Misinformation, Misunderstandings, and Outright Lies About Immigration

El Pipe (Insert Phallic Symbol Comment Here) I just finished reading an article about immigration (in Contexts) by Robert J. Sampson, a Harvard sociologist. It is amazing how strongly we, as a nation, resist knowing any of the facts in this area.

The more I learn about immigration, the more incomprehensible the standard conservative–and occasionally liberal–talking points become. Immigrants are criminals. Immigration is bad for the U.S. Immigration breaks down “family values.” Fred Thompson vocalized the most paranoid claims at the Prescott Bush Awards Dinner (in 2007, I think): “Twelve million illegal immigrants later, we are now living in a nation that is beset by people who are suicidal maniacs and want to kill countless innocent men, women, and children around the world.”

I don’t even know where to start with that. Immigration = violence? Immigration = terrorism? Illegal immigration = terrorism? And haven’t our terrorists generally been (1) legal immigrants or (2) good ol’ American citizens? Maybe we should have learned our lesson about letting actors and lawyers run our nation. Should have.

Anyway, Sampson distills — quite readably and with pretty graphs — a lot of hard, empirical research about immigration and crime. We don’t know everything about these phenomena yet (which means crackpots like Bill O’Reilly know even less, despite their claims). But everything we do know suggests some things that are exactly the opposite of the common “wisdom.” For instance:

• The national trends in violence for half a century have been the reverse of immigration trends. That is, higher immigration has corresponded to lower national violence, and vice-versa.
• Latinos are, in general, less violent than American Blacks or Whites, when their socioeconomic status is accounted for.
• For many decades now, immigrant neighborhoods and communities are less violent than non-immigrant areas.
• Illegal immigrants are, as far as we can tell, also less violent than non-immigrant Americans.

Sampson speculates, given the consistently lower rates of violence among immigrants (both legal and illegal) that the 25-year crime decline in the U.S. might be partly due to the influx of less-violent immigrant populations. The author goes on to point out some painful ironies:

1. The U.S. has been a fairly violent place for three centuries. Immigrants may well “dilute the American identity,” but that might be a good thing.
2. The historical violence of the U.S. is ascribed by many researchers largely to the influence of White immigrants, especially from Ireland and Scotland, during the past couple of centuries.
3. The data show that second-generation immigrants are more violent than first-generation, and the third generation shows violence levels almost equal with the Americans who have lived here since forever.

Apparently, becoming an American means learning to be as violent as the rest of us, even if it takes three or four generations to get there.
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