Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Looks Like Newt Gingrich is Running for President!
It looks like Newt Gingrich may be joining Mitt Romney and Rudy Gingrich and run for President on the backs of immigrants. Cox News reports that Gingrich, who it rumor has it is considering a run for the White House, targeted "illegal immigrants" for the horrible crime in Newark, New Jersey, in which three college students were murdered. It has been reported that one of the suspects -- Jose Carranza -- is an undocumented immigrant from Peru who was on bail on charges of raping a child when the murders occurred. Gingrich said another suspect is an illegal immigrant from Nicaragua with a long record of arrests who was ordered deported in 1993 but never left. However, the (Newark) Star Ledger reported Tuesday that the man has been a lawful permanent resident since 2001.
Before we overreact to the Newark tragedy, recall the recent studies showing that the crime rate among immigrants are lower than U.S. citizens. For example, a report by Ruben G. Rumbaut and Walter A. Ewing report entitled "The Myth of Immigrant Criminality and the Paradox of Assimilation: Incarceration Rates among Native and Foreign-Born Men" found that:
Because many immigrants to the United States, especially Mexicans and Central Americans, are young men who arrive with very low levels of formal education, popular stereotypes tend to associate them with higher rates of crime and incarceration. The fact that many of these immigrants enter the country through unauthorized channels or overstay their visas often is framed as an assault against the rule of law, thereby reinforcing the impression that immigration and criminality are linked. This association has flourished in a post-9/11 climate of fear and ignorance where terrorism and undocumented immigration often are mentioned in the same breath. However, data from the census and other sources show that for every ethnic group without exception, incarceration rates among young men are lowest for immigrants, even those who are the least educated. This holds true especially for the Mexicans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalans who make up the bulk of the undocumented population. The problem of crime in the United States is not caused or even aggravated by immigrants, regardless of their legal status. But the misperception that the opposite is true persists among policymakers, the media, and the general public, thereby undermining the development of reasoned public responses to both crime and immigration.
Another recent report reached similar conclusions.
And before somene talks about building a longer fence at our Southern border, keep in mind that it is not clear precisely how Carranza came to the United States. Was he a visa overstay? If so, a border fence would not have prevented his lawful entry.
KJ
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2007/08/looks-like-newt.html
Comments
Shall we make a wager, professor? This fellow is among thousands of illicit border crossers who now populate federal and state prisons, some of whom have comitted murder, rape and killed by way of motor vehicle and under the influence of alcohol. This incident is just another nail in the coffin of amnesty and any special treatment demanded for illegal aliens.
Posted by: Horace | Aug 15, 2007 8:23:40 PM
'it is not clear precisely how Carranza came to the United States. Was he a visa overstay? If so, a border fence would not have prevented his lawful entry.'
But he supported himself working as a construction worker and is yet another reason why we need workplace enforcement. If we had employer enforcement, they would not have hired him. People would know not to bother coming because there would be no job for them. Carranza might have committed similar crimes in Peru but that's not our problem.
The analogy is the IRS. What happens to compliance rates if we have virtually no audits? Compliance goes way down. But when audits are beefed up even a little, just to the point where there's a reasonable chance you'll get audited, compliance jumps. The same deterrent effect would happen with employers who illegally hire. If you make the penalty big enough and enforce enough to create odds lawbreakers won't want to play, illegally hiring will drop dramatically due to that deterrence. Will you get them all? Of course not. Do we declare a universal tax holiday just because compliance isn't 100%? Perhaps opponents are so against workplace enforcement because they know a little goes a long way.
Posted by: Jack | Aug 16, 2007 4:23:28 PM
'it is not clear precisely how Carranza came to the United States. Was he a visa overstay? If so, a border fence would not have prevented his lawful entry.'
But he supported himself working as a construction worker and is yet another reason why we need workplace enforcement. If we had employer enforcement, they would not have hired him. People would know not to bother coming because there would be no job for them. Carranza might have committed similar crimes in Peru but that's not our problem.
The analogy is the IRS. What happens to compliance rates if we have virtually no audits? Compliance goes way down. But when audits are beefed up even a little, just to the point where there's a reasonable chance you'll get audited, compliance jumps. The same deterrent effect would happen with employers who illegally hire. If you make the penalty big enough and enforce enough to create odds lawbreakers won't want to play, illegally hiring will drop dramatically due to that deterrence. Will you get them all? Of course not. Do we declare a universal tax holiday just because compliance isn't 100%? Perhaps opponents are so against workplace enforcement because they know a little goes a long way.
Posted by: Jack | Aug 16, 2007 4:25:02 PM
Newt's been on immigration since this summer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WaZgF1rEYU
Posted by: drew from immigrants list | Aug 17, 2007 1:45:10 PM
Exactly right, Jack. It is impossible to guess how much crime is prevented by enforcing the law, but we have millions of examples of the outcome of not doing so. Furthermore, the fence does not have to be 100 percent successul to be to cost effective, and it is obvious (Duh!) that the efficacy of a fence is not dependent upon the number of visa overstayers who are not kept out. If we can save thousands of Americans from being victims of the criminal element following ordinary illegal aliens, by building a fence, then most Americans would agree that it should be done.
Posted by: Horace | Aug 18, 2007 8:00:27 AM
I haven't read the link provided to Walter A. Ewing but based on what I am familiar with of his work, I would not trust anything he writes. His 'Missing The Forest For The Trees' article skirted the issue and dismissed immigration concerns for environmental reasons as 'green xenophobia'. Serious academic writers don't stoop to that level but propagandists do. His basic argument is that since the high population EU is more energy efficient than the high population USA, USA population growth from immigration = no problem. As if the two are mutually exclusive. His second argument is the old 'enforcement is futile' lie, citing spending and border patrol figures but conveniently overlooking the complete lack of deterrence due to lack of employer enforcement.
Posted by: Jack | Aug 15, 2007 5:16:11 PM