Look
The immigration crackdown is not about violent criminals
For years, Donald Trump, his white-nationalist cronies like Stephen Miller, and his allies in right-wing media, have painted a narrative of an America overrun by criminal gangs of immigrants. Fox News elevates every story of immigrants committing crimes it can find, and conservative politicians play into these fears for political gain. The result is a significant number of Americans who believe that our nation is experiencing crime waves driven by the high levels of immigration we’ve experienced in recent years, particularly under Biden until his crackdown in 2024.
It’s true that America has neglected to reform its immigration policies for decades, and this has been exploited by people claiming asylum without justification. And it’s true that nations have the right to decide who gets to live there and must balance a humanitarian desire to welcome the world’s “tired and poor,” as engraved on the Statue of Liberty, against the need to ensure our communities, services and economy can absorb the influx of new residents. But the idea that these immigrants are driving crime, or unemployment, are not consistent with the evidence.
Crime rates in America are near their lowest point in decades, and far lower than the ‘90s. Furthermore, the libertarian Cato Institute has determined that legal immigrants commit crimes at about a quarter of the rate of native-born Americans, and illegal immigrants at half the rate. According to these statistics, the presence of immigrants - including illegal - actually decreases our crime rate. Nor has the influx of immigrants in recent years noticeably increased the US unemployment rate, which was lower in 2024 than in 2017. Considering illegal immigrants are not eligible for most forms of welfare (despite paying many taxes), it stands to reason that most are working. And if they’re not taking jobs from Americans, then they’re doing jobs that would have otherwise gone unfilled. The economic effect of mass deportations is thus likely to hurt employers and industries dependent on this labor, while leading to a net loss in tax revenue.
But these are academic arguments. The fight over immigration enforcement is far more influenced by emotion and appeals to our sense of justice, safety, fairness, and humanity. On this, the right’s ability to drive viral narratives has had the upper-hand, and this played a significant part in Trump’s victory. By convincing many Americans that immigrants are driving up crime and costs for Americans, they got away with promising “mass deportations” while convincing voters that their focus would be on criminal immigrants. It was only a matter of time before reality would show that these are incompatible objectives.
Americans, including most on the left, support deportation of criminal illegal immigrants, and for good reason. This is the “low hanging fruit” of a deportation regime, and the Trump administration understandably started here (though their failure to follow due process meant they made mistakes). But this was never going to amount to “mass deportation” because there just aren’t enough criminal immigrants to amount to huge numbers, and deporting criminals is something all administrations do anyway (at varying rates).
So, it was only a matter of time before the focus would have to shift to peaceful, hard-working immigrants, as many of us expected would happen thanks to the elevation of people like Stephen Miller. This is what has led to the protests in L.A. - not outrage over the deportation of criminals, but anger over the indiscriminate and cruel targeting of immigrants at their places of work and school in response to Miller’s orders to ramp up deportations by rounding up non-criminals. We’re not having a thoughtful conversation about what to do with people who are here illegally and how to prioritize. Rather, masked agents in unmarked vans are descending on people just trying to support their families. Should they have come here the way they did? Perhaps not, but terrorizing people who are just here to have a taste of the same opportunity we take for granted is not the way a decent nation should approach this problem.
We must not look away from this. This situation was made possible in part by conservative leaders and media amplifying instances of immigrant violence in order to convince the public that we’re experiencing an invasion of dangerous gangsters. The other side of the story lacks the same reach, but their experiences deserve our attention as well. Inspired by a recent op-ed, the following clips provide a taste of what is being done in our name to the decent immigrants whose only crime was to flee desperate circumstances by exploiting a dysfunctional immigration system that our political class has consistently (and at times willfully) failed to address.
“Stay calm mom, I am here” - boy tells his distraught mother as she is detained immediately following a loss in immigration court.
Caption translation: “A woman and her 3-year-old son were detained and separated in front of the father of the family when they were taken into custody by agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at a courthouse in downtown San Antonio. Rusber Pérez recounts that six years ago, he left Venezuela and emigrated with his family to Chile, where his son was born. In 2024, they arrived in the United States through the CBP One application."
The point of sharing these videos is not to say that those in this country illegally have the right to stay. Nor is it to deny that any deportation, no matter how humanely conducted, will not sometimes create traumatic experiences for those being made to leave against their will. The law is the law, and even non-violent offenders must abide by it.
But the manner in which these have been conducted, with masked agents picking people up from their places of work or immediately after a loss in immigration court, separating families, and not distinguishing based on criminal history, time in the country or community ties, is not merely designed to uphold the law. It is an intentional campaign of fear meant to discourage people from coming to America, and to encourage self-deportation.
I get it. Too many people have come here, our border enforcement has been too lax, and there is an argument that by causing unnecessary trauma for a small number of people, more people will leave voluntarily on their own terms, which is better (and much easier) than rounding them up, too. But this is an “ends justify the means” approach which coarsens our national conscience and turns America from a place that is proud of its immigrant heritage, to one that revels in their distress. This may be the result of a bi-partisan failure to create rational immigration policy, but this failure is being taken out on people who contribute to our society and economy and who took great risks to come here.
If this country were really led by people doing God’s will, it would treat the least of these with dignity and respect by giving people fair warning, prioritizing those who have not put down roots here yet or who didn’t follow the law by making an asylum claim (even if a weak one), etc. Instead, we’re led by nativist nationalists who are happy to take in white “refugees” from South Africa while kicking out the poor brown people who make our meals, harvest our crops, construct our buildings and clean our homes. This will make America poorer, economically and morally.