Why facts still matter in immigration debate

A multi-faceted propaganda blast about illegal aliens and the crimes some commit permeates American news venues from internet blogs to the Presidential 2015 campaign announcement of Donald Trump.

In it Trump blasted “some” Mexican immigrants for being “rapists” and “criminals;” Mexico, he said, was not sending its “best people” to the United States.

{mosads}Recent attempts to denigrate Mexicans, legal and illegally in the U.S., come from a former San Jose police detective in “The Hill” and from Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News replacement Tucker Carlson (who grew up in San Diego, the largest U.S. border city). Both use questionable statistics, assertions and context to buttress claims that illegal aliens and Mexican-born people are the criminal scourge of America.

Carlson goes out of his way to accentuate that 14 percent of federal prison inmates are Mexican citizens. That is confirmed by federal Bureau of Prison statistics. That sounds like a lot to the Carlson viewer, however, he doesn’t tell his audience there are only 188,722 federal prison inmates; that makes the 14 percent figure practically meaningless.

To be exact, there are 26,737 Mexican citizens in federal prisons – mostly for immigration violations (15,852), some for drug smuggling violations and only two (2) percent for crimes of violence (murder, armed robbery, assault, etc.). 

That 2 percent amounts to roughly 535 Mexican citizens in the entire U.S. federal prison system, locked up for crimes of violence. What would Carlson’s audience think if they knew that a grand total of 37 Mexican citizens were in federal prison for violent crime violations?

Why does Carlson fulminate about 14 percent of Mexican federal prisoners in prison mostly for drugs, drug smuggling and immigration violations and not mention the 86 percent, 125,326 non-Mexican federal prisoners who aren’t in prison for immigration violations? Why doesn’t Carlson discuss the true numerical context of the federal prison system?

He also tells his viewers that a major portion of California state prison inmates are illegal aliens. A quick check of the California Department of Corrections shows that of 128,643 state inmates approximately 10 percent have immigration holds on them.

That is not a majority.

Former San Jose (CA) Detective Ron Martinelli writes in The Hill that, “Previous administrations have deliberately kept Americans in the dark about illegal immigrant crimes.” That statement is untrue. 

I fact checked his claims on immigration. Martinelli’s analysis and mathematics are imperfect.

He quotes the gadfly Judicial Watch organization “that 50 percent of all federal crimes were committed near our border with Mexico.” Over what time period? 

Martinelli goes on to say: “of the 61,529 criminal cases filed by federal prosecutors; 40 percent or 24,746 were in court districts along the southern borders of California, Arizona and Texas.”  Over what time period?

“Near our border with Mexico…” Are they kidding?

“Near the border” includes six of the largest cities (and counties) in the United States (Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio). Martinelli and Judicial Watch assertions mean nothing.

Martinelli says that “19 percent or over 12,000 criminal cases filed…were for violent crimes;” plus, 22 percent or 13,300 cases were for drug related felonies. But we know from the Bureau of Prison numbers above that his statement is fantasy. He says that 75 percent of all criminal defendants who were convicted and sentenced for federal drug offenses were illegal immigrants. 

But we know from the current statistics quoted above that his assertion is not true. 

Martinelli says that “Illegal immigrants were also involved in 17 percent of all drug trafficking sentences and one third of all federal prison sentences.” But only 14 percent of federal inmates are Mexican citizens with 7.5 percent being other foreign-born (22 percent total). Foreign- born does not mean “illegal.”

Martinelli then declares, “Texas is an epicenter for illegal immigrant crimes.” Here is where facts flunk the former San Jose detective.

He refers to a recent report of the Texas Department of Public Safety that essentially destroys his gratuitous analysis. The report: Between June 1, 2011 and March 31, 2017, “1179 illegal aliens” were “arrested for homicide” – murder. Between those same dates, of the 1179 arrests for murder, the entire state of Texas (State Attorney General’s office and over 254 county District Attorneys plus thousands of assistant prosecutors) managed to convict only 485 of these suspects. That is a “41 percent” conviction rate. 

That rate suggests incompetence, corruption and/or malfeasance-in-public-office.

In other words, either Texas prosecutors are the worst in the entire world or 59 percent of illegal alien Mexicans charged with murder in Texas were arrested for looking Mexican on a Sunday afternoon and charged with murder for the hell of it.

These disastrous conviction numbers apparently have eluded the former detective, the Texas justice system and the American media. 

Contreras is the author of The Mexican Border: Immigration, Wr and a Trillion Dollars in Trade and Murder in the Mountains: War Crime in Khojaly both published by Floricanto Press…He formerly wrote for the New American News Service of the New York Times Syndicate.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.