Is there any evidence that illegal immigrants commit violent crime at a greater rate

Is there any valid evidence that illegal immigrants commit violent crime at a greater rate than US citizens or legal aliens? Even the Center for Immigration Studies, a lobby that opposes granting any for of legal status to illegal aliens at that testifies against reform consistently admits there is no such evidence.

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"There's no evidence that immigrants are either more or less likely to commit crimes than anyone else in the population," Janice Kephart, a CIS researcher, said last week on the PBS NewsHour.

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From USA TODAY 7:58 p.m. EDT July 16, 2015So if there is no greater threat from illegal aliens than from "Joe who lives next door" is there a valid reason to claim they are a violent threat or to threat them differently from anyone else in the US?

I wouldn't trust such an opinion myself, and in fact I'm not sure I'd trust anything that could be dug up on the subject at this point because political correctness rules this issue and political correctness has a stake in whitewashing it.HOWEVER: They are ILLEGAL. It doesn't matter at what rate they commit crimes, we should not be allowing ANYONE into the country illegally, and all the more so if ANY OF THEM, ANY, ANY, ANY, commit crimes at ANY rate.

But should we not have compassion? Did Jesus not tell us to feed the children? Do illegals not need to eat, do they not pay taxes, do they not harvest our food, clean our homes, water our lawns, cut our grass and do so many of those menial jobs folk don't seem to want to do? Do they not pay into Social Security and Unemployment Compensation? As Christians should we not welcome those who come to strive for a better life, who flee oppression, intolerance, right wing despotism; who come and work and raise families and get educated and their kids become lawyers and doctors and run for President?

No. It is not compassion to reward lawlessness. If you want to take care of the poor of the world, go to them. Go help them improve their own societies.

No, and those who claim otherwise are either grossly misinformed or prejudiced.The only evidence that is propped up for this myth are claims like this, which has been the approach of Ann Coulter and other right-wingers:"While illegal immigrants account for about 3.5 percent of the U.S population, they represented 36.7 percent of federal sentences in FY 2014 following criminal convictions, according to U.S. Sentencing Commission data."Such claims fail to consider that the incarceration data is bound to be skewed because a great many of undocumented immigrants sentenced by federal courts is not for violent crime. Hagan and Palloni (1999; "Sociological Criminology and the Mythology of Hispanic Immigration and Crime") have outlined evidence that existing immigration and criminal justice policies inflate Hispanic incarceration rates. Furthermore, the Pew Hispanic Center reports that:"Among unauthorized immigrants sentenced in federal courts in 2012, 68% were convicted of 'unlawfully entering or remaining in the United States,' 19% were sentenced for drug offenses, 7% were sentenced for other immigration related offenses and the remainder (6%) were sentenced for other crimes."From: "The Rise of Federal Immigration Crimes."So there is no evidence at all that undocumented immigrant commit violent crimes at a higher rate than U.S. citizens. On the contrary, in fact, there is a large body of scholarly research that incontrovertibly suggests that undocumented immigrants commit crime at a lower rate -- and significantly, that undocumented immigrants function in a sociobiological context to reduce the overall violent crime rate.Here's a brief sampling of the relevant literature on the subject, all of which provide evidence that immigrants (undocumented and authorized immigrants alike) do not commit violent crimes at a higher rate than U.S. citizens:Rumbaut, R.G., 2008. Undocumented Immigration and Rates of Crime and Imprisonment: Popular Myths and Empirical Realities.Wadsworth, T., 2010. Is Immigration Responsible for the Crime Drop? An Assessment of the Influence of Immigration on Changes in Violent Crime Between 1990 and 2000.Rumbaut, R.G., Ewing, W.A., 2007. The Myth of Immigrant Criminality and the Paradox of Assimilation.Stowell, J., Messner, S., McGeever, K., Raffalovich, L., 2009. Immigration and the Recent Violent Crime Drop in the United States: A Pooled, Cross-Sectional Time-Series Analysis of Metropolitan Areas.Akins, S., Rumbaut, R., Stansfield, R., 2009. Immigration, Economic Disadvantage, and Homicide: A Community-Level Analysis of Austin, Texas.Zatz, M., Smith, H., 2012. Immigration, Crime, and Victimization: Rhetoric and Reality.Kubrin, C., Ousey, G. Exploring the Connection between Immigration and Violent Crime Rates in U.S. Cities, 1980—2000*.*Analysis of 159+ U.S. cities with population greater than 100,000, and study focused on Latino immigration. The total number of city-year observations in their multivariate models is 463. Results are statistically significant.Kurin and Ousey (2009) examined homicides in large urban areas and found that cities with large undocumented populations had lower rates of homicide as compared to cities that did not have large numbers of undocumented people."Relevant quote from the above paper:A popular perception is that immigration causes higher crime rates. Yet, historical and contemporary research finds that at the individual level, immigrants are not more inclined to commit crime than the native born. Knowledge of the macro-level relationship between immigration and crime, however, is characterized by important gaps. Most notably, despite the fact that immigration is a macro-level social process that unfolds over time, longitudinal macro-level research on the immigration-crime nexus is virtually nonexistent. Moreover, while several theoretical perspectives posit sound reasons why over-time changes in immigration could result in higher or lower crime rates, we currently know little about the veracity of these arguments. To address these issues, this study investigates the longitudinal relationship between immigration and violent crime across U.S. cities and provides the first empirical assessment of theoretical perspectives that offer explanations of that relationship. Findings support the argument that immigration lowers violent crime rates by bolstering intact (two-parent) family structures.Also see:Lee, M., Martinez, R., 2009. Immigration reduces crime: an emerging scholarly consensus. Book Series: Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance, 2009.This is a meta-analysis of current literature on the subject. A comprehensive review of the literature — which has used a copious amount of research methodologies, statistical tests, and different approaches to the collection of data — lead the authors to conclude that immigrants do not increase the crime rate and in many cases actually suppresses it. This, then, prompted the authors to argue that there is an emerging consensus among the scholarly community that immigration — undocumented and otherwise — is not linked with increased crime rates.That's just for starters.

