Since it was learned that a few thousand Central American children have turned themselves in to Border Patrol agents at the Texas border in the past few months, the right-wing extremists (like Rick Perry) have tried to turn this into a political advantage for themselves by claiming the border is experiencing a massive "invasion". We know this isn't true -- because we have more border agents than ever before, the Homeland Security Department says our border is secure (giving it its highest security rating), and the rate of increase in undocumented immigrants in this country is at or near zero (meaning as many are leaving as are entering). This is due both to increased border security and our faltering economy.
But the right-wing extremists are just trying to claim our border is not secure. They are also trying to scare Americans into believing that the immigrants crossing that border are criminals -- and are the cause of a crime rate in this country that is too high. This is also a big lie. Most immigrants are honest and decent people, and breaking the law is the last thing they'd want to do (because it would draw attention to themselves and set them up for deportation).
If these immigrants were the cause of a massive new crime wave, one would think it should show up in the border cities (who have higher rates of undocumented immigrants). But as these charts show, that is just not happening. The charts above show the overall crime rates of Texas border cities and the crime rates of a representative sample of other American cities. I have intentionally excluded the largest American cities (where the crime rate will be higher just because of the huge population living in a small space together) and those cities with a reputation for having a high crime rate. I did that to hopefully make the comparison a bit fairer.
And frankly, the crime rates in the Texas border cities look pretty good when compared to other American cities. Even in the largest border city (El Paso), the crime rate is lower than in other cities -- and the same is true of other border cities.
But those right-wing extremists are just talking about crime -- they are trying to scare voters into thinking these immigrants cause a lot of violent crime. That's also a load of hogwash. The charts below show the violent crime rate in the same cities as the above charts -- and as you can see, the Texas border cities have a lower violent crime rate than many other American cities.
The truth is that there is no massive invasion of immigrants right now. And the border cities are some of the safest cities in the United States. The Republican extremists are lying, and they should be ashamed of themselves. Unfortunately, they seem to have no sense of shame when it comes to politics.
All of these crime rate statistics are from the website city-data.com.