Undocumented Immigrant Does Not Equal Violent Criminal

How the far right misuses rhetoric and data to convince the public undocumented immigrants are violent criminals

The most notorious statement to drip from Donald Trump’s lips this political season was a broad and bombastic smear: He described undocumented immigrants entering the United States from Mexico as violent criminals.

Those words should be awfully familiar by now:

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. ... They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

These slurs aren’t true, but critics of undocumented immigrants often spout them as if they were. The facts, however, reveal something different: Crime rates are lower among immigrants — unauthorized or otherwise — and their communities are often among the safer spaces to live in the United States.

The Propaganda Device

We’ll get to the data which proves that, but first let’s take a closer look at what the right is doing here. Because it’s not just Trump who’s pushing this myth. During their National Convention, the…