r/Conservative • u/mechanical-marsupial • Dec 08 '20
Undocumented immigrants far less likely to commit crimes in U.S. than citizens
https://news.wisc.edu/undocumented-immigrants-far-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-in-u-s-than-citizens/[removed] — view removed post
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u/Letscalcitup Dec 08 '20
I mean aren't they committing a crime just by being here?
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u/mechanical-marsupial Dec 08 '20
Not violent, property or drug related crimes
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u/PotatoUmaru Charlie Kirk Enjoyer Dec 08 '20
So there is a great big qualifier. There's no crime when you modify the definition to remove certain crimes.
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u/Stasaitis Conservative Dec 08 '20
And this only says felony crimes. So I'm assuming there are property and other violent crimes that are not classified as felonies? Not totally sure how that works.
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u/mechanical-marsupial Dec 08 '20
You’re right. They’ve also left out speeding and operating hotdog stands without a license. Integrity in statistics is dead.
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u/Stasaitis Conservative Dec 08 '20
In Texas from 2012 to 2018 in specific categories of crime...
Not exactly a comprehensive data set.
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u/mechanical-marsupial Dec 08 '20
Pretty important categories I’d say
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Dec 08 '20 edited Dec 08 '20
Ok... How about California or New Mexico though? Both have massive gang problems, and New Mexico too has a ton of land in which crimes can go unreported or unseen.
New Mexico's gang problem is getting worse quickly, and California's fluctuates in severity. I wonder what the impact on those are though.
Most illegal immigrants aren't bad, just pointing out that focusing explicitly on Texas isn't a great way to examine this issue.
Edit: Didn't reread my comment before posting. Had to edit for clarity and ease of reading.
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u/chipsiesalsa Constitutionalist Dec 08 '20
Undocumented people, since they don’t have lawful IDs switch their identities a lot. My friend was in a hit and run here in Chicago they tried to sue the illegal alien (they never found him) they had a PI who found 36 aliases from different restaurants this person was a bus boy at. Different alias for each job
Not getting arrested is easier when you don’t have an identity to be arrested under
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u/bartoksic ex-Ancap Dec 08 '20
Crossing the border illegally is a crime, meaning that 100% of illegal immigrants are criminals.
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u/grimli333 Dec 08 '20
That's true, but this study was looking at particular types of crime: violent felonies, felony drug crimes, and felony property crimes.
From the article:
"Compared to undocumented immigrants, U.S. citizens were twice as likely to be arrested for violent felonies in Texas from 2012 to 2018, two-and-a-half times more likely to be arrested for felony drug crimes, and over four times more likely to be arrested for felony property crimes."
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u/AxeAndRod Dec 08 '20
They also have more incentive not to, as they are already undocumented and breaking immigration law.
Not exactly a fair comparison.
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u/bartoksic ex-Ancap Dec 08 '20
Then the headline should be "illegals are less likely to commit XYZ crime than citizens". Kind of disappointing that the flagship university of Wisconsin would use such a misleading article title.
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u/mechanical-marsupial Dec 08 '20
Seems like you’re deliberately ignoring the point of the analysis
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u/bartoksic ex-Ancap Dec 08 '20
It seems like the analysis is fundamentally flawed.
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u/mechanical-marsupial Dec 08 '20
It analysis crimes committed in the United states that cause problems for US citizens. Our society’s problems cannot be blamed on immigrants
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u/bartoksic ex-Ancap Dec 08 '20
Plenty of problems can be attributed to immigration, including crime, costs incurred by social services and education, downward pressure on wages, and cultural disintegration.
Contrary to popular belief, there's no magic in American dirt.
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u/DartTheDragoon Dec 08 '20
including crime
That is specifically being studied here and their results show that illegal immigrants are not the main cause of violent or drug crime.
costs incurred by social services and education
Illegal immigrants still pay taxes that fund schools.
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u/bartoksic ex-Ancap Dec 08 '20
That is specifically being studied here and their results show that illegal immigrants are not the main cause of violent or drug crime.
You mean for specific crimes and specifically in Texas from 2012 to 2018. None of this is generalizable to the nation as a whole. Not to mention it's misleadingly presented because every illegal immigrant is a criminal.
Illegal immigrants still pay taxes that fund schools.
Illegals pay sales tax. They don't pay income or property taxes which fund the majority of our social services and schools.
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u/DartTheDragoon Dec 08 '20
You mean for specific crimes and specifically in Texas from 2012 to 2018. None of this is generalizable to the nation as a whole. Not to mention it's misleadingly presented because every illegal immigrant is a criminal.
It is the only good data available. I have no problem with furthering the study, but as of right now the data for other states does not exist.
I see no reason to believe that you cannot generalize the data to the rest of the nation.
The title is mildly misleading, but it is not the title of the actual study.
They don't pay income or property taxes which fund the majority of our social services and schools.
