The Problem With the Democratic Party and Immigration
THE PROBLEM.
MeltingIce.Blog
1/26/202614 min read
Democrats like Amy Klobuchar do not want to eliminate ICE - she wants to "improve ICE" so ICE can continue to apprehend and deport undocumented immigrants without killing American citizens.
Progressives want to eliminate ICE and stop locking up undocumented immigrants altogether.
Which side are you on Robert Reich? Do you support ICE like Obama and Amy Klobuchar?
Do you support arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants?
Where's Democrats long promised "pathway to citizenship?"
Obama, Klobuchar and Establishment Democrats seek to "improve ICE" and keep hunting down undocumented immigrants for arrest and deportation.
THE PROBLEM with the Democratic Party is how Establishment Democrats such as Barack Obama, Amy Klobuchar, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton still want to track, locate, arrest and deport undocumented immigrants by the millions based on their false claims that deporting undocumented immigrants is a good thing for America, a great thing for the U.S. economy and the American worker.
The facts do not support their false claims about immigration.
David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's economic policy advisor has recently written extensively how Americans should be welcoming undocumented immigrants into society, the workplace and our communities as undocumented immigrants significantly improve our U.S. economy and quality of life.
Robert Reich, just face the jury and answer the question: Do you support the federal government - whether it's a Republican admin or Democrat admin - locating, arresting, detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants?
This is the real immigration problem inside the Democratic Party THAT'S NOT GOING AWAY.
Anti-immigrant Democrats such as Amy Klobuchar and Barack Obama support locating, arresting, detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants; whereas young Democrats OPPOSE locating, arresting, detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants.
You can ignore this party fact and issue until you can no longer ignore it.
For years the Democratic Party promised voters and undocumented immigrants a viable pathway to citizenship decades ago and have failed to codify a viable pathway to citizenship, while anti-immigrant establishment Democrats built immigrant prisons, detained children and families in such prisons and deported undocumented immigrants.
Do you support locating, arresting, detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants?
I OPPOSE locating, arresting, detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants.
Establishment Democrats like Deporter-In-Chief Obama, Amy Klobuchar and others agree with Donald Trump and Republicans: they all want to arrest and deport millions of undocumented immigrants as fast as possible, as efficiently as possible for the so-called "good of America" and our way of life.
Ronald Reagan had a better idea: in 1976 Ronald Reagan's AMNESTY BILL provided amnesty for 2.7 million undocumented immigrants.
George W. Bush OPPOSED deporting millions of undocumented immigrants and supports a viable path to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants.
George W. began painting art featuring undocumented immigrants.
President Bill Clinton lied against undocumented immigrants to gain public support for arresting and deporting millions of undocumented immigrants.
Did Obama separate families at the border? Yes.
Special Report: Obama's Controversial Policy of Immigrant Family Detention Could Expand Under Trump
Obama sent families to private prisons.
Obama: Legalization for illegal immigrants won't happen "mañana"
President Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) on November 6, 1986, which granted amnesty and a pathway to legal status for nearly 3 million undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. before January 1, 1982. The bipartisan law aimed to curb illegal immigration through employer sanctions, while legalizing those already established in the country.
Key details of the 1986 Act:
Eligibility: To qualify, individuals had to prove continuous, unlawful residency since January 1, 1982, pay fines and back taxes, and demonstrate knowledge of English and U.S. civics.
Scope: Approximately 2.7 to 2.9 million people obtained legal status, including a special program for agricultural workers.
Employer Sanctions: The law made it illegal to knowingly hire undocumented immigrants, aiming to reduce the magnet for illegal immigration.
Outcome: Although intended to be a one-time measure to solve the issue of undocumented residents, the effectiveness of the employer sanctions was limited, and the unauthorized population continued to grow in subsequent years.
Reagan described the legislation as a "clear, comprehensive, and meaningful" way to regain control of U.S. borders while addressing the "humanity" of those already living and working in the country.
Stockman - Talk about fiddling while Rome burns. Donald Trump and his unhinged immigrant bashers surely take the cake.
They are rushing headlong into a mass deportation campaign based on an “immigrant invasion” narrative that is both factually wrong and directionally upside-down.
Moreover, ridding the nation of millions of immigrants as demanded by MAGA firebrands like Stephen Miller would actually pose a head-on threat to the very Golden Age of Prosperity that the Donald has made his signature promise.
So we need to get the facts of the big picture straight.
