Still lying about crime and illegal immigrants

Last year the libertarian think tank Cato Institute published a study saying that unauthorized immigrants in Texas actually committed fewer crimes than native-born Americans. Others confirmed those results.

Like a study published in the journal

Criminology that said states with more undocumented immigrants have lower crime rates than those with fewer.

This has not prevented President Donald Trump from repeating a lie about undocumented immigrants and violent crime. He paints a distorted picture over and again.

Now, a new study by The Marshall Project reinforced the same results as previous studies. It said undocumented immigration does not increase violent crime.

The new study was even more sophisticated. It compared the number of undocumented immigrants in metropolitan areas with FBI crime rates. It found that in most of those areas violent crime and property crime decreased between 2007 and 2016.

The study also indicated that changes in the undocumented population didn’t seem to have any effect.

But those are just facts. Pesky little things, but easily ignored by a politician like Trump, who still paints all immigrants with the criminal brush.

At a Florida rally he turned a call to shoot border crossers into a kind of joke.

Trump said, “Don’t forget, we don’t let them (border security) ...use weapons. We can’t. Other countries do. We can’t. I would never do that.”

Then he asked, “But how do you stop these people?” And someone in the crowd yelled, “Shoot them!” Which got the crowd laughing.

Trump smiled and said, “Only in the Panhandle you can get away with that statement. Only in the Panhandle!” The crowd loved it.

And as long as his supporters love that kind of talk Trump will repeat the lie. It’s why he won’t go out of his way to condemn Neo-Nazis and white nationalists. And each time an immigrant commits a crime he’ll continue to paint all immigrants with the same broad brush. Imagine saying all white people are criminals after a white criminal is caught. Or saying something like that about all African Americans.

With undocumented immigrants it’s not about the truth. It’s about what Trump and his supporters want to believe.

The truth doesn’t even require all of those scientific studies, just a little common sense.

Most immigrants come here to work. The greatest fear of every undocumented immigrant is deportation. The fastest way for that to happen is to get arrested.

Is it any wonder they’d avoid behavior that would cause that to happen?