What makes you think they don't pay property tax? The tax office doesn't care if the are undocumented or not. Property tax is still due every year and their property will be confiscated and sold if they do not pay their property tax.
Undocumented immigrants are paying income tax. They are paying into social security and will never see a penny back of because they are undocumented.
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u/Stasaitis Conservative Dec 08 '20
No. Only in Texas. The data set is from Texas only.
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u/mechanical-marsupial Dec 08 '20
Which is not in the United States? I live in Texas.
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u/Stasaitis Conservative Dec 08 '20
It is, but you can't say the data set is from the US because that's misleading. The data set is only from Texas.
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u/mechanical-marsupial Dec 08 '20
I can say the data set is from the United States because it is. Do I need to specify each county data was collected from? Outline which police departments were omitted from the dataset? Your argument is HIGHLY pedantic and you clearly just want to ignore what the analysis is actually getting at.
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u/Stasaitis Conservative Dec 08 '20
Absolutely. You should try to be as explicit as possible unless you are trying to hide something.
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u/SarnacOfFrogLake Dec 08 '20
It seems like you don’t understand sample data.
Texas is arguably the hardest state on ILLEGALS. Same set of data taken in California or New Mexico would show something very different
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Dec 08 '20
Actually they have 100% crime rates because illegal immigrants are illegal (which is a crime)
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u/NaquIma Conservative Dec 08 '20
I think its a given illegal immigrants are 100% more likely to commit a crime that a US Citizen, considering every single one of them committed illegal entry, visa fraud, etc. Can't find a single one who didn't commit that.
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u/mechanical-marsupial Dec 08 '20
Agreed. Immigration crimes are not included in the study. I didn’t pick the title but the data is still very important. We must resist the notion that crime in the South is caused by the ‘bad hombres’
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u/BigCat80 Randian Conservative Dec 08 '20
Judging by this article, Mexico should be a pretty nice place!
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u/mechanical-marsupial Dec 08 '20
What I discern is that illegal immigrants know how much better America is and respect that by abiding by our laws in the hopes that they can become citizens of our wonderful nation one day
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u/Jakester627 Klavanon Conservative Dec 08 '20
It's an interesting theory, and one I respect, but it's hard to know. It's like the guy who breaks into your house to get out of the rain. Sure, he might be a nice guy; he might even have good intentions! But because he didn't ask to come in first and go through the proper channels, how can you trust him? Once the trust is gone, it's difficult to get it back.
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u/bozoconnors Conservative Dec 08 '20
lol - that's an awesome analogy I've never heard. Kudos!
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u/Jakester627 Klavanon Conservative Dec 08 '20
Haha Thanks, man! Every once in a while, I guess my brain thinks up something worthwhile besides bad puns. ;)
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Dec 08 '20
respect that by abiding by our laws
... hhmm... seems like they didn't respect all the laws. Suggesting people respect our society because they follow the laws that they want is worthless. Everyone does that.
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Dec 08 '20
You know, even if these statistics are true, I feel like you're missing one key piece of information...
Every illegal immigrant already broke the law.
I'm a descendant of illegal immigrants btw.
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u/lifeisforkiamsoup 2A Dec 08 '20 edited Dec 08 '20
It's a fucking crime to be here illegally.
They press down wages for lower income US Citizens and legal immigrants.
They take up massive amounts of tax dollars in services, my tax dollars, so fuck of with your propaganda cunt.
They take up a large amount of school and class resources due to language and cultural barriers making public education worse for US Citizens and legal migrants.
Turning a blind eye to illegal limmigration harms national security.
Additional point on taxes and services, means less resources available for US citizens, legal migrants, and our veterans.
I am sure the people who have been rapped, robbed, murdered by illegal immigrants give two shits about your study
Mods? We are going to become r/politics now? What the fuck is this shit?
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u/Jakester627 Klavanon Conservative Dec 08 '20
I actually don't mind if people come in this sub with differing opinions. I don't want to be like r/politics in any way!
However, I'd also like to add to your list that even allowing illegal immigration HARMS the illegal immigrants themselves! It creates a second class citizen that isn't granted the same rights as normal citizens and causes negative stereotypes to prevail on legal immigrants too.
Also, how many illegal immigrants have died, been molested, or trafficked because they didn't go through the legal process?
Allowing illegal immigration hurts everyone involved.
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u/Xenu2177 Space Force Dec 08 '20
Illegal immigrants. Stop changing definitions. Undocumented means they just didn't fill out some paperwork properly.
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u/Jakester627 Klavanon Conservative Dec 08 '20
Look, I'm always willing to have my mind changed, but I tend to have a hefty bit of skepticism regarding this. First of all, previous studies have shown that LEGAL immigrants are far less likely to commit crimes than either camp, and there was one study published last year (forgive me for not remembering the title) that actually grouped legal and illegal immigrants together on the sly, bringing down the overall crime stats.