To begin, the reason that there has been a surge of “illegal immigration” in recent years is not because the Democrats have been deliberately importing voters via so-called “open border” policies.
Or that nefarious foreign countries have been emptying their jails and insane asylums.
Or even that fuzzy-headed leftists and NGOs have thrown out vast welfare-based welcome mats at taxpayer expense.
To the contrary, the real cause is a demography-based shortage in the US labor market that has functioned as a powerful economic magnet drawing in tens of millions of unskilled and entry level economic migrants and their families from nations near and even far.
This labor market magnet, in turn, is a function of pure demographics: To wit, the fertility rate among the native born population slipped below the replacement rate about 50 years ago—-thereby creating with a lag of several decades an intensifying US worker shortage.
The table below narrates the fertility rate decline at five-year intervals since 1970.
Essentially, once the swollen generation of Baby Boomers reached the child-bearing age, they collectively (albeit unconsciously) chose not to replace themselves!
For several decades the TFR (total fertility rate) was only marginally below the replacement level of 2.1, meaning a slow long-term shrinkage of the native born work force.
But since 2015 the rate has taken another leg lower.
Thus, at the current 1.6 TFR, the native born population and work force would shrink by 25% every generation!
US Fertility Rate Of The Native Born Population, 1970 to 2025
Obviously, it takes about 20 years to make a new generation of workers—-and even longer when the TFR is falling owing to delayed average age of child birth.
Not surprisingly, therefore, the TFR decline after 1970 first showed up as a decline in the growth rate of the native-born working age population—with the growth rate dropping from 1.3% per annum during the five years ending in 1970 to just 0.1%during the interval ending in 2005.
America’s Beneficent Immigrant “Invasion” Versus The Trumpian Big Lie, Part 2
There has surely never been a more egregiously wrong, mean-spirited, liberty-threatening “big lie” in all of American history than then Trumpian claim that America has been “invaded” by swarms of dangerous immigrants.
These illicit populations are allegedly infested with vicious criminals, the insane, welfare cheats, drug cartel operatives, secret Chinese agents and other flotsam and jetsam of foreign lands.
The big picture truth, however, is more nearly the opposite.
By Grok 4’s best estimates from the available data, there are about 95 million people in America today who are either immigrants since 1970 or their offspring. That’s fully 28% of the total US population.
Yet crime rates among both the legal immigrant and undocumented immigrant populations are well below those for the native born.
Accordingly, the entire Trumpian narrative about rampant crime among illegal aliens is based exclusively on anecdotes and notorious cases of sometimes beastly criminal acts.
These violent criminal acts are heinous, of course, and their perpetrators should obviously be prosecuted to the maximum extent of the law; and, indeed, that is the very purpose of regular state and local law enforcement.
At the same time, however, you can’t base immigration policy, or any other actions of the state which pertain to broad swaths of the population, on anecdotes and isolated cases.
If you did that for immigration policy, for instance, indigenous Americans should have deported European immigrants long ago.
So for want of doubt and clarification of the Big Picture, we present below the most salient, recent and sound data available on violent crime rates (as defined by the FBI) among native-born, foreign-born and undocumented immigrant populations.
This Texas based data is unique in that it is based on comprehensive arrest records by state and local police departments within the state.
These arrest records are then linked to immigration status from Federal data sources.
Moreover, it covers all felony offenses over a seven-year period from 2012 to 2018.
As it happens, Texas is the only U.S. state that systematically matches arrest data from its Department of Public Safety (DPS) with U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immigration records.
So the output of these matched records offers unique and unparalleled insight into crime rates by immigration status.
Texas’ proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border is also salient given its large and widely dispersed immigrant population (both documented and undocumented).
In short, this broad, rigorous dataset allows for direct comparisons of crime rates (excluding immigration violations), revealing patterns that are not available elsewhere.
Needless to say, the table below speaks for itself. Total felony arrests among the undocumented population of Texas during this seven year period (third column) were 60% lower than for the native-born population (first column) on a per 100,000 basis.
Likewise, homicide and drug crime rates was als0 60% lower, while the property crime rate was 75% below that of the native born population.
To be sure, a far better and more effective vetting and screening process at US consulates in the home countries of immigrants would potentially eliminate much of the residual population of immigrant criminals that are unfortunately found among all groups.
And, as we explain further below, that could be readily accomplished with a change in America’s rigid but wholly obsolete immigration quota system to an economic migrant focused arrangement.
