There has been a great deal of fervor over Presidential Candidate/Reality T.V. Personality, Donald Trump's recent incendiary comments wherein he stated his belief that Mexico was importing "criminals and drug addicts" to the United States. A newly released paper reviewing studies on immigrants and crime shows the reality is that both legal and undocumented immigrants to the United States are less prone to criminal behavior than U.S. born. The papers explains the following:
Abstract: For more than a century, innumerable studies have confirmed two simple yet powerful truths about the relationship between immigration and crime:
(1) immigrants are less likely to commit serious crimes or be behind bars than the native-born, and
(2) high rates of immigration are associated with lower rates of violent crime and property crime.
The conclusion is that policies vilifying immigrants and the laws derived from such policies create the perception that immigrants are a criminal class within our society. Laws that make people felons for immigration offenses, laws that make legal immigration impossible for those with minor criminal offenses or past immigration offenses, work to turn immigrants into criminals. The research into the correlation of crime and being and immigrant, however, shows, absent laws directed at them as immigrants, immigrants are less prone to criminal behavior than U.S. Citizens as a class.