One of the ways that Donald Trump was able to secure votes was by appealing to the basic human need for safety and security. He drew on stereotypes (remember that time when he announced his candidacy by calling Mexicans rapists and criminals)? Or his claims that blacks are worse off than ever before (all of us living in abject poverty in America’s inner cities) and consistent “othering” of immigrants in order to convince people that he was the only one who could be trusted to make the country safe again.
Turns out, he also used some creative storytelling (otherwise known as “alternative facts”), too. Which should not at all surprise you if you’ve been paying attention.
He has already pledged to end funding to sanctuary cities under the claim that they protect undocumented immigrants who commit violent crimes. Yet, according to studies, it seems that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the United States.
Analyses of census data from 1980 through 2010 show that among men ages 18 to 49, immigrants were one-half to one-fifth as likely to be incarcerated as those born in the United States. Across all ages and sexes, about 7 percent of the nation’s population are noncitizens, while figures from the Justice Department show that about 5 percent of inmates in state and federal prisons are noncitizens.
Of course, for families who have lost loved ones to crimes committed by undocumented immigrants, the pain of their loss combined with the politics of immigration make for frustration and anger which could easily lead to anti-immigrant sentiment. But being seduced by anger or fear can lead us down a slippery slope of profiling and a reliance on made-up facts instead of data.
Yes, we have an immigration problem that is in desperate need of reform. Yes, some illegal immigrants commit crimes, some of them violent. But so do blacks, whites, Asians, Christians and Jews. Mr. Trump often claims that two million undocumented immigrants have been convicted of crimes, but in fact the figure is actually 176,000, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The reality is, Americans have appreciably more to fear from their fellow citizens than from undocumented immigrants.
False information also leads us to stop seeing our neighbors as human and instead as suspects to be questioned and feared. And in our fear, we can begin to make assumptions about who belongs (aka who is an immigrant) and who does not.
"Public safety does not need to come at the cost of civil rights," she continued. "I am sharing this incident here not to ask anyone here to find fault or take sides. We are all on the same side and can use this as an opportunity to learn and improve. The responsibility to uphold civil rights is one that all of us share, and we need to do our part and also expect the police to do their part."
Security and safety are important to everyone. And the immigration system is definitely in need of reform. But let’s have the immigration conversation without the fearmongering and lies. For an administration that consistently claims to want to unite us as Americans, falsehoods that make us fearful of immigrants seem only to work at tearing us further apart.