now in its own right.
I don't support any particular party, so it's easy for me to criticize a specific policy without considering the impact that has on an overall political platform. However, even those that support a particular party - in this case the Republicans - might perhaps wish to think carefully about what this policy represents. I have very little background knowledge about the Republicans (probably because I have little interest in party politics), but thought I had heard they saw family values as a key part of their philosophy. A quick Google took me to the GOP web-site with the following statement: "The family is the bedrock of our nation. When American families flourish, so too does our country. Our Party’s economic and social policies, including tax reform, education, health care, and the sanctity of life, should always promote and strengthen that most sacred bond."
On first reading this would seem to run directly counter to the policy of family separation, but there is an out - the above statement relates to "American families", not families more generally - so you could take the line that would-be immigrants should be treated differently and that family is of no importance to them. I don't believe that interpretation would be shared generally by Republican voters, but that is the direction the country has been going in under Trump. The US used to be known as "a nation of immigrants", but the current administration clearly believes that was a bad thing and wants to move on. If you're not sure about whether this is the right direction to travel, the family separation policy provides a good, concrete, example to consider of what the problems with that direction might be.
Wait a minute, Sarah. How do you know this restaurant isn't just standing up for their "deeply held religious beliefs"?? Look what happens when this cat gets let out of the bag. Isn't that interesting. And look who immediately complains when it happens. I couldn't be happier this took place. This is the America those in favor of the Masterpiece Cake Shop owner wanted, so it's the America they get.
Mike Huckabee (Sarah Sanders' father) immediately supported her after this and accused the restaurant of bigotry. That was a few hours after he had posted this 'joke' on Twitter.
I initially resisted the temptation to post on the above as getting into a he said / she said argument is normally unproductive. However, I wanted to reinforce and clarify my essential argument on this issue and the above seemed to provide me with a starting point for that.
I've said before that this policy is (or possibly was if it's really ended) evil and explained why - it's a deliberate policy change, not a consequence of previous laws, and aimed at causing misery to promote political objectives. I've also given evidence to show that the underlying rationale put forward for this policy that illegal immigrants are likely to increase crime is inaccurate.
The reason I've spent so much time on this specific policy is not just because I think it's such a bad one, but because it provides a possible opportunity for people to stop and take stock of what's happening. There have been a couple of references recently to the possibility that minor changes can creep up on people and gradually accumulate to an extent that they find unacceptable in retrospect without ever having been able to point to any specific change that was unacceptable in itself. To me, family separation without good reason can not be classed as one of those minor changes and is something that should be seen as unacceptable now in its own right.
I don't support any particular party, so it's easy for me to criticize a specific policy without considering the impact that has on an overall political platform. However, even those that support a particular party - in this case the Republicans - might perhaps wish to think carefully about what this policy represents. I have very little background knowledge about the Republicans (probably because I have little interest in party politics), but thought I had heard they saw family values as a key part of their philosophy. A quick Google took me to the GOP web-site with the following statement: "The family is the bedrock of our nation. When American families flourish, so too does our country. Our Party’s economic and social policies, including tax reform, education, health care, and the sanctity of life, should always promote and strengthen that most sacred bond."
On first reading this would seem to run directly counter to the policy of family separation, but there is an out - the above statement relates to "American families", not families more generally - so you could take the line that would-be immigrants should be treated differently and that family is of no importance to them. I don't believe that interpretation would be shared generally by Republican voters, but that is the direction the country has been going in under Trump. The US used to be known as "a nation of immigrants", but the current administration clearly believes that was a bad thing and wants to move on. If you're not sure about whether this is the right direction to travel, the family separation policy provides a good, concrete, example to consider of what the problems with that direction might be.
Well first off, Mike Huckabee would be the absolute FIRST person in line in national politics to stand for any person who wanted to discriminate against a person based on their sexuality. He has, in fact, made his entire career post-holding office standing up for people like Kim Davis (who refused to marry gay couples in her capacity as a county clerk despite a Supreme Court ruling) and played a role in making eating a Chick-fil-A a sort of right-wing performance art. The idea that Mike Huckabee should have ANYTHING to say about something being denied service at a business for any reason is laughable on it's face. As I said earlier, the right-wing in America wanted this. They cheered for it. And now they are going to turn around and cry when it is done to them?? This was imminently predictable and as pathetic as you'd imagine.
As for the bigger point of your post......look, the major events of Trump's Presidency that are viewed in a negative light all circle around to the same subject. His Muslim ban merely a week into his Presidency that caused chaos at the nation's airports. His response to the white nationalist terrorism in Charlottesville, VA. And now the forced child separation of Central American families. Donald Trump is a white nationalist President. It's been evident since the day he announced his campaign. His adviser on these issues, Stephen Miller, has concrete, tangible ties white nationalists.
This is going to get worse. I've been saying it for 18 months in this thread. I'm initially viewed as alarmist, and then, lo and behold, one day, we have child prison camps based on a purposeful policy. I don't know what comes next. But I know that they are going to do something similarly heinous to create chaos at least once before the mid-terms. If Republicans suffer big losses in the mid-terms, Trump (who in incapable of even understanding the concept of responsibility) will ABSOLUTELY claim that millions of immigrants voted illegally (he did this when he WON an election, so imagine how he would respond to a loss). Of course, the real kicker is if Mueller closes in. Donald Trump will tear down the entire fabric of the system of government of this country to save himself and preserve power. Don't think he won't. He is following the playbook of every authoritarian ruler you can think of. People who have lived under authoritarian regimes have been warning us about him this entire time. I've been predicting a moment like this the entire time. I have been generally (respectfully in almost all cases) been written off as alarmist for doing so. This post will probably be viewed as hyperbolic and shrugged off in the same way. But you can bookmark this if you want, and then come back in 6 months and see what other heinous action has taken place. There is something seriously wrong with the body politic of the Untied States right now. Something is not right. And we are a single financial crash or terrorist attack away from shit totally hitting the fan. And every time Trump holds another rally and I watch his crowds, I feel like I'm staring into some sort of abyss. The rallies legitimately remind me of and have all the trappings of a cult.
And every time Trump holds another rally and I watch his crowds, I feel like I'm staring into some sort of abyss. The rallies legitimately remind me of and have all the trappings of a cult.
It could be worse than a cult. Trump and Republicans tick off every box - especially if you count gerrymandering as fraudulent elections. Republicans really pulling some fishy stuff these days.
Yeah man the apple doesn't fall far from the tree with Sarah Sanders, huh?
Today, it's Nancy Pelosi who is the big bad to Republicans. Why? She's fairly innocuous to be honest. There was some polling recently that showed the Kim Jong Un was more popular among republicans than Nancy Pelosi. Let that sink in, a murderous dictator foreigner is more popular among republicans than an American in the other party. Great messaging Fox News and other right wing propaganda, "Mission Accomplished".
Last year (and even still) the big bad woman was Hillary Clinton. Why do Republicans seemingly hate women so much? It's disturbing that they love to attack women - any woman with a semblance of authority or power is attacked viciously. Must be put down. Trump hates Merkel and Rosie O'Donnell for some reason is his mortal enemy as well. It's strange. These guys pretend to be tough and can't handle a woman having the same or more authority than they do - it's like an attack on their manhood. It's just stupid and sad and weak.
It doesn't matter Hillary, Merkel, Pelosi, the GOP will always find an enemy. Once those are through, after a further meaningless 6-10 years of attacks Hillary probably. There will be another woman to attack.
I'm having more and more trouble watching them, but the biggest moment at every Trump rally remains, 20 months after the election, the "lock her up" chant. In Duluth the other night, he pulled out the old '60s chestnut "is that a boy or a girl??" in response to a protester with long hair. He still turns the crowd against all the gathered media at the location. One reporter on Twitter said the day after rally in Duluth, a woman approached her and wanted to apologize for her behavior the night before when she participated in the jeering of the media, saying she wasn't sure what had come over her. They even all went nuts at Trump's absurd declaration he is starting a sixth branch of the military called the "Space Force".
But I again go back to "lock her up". It's as predictable as KISS closing a show with "Rock and Roll All Night" at this point. Even after winning the election, this bloodlust wasn't quenched. The overarching theme of every Trump rally is "someone has to pay". Hillary, Pelosi, liberals, the media, immigrants. All viewed as not just opponents, but enemies of the State.
You quoted from the report about the seven types of arrests for which illegal immigrants have higher arrest rates than native-born Americans, but didn't give any context for the importance of that: - those 7 types of arrest covered only 1.9% of all arrests in Texas. - the arrest rate for illegal immigrants for all crimes was 40% below that of native-born Americans.
