Posts Tagged ‘crime’

Undocumented Teen Commits Suicide in Jail — Cops must be held accountable

// August 24th, 2008 // 3 Comments » // Gender, Human Rights, Immigration

A 17-year-old migrant student of Clear Lake High School who was apprehended by cops after an illegal left turn, committed suicide in jail less than 48 hours later. Excerpts from the Chron.com article follows:

Arturo Chavez’s back was flush against a 7-foot partition for the cell’s shower. A blue blanket was twisted into a noose, with one end wrapped around his neck, the other tied to a shower head. [...]

It may never be known what swept over Chavez, who illegally emigrated from Guatemala four years ago and spent much of his time trying to improve his English and working to send money home.

All he had made for himself in the U.S. seemed to hang in the balance as Chavez was locked up at the police station and awaiting transfer to county jail.At one point, when the holding-cell door was opened, Chavez bolted for freedom, according to a police report.

With officers running behind, the 5-foot-3-inch Chavez made it outside and scrambled up a chain-link fence, but was grabbed by the feet.

The wire atop the fence ripped into his hands.

In the scramble, he was shocked twice with a taser and hit multiple times with a baton, according to police.

Houston attorney Randall Kallinen said the officers used excessive force to apprehend Chavez.

“He had been severely beaten,” said Kallinen, who added that a head injury could bring on suicidal thoughts — a mix worsened by solitary confinement. Results of an autopsy are pending.

Compassion aside, rabid nativists and their supporters are showing their disregard for humanity once again by posting their hateful and ignorant comments in discussions over his death. Consider this one by MsTexass:

Our fine police department did their job and I am thankful to know they are protecting our streets. Being Illegal in America should = NO RIGHTS, NO JOBS, NO NOTHING

Since when is it the job of law enforcement to use excessive force on teenagers, STUDENTS, who are not yet adults? Arturo Chavez was not yet 18, meaning he had not begun to accrue illegal presence in the United States, which by itself, is not even a crime. His fake ID, insurance and evasion from law enforcement does not add up to the punishment of death. And contrary to the wishes and beliefs of anti-migrant nativists, an ‘illegal alien’ has civil rights in the United States. If you want to cite the rule of law at every turn and that ‘illegal is illegal,’ you should also be prepared to hear that “the 14th Amendment is the 14th Amendment.” How redundant?
(more…)

Undocumented Immigrants and Crime – Dispelling Myths

// June 26th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Immigration

Kyle asked via email whether there are any studies which show that undocumented immigrants commit less crimes than American citizens. The one study we should be familiar with is the one from IPC last year, which is here. This was the summary of their research:

  • At the same time that immigration—especially undocumented immigration—has reached or surpassed historic highs, crime rates have declined, notably in cities with large numbers of undocumented immigrants, including border cities like El Paso and San Diego.
  • Incarceration rate for native-born men in the 18-39 age group was five times higher than for foreign-born men in the same age group.
  • Data from the census and other sources show that for every ethnic group, incarceration rates among young men are lowest for immigrants, even those who are least educated and least acculturated.

There is also one from this year (2008) -
Immigrants and Crime: Setting the Record Straight <http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/index.php?content=fc080313a> (Immigration Policy Center – March 2008) – Dispels myths about immigrants and criminality.

Washington-based nonprofit Immigration Policy Center, found that on the national level, U.S.-born men ages 18-39 are five times more likely to be incarcerated than are their foreign-born peers. And, while the number of illegal immigrants in the country doubled between 1994 and 2005, violent crime declined by nearly 35% and property crimes by 26% over the same period.

One 2005 study conducted by researchers from Harvard University and the University of Michigan found that immigrants actually commit fewer crimes than native-born citizens.

Another study, which examined data from the U.S. Census Bureau, found that among men aged 18 to 39, the incarceration rate for native-born citizens is five times higher than for the foreign-born individuals. This held true within ethnic and national-origin groups; native-born Latinos, for example, were more likely to be incarcerated than foreign-born Latinos.

