Why I think Crime and ILLEGAL immigration are related.

Why I think Crime and ILLEGAL immigration are related.

I'm seeing it here in Indianapolis first hand. The murder rate was up 46% so far this year BEFORE a family of 7 was killed in their home because there were (incorrect) rumors in the neighborhood that they had money and other valuables in their home. Sure, the suspect in that case was an ex-con, but I think people without job opportunities become desperate. As illegal immigrants pour into our country, they displace workers at the lowest level of the socioeconomic ladder. People whose job as a janitor at Wal-Mart is their life blood. High School drop-outs without the opportunity to bounce back like the rest of us might be able to.

Everybody loses with illegal immigration, except the employers. The immigrant risks death coming into the country, only to be a low-paid worker without any of the rights the rest of us take for granted, like safe working conditions, etc. The working poor in the US (who, because they are citizens at least have some rights) lose their jobs and possibly turn to crime out of desperation. Middle class Americans stay trapped in their gated communities to avoid being victims of these crimes of desperation. We all lose. But the employer gets an extremely low-wage worker with no rights at all. Why is the meat packing industry one of the biggest employers of illegal immigrants? Is it because these jobs are dangerous and an illegal immigrant is not about to file a workman's compensation claim?

If the United States needs more immigrants, then we should increase the number who are allowed in LEGALLY. Unless what we really want is a 21st century version of slavery.

"Why I think it is CRIME to hire undocumented workers and how it is related to growing crime" and I will agree. Again the immigrant is not to blame. They are coming, in many cases, because they have absolutely nothing in their home country, principally Mexico. The worst levels of poverty and working conditions here are better than what they have. The real culprits here are the businesses that continue to employ them. Here in Texas the poultry industry and restaurant industry are huge culprits.

And referring to your last comment about allowing more people in legally, I agree, but yet again our dimwit government, in the guise of "protecting" us from terrorists, has severely limited the number of H1B visas that can be obtained. I work in education and it is very hard to hire a foreign teacher who has gone to school here, received an education degree with an F1 student visa, then when they graduate and are ready to work they can't because there are no available H1B visas. The government doesn't screen who gets these visas. The government sets a finite amount to be available and depending on the luck of the draw, they hand them out. They are protecting no one.

They are the biggest victims of all. It is deplorable that the worst possible life in the US still beats their life in Mexico. I don't have an answer for that, I wish I did. But the answer can't be ILLEGAL immigration.

I'm in IT - I think we have all the HIB visas.

......statement of "As illegal immigrants pour into our country, they displace workers at the lowest level of the socioeconomic ladder. People whose job as a janitor at Wal-Mart is their life blood. High School drop-outs without the opportunity to bounce back like the rest of us might be able to."

You know as well as anyone else :sarcasm: that jobs are so plentiful in this country that no illegal alien could ever take a job Americans will do.:sarcasm: It's only jobs that "Americans won't do" that illegal aliens take.:sarcasm: Please, for your own good, in the future NEVER combine the issue of illegal aliens and LEGAL anything is the same sentence.:sarcasm:

The one thing you said that at least some at DU might agree with is that employers are the only winners in all this.

:hi:Good luck my friend!!:hug:

....hope you come to love DU:hug: as much as I have.

Yes, there are sometimes certain issues it's best to steer clear of if possible but on the whole DU is a phenomenal place and has certainly saved my sanity many a time. You'll learn the REAL news at DU:wow: - not the crap the mainstream media spews forth but what is really going on.

:hi:WELCOME TO DU:hug:

I just don't post that often. (And I usually regret about 1/2 of the posts I DO make.) Love it here though! Spend hours reading.

When you disenfranchise your "illegals", you don't force them out, you
just force them in to the black economy (illegal economy) Then they work
anyways, and help the drugs trade, the arms trade and other underworld
professions. The problem really, is that by choosing not to regulate the
market for recreational drugs, the entire economy of mexico and most of
central america is corrupted by big profit drugs gangs. So the drugs laws
erode the economic and government power in southern nations, and as well
this has a knock-on effect of even more workers needing work in the legitimate
economy. And all the while, the most growing econmy is the drugs market.