And we have come circle, back to what I had previously said. Victims are statistics when we don't want to care, victims are humanized to the maximum when political advantage can be gained. Let's look at the context:
2% of total arrests in Texas (assuming 2016 numbers) would be 16,000 people. That is ten times the number of victims of the migrant children scandal according to NYT, and this is only looking at a single state. Why are these victims a statistic and they are a crisis? Politics.
Texas is only one state, so this pool of potential victims is not even close to the complete picture.
Total arrests matter far less to me than what type of arrests increase and what decrease. I do not want more sexual assault, or human trafficking, or, as the only other study of its kind shows, more violence. I do not much care about disorderly conduct, jaywalking, public drunkness, or tax evasion. Hell, I will take 1 less rape for 10 more disorderly conducts, easily.
At what point, statistically, do these things begin to "matter"? How many more victims can be created before it is called relevant. Because by all metrics, these crimes effect a lot more people than what you were condemning in such strong words a few pages back.
How many thousands of people would not have been sexually assaulted, kidnapped or trafficked, or indeed, seperated from their parents, had we just enforced existing border law in the first place?
@WarChiefZeke Considering that people get arrested in this country for such things as: moving into their apartment, sitting in a restaurant, sleeping in a dorm common room, and playing with a toy gun; I'm more interested in the convictions than the arrests. Are the number of convictions similar? I didn't get that impression from the study that it wasn't the case. Going back to this chart, it seems that violent crimes are going DOWN not up.
Would you like to explain what the relevance of this report is? It appears from the time you posted it to be a reaction to the discussion about illegal migration, but it's not clear why you posted it.
The only thing in the report that seems to have any relevance to the topic of illegal migration is a chart that reviews the influence of various factors on offences carried out by gangs. That shows migration (covering both legal and illegal) to be the least important of the factors reviewed and declining further with importance in recent years.
You quoted from the report about the seven types of arrests for which illegal immigrants have higher arrest rates than native-born Americans, but didn't give any context for the importance of that: - those 7 types of arrest covered only 1.9% of all arrests in Texas. - the arrest rate for illegal immigrants for all crimes was 40% below that of native-born Americans.
And we have come circle, back to what I had previously said. Victims are statistics when we don't want to care, victims are humanized to the maximum when political advantage can be gained. Let's look at the context:
2% of total arrests in Texas (assuming 2016 numbers) would be 16,000 people. That is ten times the number of victims of the migrant children scandal according to NYT, and this is only looking at a single state. Why are these victims a statistic and they are a crisis? Politics.
Texas is only one state, so this pool of potential victims is not even close to the complete picture.
Total arrests matter far less to me than what type of arrests increase and what decrease. I do not want more sexual assault, or human trafficking, or, as the only other study of its kind shows, more violence. I do not much care about disorderly conduct, jaywalking, public drunkness, or tax evasion. Hell, I will take 1 less rape for 10 more disorderly conducts, easily.
At what point, statistically, do these things begin to "matter"? How many more victims can be created before it is called relevant. Because by all metrics, these crimes effect a lot more people than what you were condemning in such strong words a few pages back.
How many thousands of people would not have been sexually assaulted, kidnapped or trafficked, or indeed, seperated from their parents, had we just enforced existing border law in the first place?
@WarChiefZeke these things would certainly matter if illegal immigrants increased the chance of someone experiencing a crime - but they don't, they substantially reduce it.
Here's a numerical example to illustrate how that works: (i) assume a population of 1 million people and total crimes committed of 100k. The chance of someone being a victim of crime is 10% (for simplicity I'll ignore repeat victims and offenders as it doesn't affect the logic). (ii) add in 100k illegal immigrants. The number of crimes they commit on average is much lower than the existing situation - based on the arrests data from the Cato report you prefer there's a 40% reduction in overall likelihood of crime. That's therefore an additional 6k crimes, rather than the 10k it would be if the additional people were native-born Americans. (iii) the total population is thus now 1.1m and there are 106k crimes. The chance of someone being a victim of crime is thus now 9.6%, rather than the original 10%.
In that example I've assumed that the illegal immigrants add to the overall population, so that you have more crimes in total (but with an increase lower than the growth in population). An alternative would be to assume that the illegal immigrants replace existing population - in that case you would see a reduction in the absolute number of crimes as well as the chance of being a victim of crime.
None of the links you've posted previously provide any evidence for your repeated suggestion that illegal immigration leads to more violence - in fact they provide evidence of quite the reverse.