A more recent study by the Public Policy Institute of California  is limited to California but also focused on all immigrants. The report summary follows:

Immigrants are far less likely than the average U.S. native to commit crime in California, according to this issue of California Counts. For example, among men ages 18-40 – the age group most likely to commit crime – the U.S.-born are 10 times more likely than the foreign-born to be in jail or prison. Even among noncitizen men from Mexico ages 18-40 – a group disproportionately likely to have entered the United States illegally – the authors find very low rates of institutionalization. Such findings suggest that longstanding fears of immigration as a threat to public safety are unjustified.

The PPIC even determined that on average, between 2000 and 2005, cities such as Los Angeles that took in a higher share of recent immigrants saw their crime rates fall further than cities with a lower influx of illegals.

While we can win the arguments using the data sets from the studies above, the bigger problem is media and public perception of “illegal immigrant.” Usage of “illegal” as a noun functions as prima facie evidence of “criminality” for most people. We have to counter the false perception that “illegal presence” in this country is a crime–it is NOT.

Secondly, even if there are high rates of institutionalization amongst undocumented immigrants, we can turn to sociological premises and studies. A great analogy can be drawn with the case of African American males — just because they make up the majority of our prison populations, does not mean that African Americans are bound to be “criminal.” Rather, it points to the racism in our criminal justice system, socio-economic conditions such as poverty and lack of opportunity.

Similar conditions apply to Hispanic populations in prisons. Here is another great sociological paper countering the mythology of Hispanic immigration and crime. It is almost a decade old but the premises of the study still hold.

The USA also has the highest rates of incarceration in this country and with the rise of the migrant-prison complex (increased crackdowns on undocumented immigrants, detentions, border security), the focus is indeed on jailing immigrants for profit.

The following is from http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org/ referring to the incarceration of undocumented immigrants:

1. The government doesn’t keep statistics on the breakdown of
documented and undocumented immigrants.

2. The 270,000 number is probably an estimate. If so, it’s probably an
estimate of the number of undocumented immigrant prisoners *during the
course of the year.* The 2.1 million figure is the prison population
on a give date, like 12/31/05. You can’t compare the two numbers.

See these links for more:

http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/2008/04/undocumented-com…

http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/2008/05/so-what-about-th…

If I find any other relevant studies, I will update this post.

More resources

Being Illegal is NOT a Crime

// February 24th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Immigration

In the next series of blog posts, I want to cover the issue of criminality and crime surrounding the notion of ‘illegal immigration.’ Hopefully, some of the information is new and compelling, and makes for an interesting read.

Contrary to popular belief, maintaining ‘illegal’ presence in the United States is NOT a crime. Why do I feel compelled to note this today? Because I am tired of reading comments like “illegal immigrants are criminals, they should be deported!” Or “why are these students even allowed to register in our schools, they should be handed over to INS, prosecuted and deported.” Even worse are the misguided blog posts now and then that hype the criminal element of illegal immigration, depicting us as rapists and murderers who are responsible for the new crime wave and overcrowding jails and prisons. Never mind the fact that crime rates have declined steadily for the past two decades and there isn’t a preponderance of evidence to prove that immigrants, or illegal aliens, commit more crimes than Americans in general.

Lesson 1 – Being in this country illegally is not a criminal offense. It is a civil infraction. Deportation proceedings are NOT criminal proceedings; they are civil proceedings. See the video by Rudy Guiliani who dispels the myth of illegal immigration being a crime in the United States.

Now here is another point to ponder till tomorrow: if being ‘illegal’ is not a crime, should we step back for a moment and call the notion of ‘illegal immigrant’ a misnomer and a misguided term used to label and dehumanize migrant workers, undocumented students and our families? A motorist that runs the red light is not called an illegal driver so why are we calling migrants that live in the United States without proper documentation, ‘illegal immigrants’ and consequently, criminals?!

Tomorrow, we will expand more on the power of discourse, labels and the reclaiming of identity.

Disclaimer – I am by no means, justifying ‘illegal immigration’ by playing with words. I am simply pointing out that most people have already been played with words, including us. Our discourse has been shaped by the opposition and those in power, and in order to move past misguided perceptions, we need to reshape the dialogue on immigration and set some facts right.