How Insecure is the Border?: Analyzing Crime Rates Along the Texas- Mexico Border
The topic of immigration has been controversial in the Texas Legislature for past two legislative sessions. From proposed anti- sanctuary cities bills to the extensive increase in border security, the immigrant community has constantly faced hostile legislation by Texas lawmakers.
According to the Texas Tribune, in 2015 the Texas legislature approved $800 million to increase security efforts along the border (Aguilar). This boost of border security expenditure was aimed to cover the addition of 250 DPS officers along the border and “flood the area with cameras and other detection equipment to help stop illicit activity” (Aguilar). However, despite the ramp up of border security, the political debate regarding safety along the border is still filled with “fiery rhetoric” and opposing views of how secure the border really is (Aguilar). This session, the legislature aims to maintain last session’s $800 million on the senate side and the house wants to reduce this to $663 million (Malewitz). Although the House wants to reduce it by $137 million, this is still a large sum given the limited budget this session.
To determine whether crime at the border warrants as much concern as it gets, I will analyze the FBI’s Annual Uniform Crime Report. This annual FBI report provides information about the recorded crimes according to offense category. I selected four border cities (Laredo, Eagle Pass, El Paso, and Brownsville) ;four large metropolitan areas with a population higher than 500,000 (Houston, Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio); and four small cities with a population lower than 30,000 (Graham, Paris, Taylor, and Fork Stockton). After looking at the data it turns out cities along the border have lower crime rates than Texas largest metropolitan areas. Below are the graphs resulting from the FBI’s annual report for the years 2010–2015.
Additionally, as displayed on figure 2, according to the FBI’s annual Uniform Crime Report, cities along the border have lower crime rates than less populated cities.
Not only are the crime rates along the border lower, but in general there has been an overall decrease in crime rates in the last past 5 years (this consisting of 2010–2015, since the 2016 FBI UCR was not complete when I collected the data). See Figures 3–6. Eagle Pass was an exception as it saw a crime increase from 2014 to 2015.
However, proponents of these large appropriations toward border security could argue that this general decrease of crime at the border is a result of the boost in border security funding in the past years. Under this assumption, these high expenditures seem to have been worth taxpayer’s money. Nevertheless, out of the high number of apprehensions at the border, only 6% have been due to felony drug possession offenses and only 1% have been due to human trafficking offenses. The majority of the apprehensions at the border have been a result of drunk driving (Hinkle). Lawmakers argue that although decreasing DWIs is definitely beneficial, this is not “border security” (Hinkle). Additionally, if crime is “the lowest it’s ever been”, as Lieutenant Governor Patrick has stated, why must we sustain such high price for border security (Hinkle).
One of the possible cause for such concern with crime at the border is the assumption that immigrants are more likely to commit crimes than non-immigrants. Nevertheless, after looking at US Sentencing Commission’s (USSC) data during the same time period of 2010 to 2015, non-citizens commit less crimes. That is, with the exception of immigration violations. The data that leads to this conclusion can be found on the USSC annual report . Consequently, US citizens had higher convictions of all serious crimes that non-citizens. See figure 7–11.
Note: This graphs were produced after looking at the USSC’s Citizenship of Offenders in Each Primary Offense Category. The data was narrowed to the offenses of murder, manslaughter, sexual abuse, assault, and drug trafficking. Immigration offenses were excluded.
However, if immigration offenses are taking into consideration, the USSC data could be misleading by including this crime category. By including immigration, the crime load shifts the non-citizen population. See figures 13–18. This ultimately leads to claims that we need to prioritize funding of border security.
Given the tight budget this session, the speaker’s office seeks to dip into the rainy day fund in order to prevent shortfalls in higher education, repair state hospitals, and avoid a $1 billion shortfall (Ramsey). It seems unreasonable to dedicate such large part of the budget on border security and in fact declare border security an emergency item under the Governor’s agenda. Many of this money could be shifted to other areas such as public health and public education. If data shows that crime at the border has decreased, there is no need to continue funding at such high levels. This is just a continuation of the anti-immigrant policy that has been present in the past years. The presidential election has created more favorable political environment for this type of policy. President’s Trump’s priorities have been to increase law enforcement in the nation’s southern border, so lawmakers have the security that the federal government will back them up.
Aguilar, Julián. “Texas Lawmakers Criticize Border Surge For Moving Crime but Not
Stopping It.” The Texas Tribune. N.p., 28 Sept. 2016. Web. 28 Mar. 2017.
Ramsey, Ross. “Analysis: Cutting the Texas Budget, Even with Money on Hand.” The Texas Tribune. N.p., 20 Mar. 2017. Web. 01 May 2017.
Ramshaw, Emily. “Most Border Arrests by Texas Troopers Are Not for Drug Smuggling.” The Texas Tribune. N.p., 16 Nov. 2016. Web. 28 Apr. 2017.
Malewitz, Jim. “Texas House’s Chief Budget Writer: State Shouldn’t Cut Border Security Funding.” The Texas Tribune. N.p., 23 Feb. 2017. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.
“Table 9: Offense According to Citizenship.” Http://isb.ussc.gov. US Sentencing Commission, n.d. Web.
“Uniform Crime Reporting.” FBI. FBI, n.d. Web.