The other part of your argument above is that the type of crime is more important than the total number of crimes. The summary of the Cato report I posted earlier gives enough information to produce some comparatives on this: 1) Using arrests data would suggest that the presence of illegal immigrants increased the number of sexual assaults in Texas during 2015 by 14. On the other hand it reduced homicides by 30 and the overall total of crime by 25,129. 2) Using arrests data implicitly assumes that the likelihood of an innocent person being arrested is the same whether they are an illegal immigrant or native-born, which I think is actually pretty unlikely. If we use the same comparison, but based on convictions rather than arrests that shows that illegal immigrants reduced sexual assaults by 29, homicides by 17 and all crimes by 17,793.
Even using arrests data I think it's very hard to credibly make the argument that illegal immigrants have made crime worse - whether you're looking at all crimes or just serious crimes. If you use convictions data it becomes even harder to make that argument (in Texas in 2015 there were over 430,000 convictions, only 71 of which were in categories in which illegal immigrants had higher conviction rates than native-born Americans).
I don't disagree but sometimes I wonder about a form of government where a meth addict's vote counts the same as a B.S. Chemist (me). Most Americans couldn't find Afghanistan on a map if you gave them an open-book test, and that's including Google Maps. Pretty sad if you ask me...
@Balrog99 Hehheh, I recently heard a lady call in to a talk radio station asking how close N. Korea was to S.Korea.
I don't disagree but sometimes I wonder about a form of government where a meth addict's vote counts the same as a B.S. Chemist (me). Most Americans couldn't find Afghanistan on a map if you gave them an open-book test, and that's including Google Maps. Pretty sad if you ask me...
@Balrog99 Hehheh, I recently heard a lady call in to a talk radio station asking how close N. Korea was to S.Korea.
I've heard someone call in to a radio station to describe their conspiracy theory that Hitler and Elvis were both still alive in depth. That was surreal.
Here is a report about a pilot program that was being used in the Obama Administration that was specifically meant to keep families together but was ALSO designed to get them to check in on a regular basis until their case went through the proper channels. It cost the government a mere $36/day, and the compliance rate on checking in with ICE was an astounding 99% and a 100% rate of showing up for court hearings. Detaining and/or separating the migrants/families costs anywhere from $300-775/day. The Trump Administration cancelled the program in lieu of an option that costs 10 to 25 times more:
Depends, are the being racist on their own time or during work hours? When you're working you're not just representing yourself but you're being seen as part of a privately/government owned organization and you are controlled by their rules. If you can't follow them than they have the right to terminate you. When you're working you shouldn't be bringing your ideology, whether it be race, religion, or gender politics with you unless that's part of your job.
On your own time? *BLEEP* NO! That's no different than companies like blizzard or wizards of the cost going through it's customers social media posts and banning members from there game from not having the ideology they believe they should. No companies power should be able to reach outside of it's own domain and infringe on other people's rights. Of course I'm speaking from the states here, I know places like the UK doesn't actually have "rights" but instead have "privileges" which the government can take away.
You quoted from the report about the seven types of arrests for which illegal immigrants have higher arrest rates than native-born Americans, but didn't give any context for the importance of that: - those 7 types of arrest covered only 1.9% of all arrests in Texas. - the arrest rate for illegal immigrants for all crimes was 40% below that of native-born Americans.
And we have come circle, back to what I had previously said. Victims are statistics when we don't want to care, victims are humanized to the maximum when political advantage can be gained. Let's look at the context:
2% of total arrests in Texas (assuming 2016 numbers) would be 16,000 people. That is ten times the number of victims of the migrant children scandal according to NYT, and this is only looking at a single state. Why are these victims a statistic and they are a crisis? Politics.
You neglect to mention that the vast majority of those crimes would have been caused by native-born citizens. Your 16,000 arrests calculation is based on TOTAL arrests, not just those of illegal immigrants. You're just engaging in pure scare-mongering here.
Sexual assault and rape are serious crimes, but is immigration enforcement the place to focus? Based on the 2015 numbers from the CATO study, illegal immigrants were 3% more likely to be arrested for sexual assault than native-born citizens, while legal immigrants were 72% less likely. Native-born citizens were 83% of the Texas population, illegal immigrants 6.4%, and legal immigrants 10.6%. So, 89.6% of sexual assault arrestees were native-born citizens, 7.1% illegal immigrants, and 3.3% legal immigrants. Looking at convictions, native-born citizens made up 91.8% of sexual assault convictions, while illegal immigrants were 6.1% and legal immigrants were 1.9%. So, if you want to make a difference in preventing sexual assault and rape, start with native-born males. They are the ones committing the vast majority of these heinous crimes.
