Republicans have loved to push the rank lie about immigrants being criminals, and because a sizable number of Americans believe that lie, Republicans continue to keep pushing it.
But a lie is a lie, and in fact areas with pro-immigrant policies continue to be safer for all, according to an expansive study that looked at nearly every single county across the U.S.
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“Counties that adopted certain sanctuary policies related to undocumented immigrants around 2014 saw a drop in both property and violent crime, according to a new study from a researcher at UT Austin,” KUT reported.
These pro-immigrant policies have frequently been demonized by Republicans, going so far as unlawfully blocking federal funding unless they cooperate with deportation forces.
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Nothing’s stopping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from obtaining a judicial warrant if someone they’re seeking is in police custody, as immigrant rights advocacy group America’s Voice previously noted in this handy explainer. What so-called sanctuary city policies say is that police won’t unconstitutionally hold an immigrant eligible to go home, just so ICE can come and get them.
Localities have had to shell out millions in settlements for unlawfully holding migrants for ICE. “A federal judge concluded in 2018 that holding inmates beyond their release dates under civil immigration detainers violated their 4th Amendment rights,” the Los Angeles Times reported in 2020.
Policies limiting cooperation with ICE can also mean that community members without legal immigration status may feel safer reporting crime, and when they’ve been the victim of crime. This benefits everybody.
“Communities with a higher proportion of foreign-born Latinos had lower crime rates compared to non-sanctuary counties,” Marta Ascherio’s research also found, KUT continued. “The same was true in communities with a high proportion of native-born Latinos.”
These findings reinforce past research showing the benefits of these sort of pro-immigrant policies—not that it really mattered to the officials spreading the lies. Once again, they keep doing it because it works. Recent polling from NPR/Ipsos said that 49% of respondents correctly labeled a claim that immigrants are more likely to commit crimes as a lie. But just four years ago, that number was 60%.
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