No human is illegal. That's a disgusting and dehumanizing way to describe groups of people.

Okay, let me get this straight. The effects of U.S. political pressure, meddling, and corporate interests ignite massive drug wars in Mexico and Central America, driving crime rates and poverty up, giving families no other choice but to seek haven in the north, and you're calling them the lawless ones?

Golly gee, I'm not allowed to comment on one level of lawlessness, huh? I have to agree with you about all the causes and effects too, or I have no right to have an opinion. ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS ILLEGAL. It doesn't stop being illegal just because there are causes that YOU think are more important.,And you must think you are omniscient to be so sure of a whole causal chain like that.Morally the idea is corrupt anyway, since moral choices aren't determined by anything outside your own knowledge. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

That depends on whether political posturing counts as a valid reason.

How is not vilifying a whole population rewarding anyone?How is recognizing legitimate needs a reward?

Jesus preached compassion for the lawless:

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Matthew 25:35-36 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

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Actually, in this case, it would be compassion for folks who are from the same ethnic background as some people who are lawless (which obviously enough, is every ethnic background in the world), but who aren't necessarily lawless themselves.I would guess that Jesus would never have dreamed he'd have to be so nitpicky.

Where's the talk of reward in that?

My friend Victor is here illegally. He walked about 120 miles across the West Texas desert to get here, when he was thirteen years old. He worked on ranches for a while, but has been working at a dairy for years now, mostly as the caretaker for new calves. Twelve hour days, six day weeks. He gets reasonable pay and lodging, but forfeits all of the withheld taxes, 'cuz if La Migra finds him, it costs him $3000 to get the Coyote to sneak him back in. His mother way down deep in Mexico has a running car and a pretty nice house because of the money he wires home. He's never been in legal trouble, other than La Migra. He is allowed all the flies he could ever want to eat as a side benefit of working there.He's a big part of the reason that we're not paying $7.00 a gallon for milk.He and his compadres are a big reason that this part of the world is still liveable.

And if he buys gas he pays taxes. And if he buys clothes he pays taxes. And if he buys shoes he pays taxes. Edited by jar, : appalin spallin