Comments
"Since that time, we are aware of only one study in which the association between unauthorized immigration and violence was investigated. In that study, Green (2016) found that undocumented immigration is generally not associated with violent crime, though unauthorized immigration from Mexico may be associated with higher rates of violence."
Only 2 studies ever done on the matter, one which seems to paint mexican illegal immigration as a violent crime issue. I would have just pulled the study from the reference list but it's acting up on my phone. I'd like to see more of these things broken down into specifics like that, since not all migrants from all places of the world, and not all crime for that matter, are equal.
"Weaponizing victimhood in action: victims of terrorism or migrants are shrugged off as minor statistics in a bigger picture, unworthy of broader consideration."
In my earlier response I presented detailed evidence that, while in an ideal world there would be no victims, in the world we have you become less and less likely to be a victim in States the greater the proportion of illegal immigrants they have.
Your post might be taken to suggest that the Cato Institute report provides evidence opposing the study I linked previously, but that's not the case. This is the conclusion of the Cato report:
"The homicide conviction rate for illegal immigrants was 25 percent below that of native-born Americans in Texas in 2015. The conviction rates for illegal immigrants were 11.5 percent and 79 percent below that of native-born Americans for the crimes of sexual assault and larceny, respectively. Illegal immigrants were more likely to be convicted of gambling, kidnapping, smuggling, and vagrancy than natives, but those crimes constituted only 0.18 percent of all convictions that year in Texas. For all criminal convictions in Texas in 2015, illegal immigrants had a criminal conviction rate 56 percent below that of native-born Americans. Legal immigrants had a criminal conviction rate 85 percent below that of native-born Americans."
The bulk of the report (like the conclusion) is around numbers of convictions, but the report does also cover arrests data. Personally I think that the data on convictions is likely to be sounder as the evidence required for convictions is greater than for arrests - thus removing a potential source of bias in the data. However, the overall picture in relation to arrests is consistent with that for convictions, though on a lower base. You quoted from the report about the seven types of arrests for which illegal immigrants have higher arrest rates than native-born Americans, but didn't give any context for the importance of that:
- those 7 types of arrest covered only 1.9% of all arrests in Texas.
- the arrest rate for illegal immigrants for all crimes was 40% below that of native-born Americans.
Make of that what you will.
The only thing in the report that seems to have any relevance to the topic of illegal migration is a chart that reviews the influence of various factors on offences carried out by gangs.
That shows migration (covering both legal and illegal) to be the least important of the factors reviewed and declining further with importance in recent years.
However, even taking account of that over-representation in gangs, there are still considerably fewer crimes committed by illegal immigrants. Rather than targeting illegal immigrants as a group to try and reduce crime, it would therefore make far more sense to target gangs.
I wouldn't trot out acquaintances as a defense against the accusation of racism, however--that's what the Site Rules are for. Accusing other forumites of being racist or having some other character flaw is against the Site Rules.
We've never seen a liar on the scale of Trump. There's no "both sides are wrong" about this.
Are you saying there's attacks on immigrants - scapegoating them as animals, infesting breeders, and ms13 criminals and there's people that don't say that. Gee there's no way to know the truth it must be somewhere in the middle. Someone said the earth was flat everyone else says its round. Gee must be somewhere in the middle.
Is that all he does? Campaign, lie and do ad hominem attacks? Sad!
Can you believe that?
I initially resisted the temptation to post on the above as getting into a he said / she said argument is normally unproductive. However, I wanted to reinforce and clarify my essential argument on this issue and the above seemed to provide me with a starting point for that.
I've said before that this policy is (or possibly was if it's really ended) evil and explained why - it's a deliberate policy change, not a consequence of previous laws, and aimed at causing misery to promote political objectives. I've also given evidence to show that the underlying rationale put forward for this policy that illegal immigrants are likely to increase crime is inaccurate.
The reason I've spent so much time on this specific policy is not just because I think it's such a bad one, but because it provides a possible opportunity for people to stop and take stock of what's happening. There have been a couple of references recently to the possibility that minor changes can creep up on people and gradually accumulate to an extent that they find unacceptable in retrospect without ever having been able to point to any specific change that was unacceptable in itself. To me, family separation without good reason can not be classed as one of those minor changes and is something that should be seen as unacceptable now in its own right.
