The modern U.S. conservative movement can be summarized by one slogan: "feelings over facts."
While US liberals use facts and logic to guide their decision making, conservatives rely on fear-mongering and appeals to emotion. Nowhere is this better scene that GOP response to the SOTU. Don't get me wrong, Laken Riley's death is a tragedy. Even one death is one death too many. But conservatives appeal to emotions and feelings by exploiting the death of ONE person by an undocumented immigrant and using that as a justification for the deportation of millions of people. It's like using Sandy Hook to associate all white men with crime and violence.
Perhaps their fears would be justified if illegal immigrants were more likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans, but the exact opposite is true.
Some of the most extensive research comes from Stanford University. Economist Ran Abramitzky found that since the 1960s, immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born people.
There is also state level research, that shows similar results: researchers at the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank, looked into Texas in 2019. They found that undocumented immigrants were 37.1% less likely to be convicted of a crime.
Beyond incarceration rates, research also shows that there is no correlation between undocumented people and a rise in crime. Recent investigations by The New York Times and The Marshall Project found that between 2007 and 2016, there was no link between undocumented immigrants and a rise in violent or property crime in those communities.
The reason for this gap in criminal behavior might have to do with stability and achievement. The Stanford study concludes that first-generation male immigrants traditionally do better than U.S-.born men who didn't finish high school, which is the group most likely to be incarcerated in the U.S.
The study also suggests that there's a real fear of getting in trouble and being deported within immigrant communities. Far from engaging in criminal activities, immigrants mostly don't want to rock the boat.
Also:
https://news.wisc.edu/undocumented-immigrants-far-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-in-u-s-than-citizens/]Undocumented immigrants far less likely to commit crimes in U.S. than citizens
Sorry conservatives, but facts don't care about your feelings.
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