September 10, 2014

Study: Deportations don't reduce crime

American Immigration Council - In 2008, the Department of Homeland Security introduced “Secure Communities,” which for the first time allowed DHS to check the fingerprints of any individual arrested by a local jurisdiction. Secure Communities piggybacked on prior DHS initiatives to use local police as “force multipliers” including the Criminal Alien Program, which establishes voluntary screening partnerships with local jails, and the “287(g) program,” which deputizes local law enforcement as immigration enforcement agents. In all, DHS’ underlying rationale has been that deporting immigrant offenders would keep communities “secure” by prioritizing deportation of “criminal aliens,” “those who pose a threat to public safety, and repeat immigration violators.”

A new study flatly contradicts DHS’ rationale. The study, by law professors Adam Cox and Thomas J. Miles, states outright that Secure Communities “has not served its central objective of making communities safer.” Crime rates were “in essence unchanged” once jurisdictions adopted Secure Communities, nor did Secure Communities reduce rates ofviolent crime—homicide, rape,robbery, or aggravated assault. More broadly, the study “calls into question the longstanding assumption that deporting non-citizens who commit crimes is an effective crime-control strategy.”

1 comment:

Capt. America said...

All deportation reduces crime, because it makes more jobs available to those who remain. Only the numbers matter. So what? What happens in any particular community is irrelevant.