I don't support any particular party, so it's easy for me to criticize a specific policy without considering the impact that has on an overall political platform. However, even those that support a particular party - in this case the Republicans - might perhaps wish to think carefully about what this policy represents. I have very little background knowledge about the Republicans (probably because I have little interest in party politics), but thought I had heard they saw family values as a key part of their philosophy. A quick Google took me to the GOP web-site with the following statement:
"The family is the bedrock of our nation. When American families flourish, so too does our country. Our Party’s economic and social policies, including tax reform, education, health care, and the sanctity of life, should always promote and strengthen that most sacred bond."
On first reading this would seem to run directly counter to the policy of family separation, but there is an out - the above statement relates to "American families", not families more generally - so you could take the line that would-be immigrants should be treated differently and that family is of no importance to them. I don't believe that interpretation would be shared generally by Republican voters, but that is the direction the country has been going in under Trump. The US used to be known as "a nation of immigrants", but the current administration clearly believes that was a bad thing and wants to move on. If you're not sure about whether this is the right direction to travel, the family separation policy provides a good, concrete, example to consider of what the problems with that direction might be.
As for the bigger point of your post......look, the major events of Trump's Presidency that are viewed in a negative light all circle around to the same subject. His Muslim ban merely a week into his Presidency that caused chaos at the nation's airports. His response to the white nationalist terrorism in Charlottesville, VA. And now the forced child separation of Central American families. Donald Trump is a white nationalist President. It's been evident since the day he announced his campaign. His adviser on these issues, Stephen Miller, has concrete, tangible ties white nationalists.
This is going to get worse. I've been saying it for 18 months in this thread. I'm initially viewed as alarmist, and then, lo and behold, one day, we have child prison camps based on a purposeful policy. I don't know what comes next. But I know that they are going to do something similarly heinous to create chaos at least once before the mid-terms. If Republicans suffer big losses in the mid-terms, Trump (who in incapable of even understanding the concept of responsibility) will ABSOLUTELY claim that millions of immigrants voted illegally (he did this when he WON an election, so imagine how he would respond to a loss). Of course, the real kicker is if Mueller closes in. Donald Trump will tear down the entire fabric of the system of government of this country to save himself and preserve power. Don't think he won't. He is following the playbook of every authoritarian ruler you can think of. People who have lived under authoritarian regimes have been warning us about him this entire time. I've been predicting a moment like this the entire time. I have been generally (respectfully in almost all cases) been written off as alarmist for doing so. This post will probably be viewed as hyperbolic and shrugged off in the same way. But you can bookmark this if you want, and then come back in 6 months and see what other heinous action has taken place. There is something seriously wrong with the body politic of the Untied States right now. Something is not right. And we are a single financial crash or terrorist attack away from shit totally hitting the fan. And every time Trump holds another rally and I watch his crowds, I feel like I'm staring into some sort of abyss. The rallies legitimately remind me of and have all the trappings of a cult.
Yep the GOP, which way are things headed?
Today, it's Nancy Pelosi who is the big bad to Republicans. Why? She's fairly innocuous to be honest. There was some polling recently that showed the Kim Jong Un was more popular among republicans than Nancy Pelosi. Let that sink in, a murderous dictator foreigner is more popular among republicans than an American in the other party. Great messaging Fox News and other right wing propaganda, "Mission Accomplished".
Last year (and even still) the big bad woman was Hillary Clinton. Why do Republicans seemingly hate women so much? It's disturbing that they love to attack women - any woman with a semblance of authority or power is attacked viciously. Must be put down. Trump hates Merkel and Rosie O'Donnell for some reason is his mortal enemy as well. It's strange. These guys pretend to be tough and can't handle a woman having the same or more authority than they do - it's like an attack on their manhood. It's just stupid and sad and weak.
It doesn't matter Hillary, Merkel, Pelosi, the GOP will always find an enemy. Once those are through, after a further meaningless 6-10 years of attacks Hillary probably. There will be another woman to attack.
But I again go back to "lock her up". It's as predictable as KISS closing a show with "Rock and Roll All Night" at this point. Even after winning the election, this bloodlust wasn't quenched. The overarching theme of every Trump rally is "someone has to pay". Hillary, Pelosi, liberals, the media, immigrants. All viewed as not just opponents, but enemies of the State.
