I was recently in El Paso, TX, visiting a friend who's lived there all his life. He rarely goes across the border into Juarez now, because that Mexican city is among the most violent in a violent Mexico.
But El Paso if still very safe. In fact, with 18 murders last year it ranked #2 safest in US for years. Baltimore, which has 100K less folks (636,000 residents) had 234 killings last year!
And El Paso is rife with guns, being close to border and in a state where folks love and own lots of guns. Plus, the poverty level in El Paso is over 24%!
All the immigrants in El Paso actually help keep down the crime rate:
"If the immigrant community represents a large proportion of the population, you're likely in one of the country's safer cities. San Diego, Laredo, El Paso?these cities are teeming with immigrants, and they're some of the safest places in the country." ( Jack Levin, criminologist, Northeastern University in Massachusetts)
Rub?n G. Rumbaut, University of California, Irvine:
"The evidence points overwhelmingly to the same conclusion: Rates of crime and conviction for undocumented immigrants are far below those for the native born, and that is especially the case for violent crimes, including murder."
Bureau of Justice Statistics reports number of non-citizens (that includes legal immigrants) in state, local, and federal prisons and jails at about 6.4 percent (warning, pdf--look at tables 15 and 20).
In an NBER working paper, economists Butcher + Piehl opine here that the immigration process itself selects folks with low potential to be criminals. Hispanics especially, unlike the Italians and Irish in previous centuries, who did commit more crimes--and were less welcome here by folks
But El Paso if still very safe. In fact, with 18 murders last year it ranked #2 safest in US for years. Baltimore, which has 100K less folks (636,000 residents) had 234 killings last year!
And El Paso is rife with guns, being close to border and in a state where folks love and own lots of guns. Plus, the poverty level in El Paso is over 24%!
All the immigrants in El Paso actually help keep down the crime rate:
"If the immigrant community represents a large proportion of the population, you're likely in one of the country's safer cities. San Diego, Laredo, El Paso?these cities are teeming with immigrants, and they're some of the safest places in the country." ( Jack Levin, criminologist, Northeastern University in Massachusetts)
Rub?n G. Rumbaut, University of California, Irvine:
"The evidence points overwhelmingly to the same conclusion: Rates of crime and conviction for undocumented immigrants are far below those for the native born, and that is especially the case for violent crimes, including murder."
Bureau of Justice Statistics reports number of non-citizens (that includes legal immigrants) in state, local, and federal prisons and jails at about 6.4 percent (warning, pdf--look at tables 15 and 20).
In an NBER working paper, economists Butcher + Piehl opine here that the immigration process itself selects folks with low potential to be criminals. Hispanics especially, unlike the Italians and Irish in previous centuries, who did commit more crimes--and were less welcome here by folks
