Establishment Media Got It Wrong Reporting Texas’ Illegal Immigrant Crime Problem
Studies that say Texas has low illegal immigrant crime rates don’t account for the fact that illegal immigrants are not always identified immediately upon arrest.
This, according to a study that the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) published Tuesday.
“In many cases, illegal immigrants are identified only after they are imprisoned. Given sufficient time for data collection, it appears that illegal immigrants have above average conviction rates for homicide and sexual assault, while they have lower rates for robbery and drugs,” according to CIS report authors Sean Kennedy, Jason Richwine, and Steven A. Camarota.
“Significant uncertainty persists, however, as to how many illegals may remain unidentified, especially those who committed lesser offenses requiring little or no prison time. While strong claims about the overall criminality of illegal immigrants are not possible with the current data, prior research has understated it substantially.”
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Activists and academics, the report went on to say, misused data from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) in previous studies that say illegal immigrants have relatively low crime rates. The CIS report referenced a 2018 report from the Washington, D.C.-based Cato Institute that said the conviction and arrest rates for illegal immigrants in Texas were lower than those for native-born Americans. The New York Times, The Washington Post, and NPR all highlighted the Cato study.
Texas, though, can take years to identify convicts as illegal immigrants while they are in custody, the CIS report said. As a result, the studies misclassify as native-born a significant number of offenders who are later identified as illegal immigrants.
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“Properly interpreted, the DPS data suggests illegal immigrants in Texas are convicted of homicide and sexual assault at higher rates than the state average,” according to the report.
“Significant uncertainties remain, however, especially regarding lesser offenses.”
According to its website, CIS is the nation’s only think tank devoted exclusively to research and policy analysis of the economic, social, demographic, fiscal, and other impacts of immigration on the United States.
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