Hello. My name is ______. I live in Tucson, AZ. I cannot say what I do for a living, as I am not authorized to speak on behalf of my agency. However I will begin by saying that part of my job duties entail appearing in court every day for the PM initial appearance session and documenting the results for each defendant. Aside from the occasional homeless guy yelling "Well you know what your Honor, you can go fuck yourself!"(the response is usually "Motion denied!"), this aspect of my day is quite boring. I've found that I have time to pursue a new project...
About a month ago I was watching a news podcast (I believe it was AC360), and an elderly couple in Phoenix was interviewed. Both individuals were heavy-set, the man I recall having a beard and ponytail, and some sort of American flag shirt. The woman had purple hair. The reporter asked them something along the lines of "How are illegal immigrants affecting the community?". They didn't miss a beat. "So much crime!" despaired the man. "All the gangs. The gangs are just awful!" cried the purple-haired woman.
That got me thinking. I'm in court every night, I know that the vast vast majority of the defendants are US citizens. I know that it costs $3,000 to hire a coyote to smuggle someone across the border. I know that if you smuggle a backpack of weed into the country, you get paid $15,000 (when I heard this I briefly considered changing careers to that of 'drug mule'). This information leads me to believe that the undocumented individuals responsible for drug trafficking are not the same undocumented individuals arrested during, say for instance, a raid on a Panda Express.
I think that for this debate to continue forward in a constructive manner, we need to differentiate between "undocumented workers" and "undocumented criminals". The undocumented workers come here to stay, and work, and avoid notice. Christ, they paid $3,000 just to get here! Not to mention whatever it costs to have someone forge them papers, and now they have E-verify so those are probably getting pretty costly, then they have to buy new clothes, find a place to live, etc etc. If I had to use that much effort and risk my life just to get some crappy job raking leaves, you betch-your ass I'd be avoiding law enforcement contact like the freakin bubonic plague! But these are the people the conservatives claim are leeching off the system, which may or may not be true- it's essentially impossible to gauge how much tax money a group of people who don't exist on paper recieve in social services. However they are definately NOT the people responsible for "all the gangs" and "so much crime".
The mules are another matter. Yes, the mules are responsible for some crime. They are paid to come here to deliver the drugs that Americans want to buy. However the mules aren't hanging around. As soon as that first backpack is delivered, they're going back to Mexico for another backpack. When asked where they live, they almost always provide an address in Mexico (undocumented workers, on the other hand, almost always provide a local address). I would contend that the "mules" make up the majority of the defendants who are undocumented, which is a minority of the total number of defendants. But exactly how much of the total crime can be attributed to "undocumented criminals"? From what I've gleaned in conversation, the conservatives here seem to beleive that about 40-50% of all crime can be attributed to "them illegals". I estimate that they are responsible for 2-10% of the crime. There's only one way to find out...
I began documenting how many people were on the court list every day, and I noted how many of them had immigration detainers. Now, I realize that an immigration detainer does not necessarily mean the individual is not a US citizen, and that's why they have Federal immigration courts with their own special prosecutors and defense attorneys. But an immigration detainer is the best indicator I can get at an initial appearance session. On 06/18/10 I began posting my findings on any Fox News comment board I could find that was related to SB1070, because I believe that's where the majority of purple-haired ladies and bearded ponytailed flag-wearing people get their news. But I believe Fox moderators were not posting my findings, rendering my work useless. So I turn to you, DKos community, a choir to which I may preach. I would like to post my daily findings here, with daily updates(excluding the days I'm off work). Please keep this work, and refer any douchebag saying the illegals cause all the crime to this blog.
Keep in mind that the numbers I will be throwing out only respresent the evening court- court is held at 9am and 8pm daily. This information is publicly available, and the hearings are open to the public, so I will not be presenting any information that could not be discovered simply by showing up and taking notes.
Here goes.
06/18/10: 1 detainer out of 34 defendants = .029 = 3%
06/24/10: 1/37 = .027 = 3%
06/25/10: 2/42 = .047 = 5%
06/26/10: 0/25 = .000 = 0%
06/27/10: 2/34 = .058 = 6%
06/29/10: 2/44 = .045 = 5%
07/01/10: 1/29 = .035 = 4%
07/02/10: 1/20 = .050 = 5%
07/07/10: 0/33 = .000 = 0%
07/08/10: 2/39 = .051 = 5%
07/09/10: 0/23 = .000 = 0%
07/10/10: 0/34 = .000 = 0%
07/11/10: 0/21 = .000 = 0%
07/15/10: 0/41 = .000 = 0%
07/16/10: 0/38 = .000 = 0%
07/21/10: 0/38 = .000 = 0%
07/22/10: 1/42 = .024 = 2%
07/23/10: 0/42 = .000 = 0%
07/24/10: 0/39 = .000 = 0%
07/25/10: 1/36 = .028 = 3%
07/28/10: 1/51 = .020 = 2%
07/29/10: 0/30 = .000 = 0%
07/30/10: 0/30 = .000 = 0%
08/04/10: 0/35 = .000 = 0%
08/05/10: 0/40 = .000 = 0%
08/06/10: 0/36 = .000 = 0%
08/07/10: 0/16 = .000 = 0%
08/11/10: 1/28 = .035 = 4%
08/12/10: 2/37 = .054 = 5%
08/13/10: 1/36 = .027 = 3%
08/19/10: 2/46 = .043 = 4%
08/20/10: 1/43 = .023 = 2%
08/21/10: 0/31 = .000 = 0%
08/22/10: 0/33 = .000 = 0%
08/26/10: 0/59 = .000 = 0%
08/27/10: 0/39 = .000 = 0%
09/03/10: 0/36 = .000 = 0%
09/04/10: 2/29 = .069 = 7%
09/05/10: 1/35 = .028 = 3%
09/08/10: 1/32 = .031 = 3%
AVERAGE PERCENT OF CRIME COMMITTED BY INDIVIDUALS WITH INS DETAINERS
As of 07/11/10: 12/607 = .0197 = 2%
As of 08/05/10: 15/837 = .0179 = 1.8%