Violent Crime Rates Per 100,000 In Texas, 2012 to 2018
However, just 24% or 101,172 persons on this list had convictions (either in the US or their home countries) under the FBI’s violent crime categories (homicide, sexual assault, assault, and robbery).
By contrast, the balance consisted of 51,933 convictions for immigration law violations, which are inherent in their illegal status, and 272,326 convictions in non-violent categories.
These latter included the kind of everyday crimes that local law enforcement is geared to handle regardless of the immigration status of perpetrators:
Drug Law Infractions: 56,533 (primarily drug possession/sales/trafficking).
Traffic Offenses: 49,000 (frequently including DUI/DWI)
Larceny: 18,234 (theft)
Fraudulent Activities: 15,979 (fraud, forgery, etc.)
Burglary — 14,301 (property crime)
All other: 118,279
Today David Stockman debunks Republican and Democrat anti-immigration lies:
Ronald Reagan and his economic adviser, David Stockman.
Years later David Stockman debunked his own (Reagan's) "Trickle-down Theory" as false, wrong and untenable.
Former President Donald Trump on Thursday seized on the arrest of an undocumented man in a high-profile murder in Georgia to underscore his assertion that many migrants are dangerous and "coming from prisons."
But research suggests immigrants actually commit fewer crimes than people born in the U.S.
"The findings show pretty consistently undocumented and illegal immigrants have a lower conviction rate and are less likely to be convicted of homicide and other crimes overall compared to native-born Americans in Texas," Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C., told USA TODAY.
Speaking in Eagle Pass, Texas, Thursday, Trump cited the case of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student, who was brutally murdered last week by a Venezuelan migrant.
He referred to "Biden migrant crime" and blamed President Joe Biden for allowing millions of people to come into the U.S. from other countries.
"And they're coming from jails and they're coming from prisons and they're coming from mental institutions and they're coming from insane asylums and they're terrorists," Trump said, adding that jails from all over the world are "emptying out" into the U.S.
None of the data analyzed by researchers supports those accusations.
New York’s Release of Nearly 7,000 Individuals With ICE Detainers
A recent Department of Homeland Security press release set off a political firestorm after DHS reported that New York released nearly 7,000 individuals who had active ICE detainers between January and early December 2025.
ICE had specifically asked the state to hold them for federal custody, but New York declined to honor those requests.
According to DHS, the individuals in those detainer cases had been charged with or convicted of:
29 homicides
2,509 assaults
300 weapons offenses
207 sexual predatory offenses
These figures come directly from local and state arrest or conviction records, the same records DHS uses to flag individuals with pending detainers.
But that distinction matters, because local arrest data is not the same as measuring crime rates among immigrants overall.
It simply reflects the cases that happened to intersect with New York’s criminal justice system.
Federal Conviction Data Shows a Very Different Trend
When you zoom out and look at the federal data that tracks nationwide noncitizen convictions, the picture shifts dramatically, because only a small number of crimes become federal offenses, mostly:
Illegal entry/reentry
Federal drug trafficking
Federal weapons crimes
According to the Department of Homeland Security’s Criminal Alien statistics:
Illegal entry and re-entry remain the most common convictions for noncitizens, typically 8,000 to 10,000 cases per year.
DUIs are the second-largest category.
Drug and theft convictions fall in the hundreds to low thousands each year.
This dataset doesn’t capture every crime an immigrant may commit; it only includes federal convictions, but it does illustrate why federal numbers often appear much lower than the local data DHS highlights in press releases.
CATO Institute: Immigrants Are Incarcerated at Lower Rates Than U.S.-Born Citizens
To understand broader crime trends, the CATO Institute analyzed more than a decade of data from the U.S. Census and the American Community Survey.
Their 2023 incarceration rate findings:
Native-born Americans: 1,221 per 100,000
Illegal immigrants: 613 per 100,000
Legal immigrants: 319 per 100,000
CATO’s takeaway is blunt: illegal immigrants are about half as likely to be incarcerated as native-born Americans, and legal immigrants are the least likely of all. These trends held every year from 2010 through 2023.
State-Level Data: Only Two States Track Immigration Status, And They Show Similar Patterns
CATO also dug into the only two states that track immigration status in arrest, conviction, and incarceration records: Texas and Georgia.
Their findings:
In Texas, illegal immigrants had lower conviction and arrest rates than native-born Texans—even for serious offenses like homicide.
