I’ve wondered what is the purpose of deporting immigrants?
I’ve wondered what is the purpose of deporting immigrants? Is it really to keep our streets safe or is it to maintain and create jobs for the conservative majority through the hiring of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents?
Everyone can agree wanting ‘safe and secure’ neighborhoods but at the expense of who? Many neighborhoods limit which group of people they decide to include on the basis of race, class, and dare I say, immigration status. The exclusion of immigrants based on the false premise of how they are deteriorating the safety and living conditions of the community are unfounded. In fact, it has been noted that cities that enact sanctuary policies attempting to protect unauthorized immigrants from deportation by limiting the ability of city employees which include police officials from inquiring into the legal status of an individual experience a decrease in crime rates.
While there may be no strict empirical analysis for this causal relationship, sanctuary cities decrease crime rates and hence increase safety, anecdotal reasoning does indicate how such policies enable unauthorized immigrants agency and security by being able to report crimes as witnesses without the fear of being reprehended for it and eventually deported. This ability to report crimes by unauthorized immigrants not only allows the safety and security for legal citizens and residents but it also allows their own individual safety as well.
If an undocumented immigrant was physically assaulted, robbed, raped, or threatened for whichever reason, and that undocumented immigrant lived in a city primarily anti-immigrant that individual immigrant will refrain from reporting the crime committed against him/her out of the bigger fear of being questioned as to their legal status and eventually deported. This silencing of unauthorized immigrants leads to an increase crime rate against them even though it may not be technically reported at times and thereby creating an unsafe neighborhood for everyone since the violation of an individual’s safety is the violation of everyone’s safety especially when government officials decide to turn a blind eye on crimes.
Despite all this, many will still question the efficacy of sanctuary policies by pointing out crime incidents perpetuated by individuals who just so happen to be undocumented. These crime incidents cannot be tolerated regardless of the individuals immigration status but to generalize an entire population on the basis of an individual’s actions is not fair for the rest of the law abiding members of that population that happen to be immigrants as well. As a matter of fact, “U.S.-born adult men are incarcerated at a rate over two-and-a-half times greater than that of foreign-born men” according to the Public Policy Institute of California. Moreover, PPIC indicates how in “California, U.S.-born men have an institutionalization rate that is 10 times higher than that of foreign-born men (4.2% vs. 0.42%). And when we compare foreign-born men to U.S.-born men with similar age and education levels, these differences become even greater.” For further information on crimes and immigration: Crime, Corrections, and California: What Does Immigration Have to Do with It?
So what’s all the fuzz about of immigrants being perpetual criminals and a detriment to society? Has the detention and deportation of immigrants become a game and an industry to profit from? Is it really to ‘uphold’ the rule of the law? Or is there more to the story than meets the eye? STAY TUNED !
IN THE MEANTIME WATCH THIS:
