Violent crimes committed by illegal immigrants often cause angry reactions about sanctuary cities. However, statistics don’t seem to bear out that these cities have higher violent crime rates.
Mother Jones cited figures from the Center for Immigration Studies and FBI Uniform Crime Report, comparing murders in San Francisco, a sanctuary city, with those in similarly sized nonsanctuary cities.
San Francisco had 5.75 murders per 100,000 residents in 2013, according to the reports. The rates were higher among nonsanctuary cities. Indianapolis had 15.17 murders per 100,000 followed by Dallas, 11.39; Columbus, 11.06; Jacksonville, 10.99; and Fort Worth, 6.08.
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A 2013 study by the Department of Urban Planning and Policy at the University of Illinois-Chicago found that immigration enforcement caused distrust in the legal system by legal and illegal immigrants.
The survey of Latinos in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, and Phoenix showed that 45 percent were less likely to report a crime because of the enforcement.
Nick Gillespie, editor in chief of Reason.com, pointed out that many crimes have declined in the country during the past 20 years while the foreign-born population has increased. He wrote that the issue of illegal immigrants involved in crime receives more attention when a high-profile murder occurs in a sanctuary city, such as the 2015 murder of Kate Steinle in San Francisco by an illegal alien.
Boston’s violent crime rate per 100,000 residents is only slightly lower than the violent crimes committed in San Francisco,
according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which reported that national statistics show legal and illegal immigrants are less likely to commit a crime than natural-born citizens.
Both Boston and San Francisco are coastal cities that attract immigrants. Although the suspect in the San Francisco killing was a convicted felon and an undocumented immigrant, the incident doesn’t reflect a national trend, the publication stated.
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