In Georgia, illegal immigrants had lower incarceration rates than U.S.-born residents.
CATO also urged federal and state governments to collect better data, noting:
The states and federal government should collect better incarceration, conviction, and arrest data by immigration status so that the public and policymakers can more accurately understand how immigrants affect crime in the United States.
Based on data, particularly from Texas, studies indicate that both legal and illegal immigrants have significantly lower criminal conviction rates than native-born Americans. Research shows, for example, that in 2022, legal immigrants had a homicide conviction rate 62% below native-born Americans, while illegal immigrants were 36% below.
Texas Data: In Texas, which tracks data for both legal and illegal immigrants, studies show that legal immigrants had conviction rates 58% lower, and illegal immigrants had rates 48% lower than native-born citizens.
WASHINGTON — Migrant crime has become one of the most talked-about issues this year as the Trump administration ramps up deportations and tightens border enforcement.
But depending on which dataset you look at, you’ll get very different pictures of what migrant-related crime actually looks like in the United States.
According to Nowrasteh's findings from 2012 to 2022, undocumented immigrants have a homicide conviction rate 14% below that of native-born Americans.
Immigrants have a 62% lower homicide rate and undocumented immigrants have a 41% lower total criminal conviction rate than native-born Americans.
Most of the data on crime and immigration status in the U.S. comes from the Texas Department of Public Safety, the only agency that keeps such detailed records.
Texas has the nation's second-highest population of undocumented immigrants after California, Nowrahsteh said, adding that he believes national data would be similar.
"I don’t think that Trump’s statements accurately convey the reality of immigration," Nowrasteh said.
Research by Michael Light, a sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin, shows a similar pattern.
"We looked at homicides, sexual assaults, violent crimes, property crimes, traffic and drug violations," Light said.
"And what we find across the board is that the undocumented tend to have lower rates of crimes with all of these types of offenses."
The American public, however, has a different impression.
When asked specifically about the impact of immigration on crime in the United States, 57% of Americans surveyed by the Pew Research Center earlier this year said the large number of migrants seeking to enter the country leads to more crime.
Border patrol intercepts migrants with criminal records
For the last 150 years, rates of crimes committed by immigrants once they arrive in this country have been lower than those committed by native-born Americans, said Ran Abramitzky, an Economics professor at Stanford University, who has also studied the data.
Incarceration rates have steadily declined since 1960 among immigrants from all regions, Abramitzsky said.
He and other experts said it doesn't make sense for immigrants to commit crimes because they will get kicked out of the country.
"Deportation is quite a hefty penalty, as being removed and sent back to their home country where they have fewer job and quality of life opportunities is enough to scare most immigrants," Nowrasteh said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection does catch a number of criminals as they try to enter the country.
According to Border Patrol statistics, more than 15,000 people with criminal records were arrested at the border in 2023, an increase from about 12,000 the year before.
So far in fiscal year 2024, about 5,600 have been arrested.
Typically, Border Patrol will conduct a criminal background check of immigrants before releasing them into the U.S. pending a hearing.
Pete Hermansen, a retired Border Patrol agent-in-charge, said during his two-decade career with the agency he saw a statistical pattern in migrant apprehensions at the border.
“Eighty-seven percent are just coming here to better their lives,” he said.
“Thirteen percent are a threat to the country. That statistical analysis comes from my 21 years at the Border Patrol, either arresting people, seeing their criminal history or identifying criminals when I ran the intelligence program.”
The partisan politics of immigration
As a result of the strife at the border, Light and Nowrasteh both say they have faced criticism for their work by some who disagree with their findings, yet the researchers argue their numbers bear the truth.
"There are those who find it helpful and those who don't and miss the point and say the undocumented shouldn't be here in the first place," Light said.
"I've certainly heard that crime rates are not the point."
Abramitzky said partisan politics typically plays a role in the rhetoric around immigration.
"Whereas Democrats are increasingly more positive when talking about immigrants and pointing to their contributions to the U.S., Republicans remain negative and increasingly focus on crime and legal issues when they talk about immigrants," Abramitzky said.
More enforcement of regulations around immigration won't change immigrant crime rates or prevent horrific murders like Riley's death, Nowrasteh said in a Wednesday blog post.
"The statistics do tell us that deporting all illegal immigrants, ending parole, curtailing asylum, or any combination of those policies would not reduce homicide rates," Nowrahsteh said.
4/25/24
No, undocumented immigrant crime rate isn't higher as Trump claimed
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