Session #115 · 2017–19

Speech #CREC-2017-09-14-pt1-PgH7387-2_t26

That happens from not having committee hearings and markups. It happens when you don't engage police officers in a wide breadth from many different aspects. I am disappointed that this bill did not have the opportunity to have the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations have input, and that would have been done if we had a full hearing or a hearing in the Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee, or a hearing in the Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations Subcommittee, or a hearing in the full committee as I mentioned. It lacks a constitutional construct. It begins to criminalize for associations. We are heading down a terribly unsophisticated road. According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's recent report, nationally, 48,000 juvenile offenders were held in residential facilities. We don't need to add more, but here is the outcome: they are not just held, they are deported. Again, I emphasize to my colleagues that the ages could be very young because there are no firewalls dealing with the ages that might be swept up in this wide sweep of those who deserve to be responded to in a way that is not this bill. This bill pretends to be wrapping up and rounding up bad actors that are undocumented immigrants. That is the big calling card. I would ask, Mr. Speaker, that my colleagues vote against this bill. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record ``Fact check: Immigration doesn't bring crime into U.S.,'' by PBS NewsHour. [From the PBS Newshour, Feb. 3, 2017] Fact Check: Immigration Doesn't Bring Crime Into U.S. Data Say (By The Conversation) Editor's note: In his first week in office, President Donald Trump showed he intends to follow through on his immigration promises. A major focus of his campaign was on removing immigrants who, he said, were increasing crime in American communities. In his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, Trump named victims who were reportedly killed by undocumented immigrants and said: ``They are being released by the tens of thousands into our communities with no regard for the impact on public safety or resources . . . We are going to build a great border wall to stop illegal immigration, to stop the gangs and the violence, and to stop the drugs from pouring into our communities.'' Now as president, he has signed executive orders that restrict entry of immigrants from seven countries into the U.S. and authorize the construction of a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. He also signed an order to prioritize the removal of ``criminal aliens'' and withhold federal funding from ``sanctuary cities.'' But, what does research say about how immigration impacts crime in U.S. communities? We turned to our experts for answers. Across 200 metropolitan areas (By Robert Adelman, University at Buffalo, and Lesley Reid, University of Alabama) Research has shown virtually no support for the enduring assumption that increases in immigration are associated with increases in crime. Immigration-crime research over the past 20 years has widely corroborated the conclusions of a number of early 20th-century presidential commissions that found no backing for the immigration-crime connection. Although there are always individual exceptions, the literature demonstrates that immigrants commit fewer crimes, on average, than native- born Americans. Also, large cities with substantial immigrant populations have lower crime rates, on average, than those with minimal immigrant populations. In a paper published this year in the Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice, we, along with our colleagues Gail Markle, Saskia Weiss and Charles Jaret, investigated the immigration-crime relationship. We analyzed census data spanning four decades from 1970 to 2010 for 200 randomly selected metropolitan areas, which include center cities and surrounding suburbs. Examining data over time allowed us to assess whether the relationship between immigration and crime changed with the broader U.S. economy and the origin and number of immigrants. The most striking finding from our research is that for murder, robbery, burglary and larceny, as immigration increased, crime decreased, on average, in American metropolitan areas. The only crime that immigration had no impact on was aggravated assault. These associations are strong and stable evidence that immigration does not cause crime to increase in U.S. metropolitan areas, and may even help reduce it. There are a number of ideas among scholars that explain why more immigration leads to less crime. The most common explanation is that immigration reduces levels of crime by revitalizing urban neighborhoods, creating vibrant communities and generating economic growth. Across 20 years of data (By Charis E. Kubrin, University of California, Irvine, and Graham Ousey, College of William and Mary) For the last decade, we have been studying how immigration to an area impacts crime. Across our studies, one finding remains clear: Cities and neighborhoods with greater concentrations of immigrants have lower rates of crime and violence, all else being equal. Our research also points to the importance of city context for understanding the immigration-crime relationship. In one study, for example, we found that cities with historically high immigration levels are especially likely to enjoy reduced crime rates as a result of their immigrant populations. Findings from our most recent study, forthcoming in the inaugural issue of The Annual Review of Criminology, only strengthen these conclusions. We conducted a meta-analysis, meaning we systematically evaluated available research on the immigration-crime relationship in neighborhoods, cities and metropolitan areas across the U.S. We examined findings from more than 50 studies published between 1994 and 2014, including studies conducted by our copanelists, Adelman and Reid. Our analysis of the literature reveals that immigration has a weak crime-suppressing effect. In other words, more immigration equals less crime. There were some individual studies that found that with an increase in immigration, there was an increase in crime. However, there were 2.5 times as many findings that showed immigration was actually correlated with less crime. And, the most common finding was that immigration had no impact on crime. The upshot? We find no evidence to indicate that immigration leads to more crime and it may, in fact, suppress it.
Identified stereotypes
Undocumented immigrants are portrayed as criminals who increase crime rates.
Keywords matched
immigration undocumented Border Security immigrants illegal immigration border wall Immigration deported sanctuary cities immigrant

Classification

Sentiment
Negative
Stereotyping
⚠️ Yes
Confidence
100%
Model
gemini-2.0-flash
Framing
Criminal Security threat Economic threat

Speaker & context

Speaker
SHEILA JACKSON LEE
Party
D
Chamber
H
State
TX
Gender
—
Date
2017-09-14
Speech ID
CREC-2017-09-14-pt1-PgH7387-2_t26
Paragraph
#2
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