And we have come circle, back to what I had previously said. Victims are statistics when we don't want to care, victims are humanized to the maximum when political advantage can be gained. Let's look at the context:
2% of total arrests in Texas (assuming 2016 numbers) would be 16,000 people. That is ten times the number of victims of the migrant children scandal according to NYT, and this is only looking at a single state. Why are these victims a statistic and they are a crisis? Politics.
Texas is only one state, so this pool of potential victims is not even close to the complete picture.
Total arrests matter far less to me than what type of arrests increase and what decrease. I do not want more sexual assault, or human trafficking, or, as the only other study of its kind shows, more violence. I do not much care about disorderly conduct, jaywalking, public drunkness, or tax evasion. Hell, I will take 1 less rape for 10 more disorderly conducts, easily.
At what point, statistically, do these things begin to "matter"? How many more victims can be created before it is called relevant. Because by all metrics, these crimes effect a lot more people than what you were condemning in such strong words a few pages back.
How many thousands of people would not have been sexually assaulted, kidnapped or trafficked, or indeed, seperated from their parents, had we just enforced existing border law in the first place?
Here's a numerical example to illustrate how that works:
(i) assume a population of 1 million people and total crimes committed of 100k. The chance of someone being a victim of crime is 10% (for simplicity I'll ignore repeat victims and offenders as it doesn't affect the logic).
(ii) add in 100k illegal immigrants. The number of crimes they commit on average is much lower than the existing situation - based on the arrests data from the Cato report you prefer there's a 40% reduction in overall likelihood of crime. That's therefore an additional 6k crimes, rather than the 10k it would be if the additional people were native-born Americans.
(iii) the total population is thus now 1.1m and there are 106k crimes. The chance of someone being a victim of crime is thus now 9.6%, rather than the original 10%.
In that example I've assumed that the illegal immigrants add to the overall population, so that you have more crimes in total (but with an increase lower than the growth in population). An alternative would be to assume that the illegal immigrants replace existing population - in that case you would see a reduction in the absolute number of crimes as well as the chance of being a victim of crime.
None of the links you've posted previously provide any evidence for your repeated suggestion that illegal immigration leads to more violence - in fact they provide evidence of quite the reverse.
The other part of your argument above is that the type of crime is more important than the total number of crimes. The summary of the Cato report I posted earlier gives enough information to produce some comparatives on this:
1) Using arrests data would suggest that the presence of illegal immigrants increased the number of sexual assaults in Texas during 2015 by 14. On the other hand it reduced homicides by 30 and the overall total of crime by 25,129.
2) Using arrests data implicitly assumes that the likelihood of an innocent person being arrested is the same whether they are an illegal immigrant or native-born, which I think is actually pretty unlikely. If we use the same comparison, but based on convictions rather than arrests that shows that illegal immigrants reduced sexual assaults by 29, homicides by 17 and all crimes by 17,793.
Even using arrests data I think it's very hard to credibly make the argument that illegal immigrants have made crime worse - whether you're looking at all crimes or just serious crimes. If you use convictions data it becomes even harder to make that argument (in Texas in 2015 there were over 430,000 convictions, only 71 of which were in categories in which illegal immigrants had higher conviction rates than native-born Americans).
Please tell me you're trolling.
https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/immigration-border-crisis/obama-era-pilot-program-kept-asylum-seeking-migrant-families-together-n885896?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma
On your own time? *BLEEP* NO! That's no different than companies like blizzard or wizards of the cost going through it's customers social media posts and banning members from there game from not having the ideology they believe they should. No companies power should be able to reach outside of it's own domain and infringe on other people's rights. Of course I'm speaking from the states here, I know places like the UK doesn't actually have "rights" but instead have "privileges" which the government can take away.
Sexual assault and rape are serious crimes, but is immigration enforcement the place to focus? Based on the 2015 numbers from the CATO study, illegal immigrants were 3% more likely to be arrested for sexual assault than native-born citizens, while legal immigrants were 72% less likely. Native-born citizens were 83% of the Texas population, illegal immigrants 6.4%, and legal immigrants 10.6%. So, 89.6% of sexual assault arrestees were native-born citizens, 7.1% illegal immigrants, and 3.3% legal immigrants. Looking at convictions, native-born citizens made up 91.8% of sexual assault convictions, while illegal immigrants were 6.1% and legal immigrants were 1.9%. So, if you want to make a difference in preventing sexual assault and rape, start with native-born males. They are the ones committing the vast majority of these heinous crimes.