The Border Is Not Nearly As Dangerous As GOP Says It is

The Republicans don't really want immigration reform. That would go against their effort to convince Americans that immigration = danger, and that the Democrats and President Obama are putting Americans in danger by acting in a reasonable manner toward undocumented immigrants (especially those who have grown up in this country or have spent many years here).

The Republican right-wingers are political xenophobes. They don't like immigration, and to justify that, they continually point out the violence in Mexico and are quick to claim that violence is spilling over into this country -- putting Americans in danger. Is that true? Has our southern border become a violent and dangerous place? Or are the Republicans blowing crime at the border all out of proportion to scare voters into backing their anti-immigrant policies?

Probably the best place to find the answer is the FBI's Crime Report for this country. This report lists the violent crime rate in 25 Texas cities (see the chart below) -- including the four largest cities on the border. Those border cities are El Paso, Laredo, Brownsville-Harlingen, and McAllen-Edinburgh-Mission. Here is the violent crime rate of those four areas (the number of violent crimes per 100,000 people):

El Paso...............347
Brownsville-Harlingen...............240
Laredo...............430
McAllen-Edinburg-Mission...............286

If the Republican claims are true, then these border cities should have a violent crime rate that is higher than other Texas cities. But the truth is that 9 other Texas cities have a significantly higher violent crime rate than Laredo (the border city with the highest rate). And 13 cities have a higher violent crime rate than El Paso (which is across the river from Juarez). And the other 2 border cities have a lower violent crime rate than almost every Texas city.

It turns out that our southern border is not nearly as dangerous as the right-wingers want us to believe. In fact, the border cities are much safer than cities hundreds of miles from the border (including the city where I live, Amarillo, which has a violent crime rate of 524.4).

Undocumented immigrants, especially Hispanics, are not importing crime and violence into this country. Far from it. Most are decent and hard-working people just trying to raise their families as good as they can -- just like the rest of us. And anyone who took the time to get to know some of them know that, and don't need crime statistics to prove it.

The Republicans are LYING. We need to stop listening to those lies and encourage our elected officials to pass some real immigration reform.