The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has put up a website giving what it calls “10 Immigration Facts Everyone Can Agree To.” The so-called facts are both falsehoods and half-truths. Here is their #9:
U.S. Chamber’s Myth: “mmigrants are more likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans.”
U.S. Chamber’s Fact: “Immigration does not cause crime rates to rise, and immigrants are actually less likely to commit crimes or be behind bars than native-born Americans.”
FAIR’s Fact:
While legal immigrants have lower crime rates than the native-born population that is not true for the illegal alien population. Legal immigrants are screened to exclude convicts and, unless they have become naturalized U.S. citizens, they are deportable. That explains the lower crime rates for them. But illegal aliens are not screened for crimes and many not only violate our laws coming here, but also engage in a pattern of law-breaking to stay and work in the U.S. Our study of the incarceration rate among illegal aliens found that their presence in state and local prisons participating in the U.S. Department of justice’s State Criminal Alien Assistance Program had a presence 50 percent higher than their presence in the population.