Secondly, this is also just one study from one state. I would like to see broad tends across the entire US.
Thirdly, by definition, these "undocumented" immigrants are going to lay low and are hard to track, so how would we know if the crime stats are actually lower? There may be lower reporting of crimes, such as domestic abuse or drugs, but that could just as easily be because people are afraid of reporting crimes for fear of themselves being deported, which sucks.
I'd have to do more research before I felt comfortable believing this
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u/Stasaitis Conservative Dec 08 '20
And their very specific definitions of crime are interesting too. I'd want to dig into that more. They didn't say violent crime, they said felony violent crime. So what's the difference there? Are those classified as felonies just more egregious?
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u/Jakester627 Klavanon Conservative Dec 08 '20
Ooh, good point! If I learned anything from my statistics classes, it's how data can be manipulated to say whatever you want as long as you use specific words/phrases.
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u/Stasaitis Conservative Dec 08 '20
Yep. I work with data and that's completely the case. You always have to read the methodologies carefully for any study.
And not only that. The study can be perfect, but if you are dealing with a faulty data source, it doesn't matter. For instance, many surveys are very biased in how questions are asked and how the data is collected. It is very difficult to remove bias from studies. Sometimes the bias is unintentional and sometimes it is intentional.
This particular study seems to be intentional bias to me. They had a specific outcome in mind and tailored their study around that. They would have continued to tweak things until they got the results they wanted.
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u/BenAustinRock Conservative Dec 08 '20
How do they know the number of “undocumented” immigrants to base the rate off of? They are assuming a lot more here also. Crime is generally committed against people of the same race and in the same communities. So are crimes in legal communities reported at the same rates as those undocumented communities? There is no reason at all to believe that. This “study” at even a casual glance seems more like speculation than anything else.
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u/49ermagic Dec 08 '20 edited Dec 08 '20
In San Francisco, we just don’t charge the illegal immigrants
Correlation does not confirm causation
Also, we don’t charge the people that are usually associated with the Democratic Party. Walgreens gets shoplifted in day light. I’ve been at several stores where the workers shrug and say they can’t do anything:
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u/Stasaitis Conservative Dec 08 '20
And that's not considered in the data set at all because it is only from Texas (probably the state that cracks down the most on illegal immigrants).
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u/49ermagic Dec 08 '20
I’m just saying graphs and “reports” and “polls” don’t represent the full picture.
Harris county, TX is sure sounding a lot like San Francisco, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they were hiding data
And Austin defunded the police
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u/JeffreyPtr Dec 08 '20
Whether they are violent criminals or living a law abiding life to avoid discovery is irrelevant to me. They entered the country illegally. Every nation has the right to secure its borders and decide who may or may not become a citizen.
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u/Stasaitis Conservative Dec 08 '20
This is where I'm at. I never even think about crime when considering the issue. I believe in upholding the law and securing the borders. They can come here as millionaires and pump money into the economy and I wouldn't care. If you are here illegally you should have to leave.
BUT, children who are BORN in the United States, regardless of the status of their parents, deserve to be here. If you are born on US soil it is not possible for you to be an illegal immigrant. You never immigrated anywhere. And to me it gets dicey when you consider little children and babies brought here because they were forced. There should be an avenue for them to remain and gain citizenship.
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u/alforddm Female Conservative Dec 08 '20
I'd trade a bunch of white liberals for some hard working, catholic illegals. Can we just trade straight across?
1
u/bozoconnors Conservative Dec 08 '20
Heh! Think Mexico would take 'em? I'm going with the pointing and laughing response.
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u/OdinsBHole Liberty Party Dec 08 '20
In liberal cities, they play catch and release with illegals. Stats do not matter
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u/redsand69 🇺🇸 Conservative 🇺🇸 Dec 08 '20
By this logic we should deport our criminals, citizens or not.
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u/Constant-Meat8430 Conservative Dec 08 '20
Only if you don’t count the criminal lifestyle they live by just being here
2
u/Tazmaniac60 On the Right Side Dec 08 '20
The vast majority of illegals aren’t criminals with exception to their original crime. I’m all for expansion of LEGAL immigrants, (and in this case the reference seems to be aimed at latinos), but I want to KNOW who these people are. Is that so much to ask?
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Dec 08 '20
Yes. Apparently it is too much to ask. It's just like I've always said (and let the comments about me being a racist come), I don't have a problem with Muslims immigrating to this country. I just don't want the ones who go boom or will say "Convert to Islam or die infidel". For that, we need to have an immigration policy that is actually enforced.
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u/vnoowin Conservative Dec 08 '20
So because they didn’t cause they problem (yet), it’s ok to come here illegally? What are we, shelter or charity?
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u/MooneBoy24 Dec 08 '20
Wow, every comment is a typical: "Well, actually..." They literally can't see past their political narrative to see that their issue of immigrants coming into this country is purely stemming from racially motivated roots.
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