You can't stop illegals, and you can't stop them from working, all you can
do is criminalize and disenfranchise people who have less political voice
to defend themselves than you do. It is a bitter and puerile argument, with
no real solution except more police state prison thinking, the problem to
start with.. no thanks.

If they're ready to come out of the closet and regulate the markets, then the
whole central american economy can get uncorrupted by drugs running, and the
US border can stop being a drugs policing project, and the US police can get
back to real crime policing, so you have safer streets. Then jobs will be more
above board, and the newly un-illegal economy will be taxed and provide fair wages just
like all the areas of the economy, where by seeking economic justice for all, we
find it for ourselves.

I never made the connection between drugs and the poor economies and corruption of Latin American countries.

This sometimes seems like a problem without a solution.

It is to "stop" denying that the drugs market exists, and to embrace it
instead. The same solution applies to "gays", cut the denial, embrace them
out of the closet, and get on with being equal and free. Its bloody obvious
that giving people their freedom and liberty is the solution, as is the
very basis of our progressive consensus, then by giving people their freedom
and liberty, how do you "solve a problem".

You solve it by accepting that human beings are economic creatures, first, even
before they are political creatures. If you don't have food, you can't think
to vote. If you have a country that is corrupted by big-drugs mafia, from top
to bottom, then nothing you can do will have any power as a government, and this
is a deliberate objective of the drugs war south of the border, to subvert all
central american governments to something chaotic that erodes their ability
to compete as a civil soiety with the US. It endorses evil wars like the
massacres in panama, all created by the foolish US denial fear that our own
actions caused the side effects we are paying for.

Our own racist drugs laws, our own evil wars in central america, creates a
constant chaos that erodes our own society, and then war is more thinkable,
people are poorer and more dseparate, more easily driven to war, more ignorant
and more easily enslaved. The policy today is deliberate to destroy and erode
all civiliy anywhere on earth, and the drugs war is central to it, and we are
all paying, all of us in the western world, taxed and fucked because of some
racist fools in congress and their greedy bid for zero-sum empire.

in which he said that he had no problem with people fiddling around with the hairs on an elephant's trunk, unless said elephant happened to be standing on a baby.

Illegal immigration is a hair on the trunk of an elephant named NAFTA. IOW, people are indeed desperate, especially at the bottom end of the economic spectrum, but look to the real cause, not the political sleight-of-hand.

:hi:

I see.

Illegal immigrants put guns into the hands of desperate people and encourage them to steal kill and commit crimes. Illegal immigrants are responsible for low wages and the lack of employment opportunities.

:puke:

Puulllleeeazzze.

Your post makes the connection of illegal immigration to the corporate interests in this country and I appreciate that. The corporate interests have exploited this ready made slave class for a long time. Corporate america puts a big pot of money just across the border then acts shocked and dismayed when it draws the poor and desperate.

I suppose that I also agree with your point that we need an expedited legal immigration path. But the corporate interests need the slave class in order to keep the minimum wage low and have a ready supply of defenseless labor who won't whine about horrible working conditions and low wages.

People need to understand that illegal immigration is a socio-economic phenomena that benefits corporate interests - and that is why it exists. It pays.

It is simply wrong to place all the responsibility on the illegals themselves. They are simply looking for a way to feed themselves and their families and have a life. And corporate america encourages them to break the law. This supposedly absolves them of any responsibility and they scapegoat the illegals when they are called on it. This is a shell game being played by corporate interests and scapegoating illegals will do nothing to solve the problem.


edit: sp.

Perhaps my post wasn't clear. But economics and crime are directly related. That is one reason crime was down when Clinton was President, the economy was good and people weren't as desperate. Some criminals might be born, but many others are created from circumstance.

The illegals are law abiding, hard working people. They exist in a cash only society (no bank account, have to use check cashing places or loansharks to send money home or cash checks).

