Shame on politicians using tragedy to push an anti-immigrant agenda

Whatever you think about illegal immigration -- and I look forward to the usual barrage of feverish comments on this point -- you shouldn’t be fooled by politicians who make spurious connections between crime rates and the presence of immigrants in our midst.

In fact, in communities where immigration has gone up, crime has decreased. And while politicians like to suggest that undocumented immigrants are a source of crime, the evidence is overwhelming they commit far fewer crimes than the rest of us (and, by the way, overstaying a visa isn’t a crime; it’s a civil offense).

Simply put: it’s not true that undocumented immigrants bring more criminal activity into the United States.

“There is just not a study out there that supports that” proposition that immigrants commit more crime, says Harvard professor Edward Schumacher-Matos, a leading expert on the impact of unauthorized immigrants on the U.S.

“Not one.”

In fact, immigrants commit fewer crimes than U.S.-born citizens:

“Data from the U.S. census and other sources show that for every ethnic group -- without exception -- incarceration rates among young men are lowest for immigrants. This holds true especially for the Mexicans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalans who make up the bulk of the undocumented immigrant population.”

Local sheriffs and politicians are not the only ones ignoring these facts. President Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano seem equally bent on painting all undocumented immigrants as “dangerous criminals” in order to justify their expanded use of round-ups and dragnets to fill our jails with people who have never committed a crime.

Unfortunately, criminalizing immigration flows comes at a steep price in terms of public safety. It drives entire communities underground. It makes it far more difficult for police to prevent and solve crimes, since witnesses and informants are loathe to contact police officers who are perceived to be little more than immigration agents. Using local police to do the dirty work of the feds also prevents victims of domestic violence and other crimes from seeking police assistance, since it too often results in jail and deportation for victims and their family members.

Here’s another fact: rounding up and jailing people for visa violations wastes billions of tax dollars each year that could otherwise go to fighting crime, building schools, and repairing bridges. This year, we’ll spend more than $2 billion to keep immigrants in our local jails -- although more than half have no criminal record at all, and 20 percent of those with a “criminal” history were arrested for minor traffic offenses.

Could it be that the local Sheriffs see the jailing of immigrants as a cash-cow?

Ironically, immigrants in our country - even those without proper documentation - pay taxes just like the rest of us, including payroll taxes, sales taxes, and property taxes. Unlike the rest of us, however, they are ineligible for food stamps, housing assistance, Medicaid and Medicare-funded hospitalization.

It’s time to cool down the anti-immigrant tirades and instead turn our collective attention to the far greater threats to public safety, namely, drunk driving and domestic violence.

This year, more than 11,000 peope will die as a result of drunk drivers – one every 50 minutes.

The frequency of domestic violence is even higher: – every nine seconds, a woman in the U.S. is assaulted or beaten. On average, more than three women and one man are murdered by their intimate partners in this country every day.

These are scary facts about social ills that afflict all of our communities, and deserve greater attention by our public safety officials. Working to stop drunk driving and domestic violence will save more lives and prevent more tragedies than rounding up immigrants ever will.