Illegal Alien Crime Statistics

Alan Stang
JBS
Friday July 27, 2007

We are constantly bombarded in the mainstream media (MSM) with tear-jerking stories about how the illegal aliens among us, who have entered America by the millions in violation of our immigration laws, are just trying to make a better life for themselves. Criminals are also trying to make a better life for themselves, but we don't see any sob stories in the MSM about them!

In fact, the MSM seems to go out of its way to hide criminal activity committed by illegal aliens. Here in Wisconsin, it's no secret that the vast majority of Hispanic/Latino residents are residing here illegally. In my area, their population has doubled in the past five years, because the mantra here is "Celebrate Diversity!"

When a crime is reported in the local newspaper, committed by someone with an obviously Hispanic/Latino name, no mention is made of the culprit's immigration status. When I phoned the local police station, to ask about statistics relating to crimes committed by illegal aliens, I was told that they don't keep such statistics. When I asked why not, I was told that they were not asked to do that, when filing crime reports at the state level.

I went to the next level and contacted the state law enforcement authorities in Madison, in order to pursue my inquiry there. It turned out that they didn't gather information on crimes committed by illegal aliens, either, because it wasn't requested by federal authorities.

In fact, they no longer collected data on crimes committed by Hispanics/Latinos, because that had been determined to be an ethnic group, not a racial group. Hispanics/Latinos were now counted as whites. The other racial group classifications are black, Asian, and native American Indian. (I couldn't help thinking that people way up the law enforcement organizational chart must have decided they want that kind of information buried.)

Fortunately, a number of congressmen requested that the General Accountability Office (GAO) investigate and report information on criminal aliens incarcerated in federal and state prisons and local jails. The resulting GAO report, published in April 2005, revealed that illegal aliens make up 27% of the prison population. (The oft-cited figure of 12 million illegal aliens in the country means that they make up just 4% of the general population.)

Since illegal aliens are unlikely to be committing white-collar crimes, that figure likely underestimates the amount of violent crime committed by illegal aliens. Using the GAO report, Representative Steve King of Iowa points out that 25 Americans, on average, are killed by illegal aliens every day (about evenly split between motor vehicle accidents and outright murder).

Do the math: That works out to more than 9,000 deaths per year, or more than 36,000 deaths over the past four years. That's more than ten times the number of Americans killed in Iraq over the past four years!

Oddly, I've seen people in my hometown protesting against the war in Iraq, but I've never seen anyone protesting against the illegal alien invasion that is killing tens of thousands of Americans right here on our own soil.