Street gangs have targeted these people. Illegals don't call the police when they are mugged.

Recently, our anti-gang police unit reached out to the illegal community and requested that they report when they have been a victim of a crime. The cops have a pretty good idea about the gangs drug and gun deals, but when they bust the gang, they find tens of thousands of dollars that they did not know existed in the gang. It was stolen from illegals, and never reported.

I fully support you assertion that we should open up immigration so that people can come here legally. This is the greatest country in the world. We can make it happen.

The family (7 murder victims) had an hispanic last name. The police said it was a robbery gone bad. Then the paper had a story where the police were begging people to report crimes.


Thanks for the insight!!

Take care, and give care.

And the states with the highest immigration rates tend to have lowest unemployment and the best economies.

So you have two problems with your theory.

But I do agree with the idea that everyone in the US deserves the protections of US laws and that our immigration laws shouldn't push people to the margins and make them easy to exploit.

You need to listen to this, by the way: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2890

So you've got the chicken and the egg thing. Do the illegal immigrants create the good economy, or does the good economy attract illegal immigrants?

And desperate people without options are more likely to steal, and this murder was a robbery gone bad.

which undermines the argument.

And there's a huge difference between stealing a loaf of bread and killing somebody in a robbery gone bad.

Murder. Despicable!

They also displace people higher up the ladder. But anyone who doesn't make a million or more per year is ultimately seen as being lower class. And the lower they can all be made, the better.

Studies show that immigrant communities often have lower crime rates than comperable surrounding areas. There's no evidence whatsoever -not a shred- to support the connection that you (and others) are trying to make.

You might want to look into that, before repeating these kinds of statements.

Here's a story about crime in San Diego went down after they got tough on illegal immigration.

link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0604190203apr19,1,5329064.story?ctrack=1&cset=true




Here's a link to a news story about ILLEGAL (and that distinction is vital) immigrants being victims of crime, like the poster from New York was talking about above.

link: http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?S=4971540&nav=5kZQ

Those 14 miles of fencing? That was Clinton's operation gatekeeper- and in fact that proposal both increased immigration and crime as an unintended consequence of shortsighted policy- not immigration itself:

For example in a comprehensive book about it, Joseph Nevins notes many negative and un-intended consequences too. For example....Operation Gatekeeper's strategy of deterring illegal immigration may raise the "costs and risks of reentering the United States," encouraged illegal immigrants already in the United States to remain. (actualy, many seasonal workers not only decided to stay, they sent for their families and extended families- INS stats support this contention).

And, even though Gatekeeper may deter unauthorized immigrants from getting into the U.S., it has also encouraged, ironically, increased criminal activity in the form of migrant smuggling enterprises that now occur all along the border.

Here's a brief review of that book:

http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/lpbr/subpages/reviews/Nevins104.htm

Next, doesn't it also seem ironic to you that you're arguing about immigrants increasing the crime rate and showing evidence that they're actually targets and victims of crime? That would be sort of like blaming the elderly for rising medical costs because they get sick more often and use more (and intensive expensive) medical services- that we subsidize through Medicare.

Crime is probably a much more complex problem than I'd like it to be. I also found these two articles that talk about the plight of young, black men who are high school drop-outs. But they just document what is happening. They don't seem to know why or what can be done. (I hope I don't get flamed for posting these articles because they deal with race!)

It was the guy from New York pointing out how the illegal immigrants are victims of crime because they deal in cash that really woke me up.

Edit to add - I don't think pointing out that immigrants are victims of crime was ironic though. I said that ILLEGAL immigration is bad for them and only really helps employers. A person can be against ILLEGAL immigration - without hating the immigrants themselves. People assume when you don't like ILLEGAL immigration, you hate the immigrants. But there needs to be a better, legal way and that will help everyone.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/20/national/20blackmen.html?ei=5090&en=57e0d1ceebcbc209&ex=1300510800&pagewanted=print



link: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/opinion/26patterson.html?ex=1301029200&en=23bf0dce1434780d&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss