The Hill: Two new studies, one from The Sentencing Project and one from the libertarian Cato Institute, reported that the percentage of immigrants committing crimes is lower than that of United States citizens. However, the underlying methodology used in each was critically flawed.
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The vast majority of illegal aliens use fraudulently obtained Social Security numbers. They possess fake drivers’ licenses, phony “green cards,” fraudulent birth certificates and any other documents that U.S. citizens and legal residents have. In addition, they falsify I-9 forms under penalty of perjury. Thus, the average illegal alien routinely commits multiple felonies –forgery, Social Security fraud, identity theft, and perjury.
This criminal activity is routinely swept under the rug in order to protect the myth of the law abiding illegal alien. However, when pushed, even the strongest supporters of illegal aliens are forced to acknowledge that the vast majority of illegal aliens commit multiple felonies. In fact, the Social Security Administration and New York Times report that approximately 75 percent of illegal aliens have fraudulently obtained Social Security numbers which is a felony. The ACLU accepts this figure and uses it to show that illegal aliens pay payroll taxes.
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Even the president of the California State Senate admitted this month that “half” of his family “would be eligible for deportation under [President Trump’s] executive order, because if they got a false Social Security card, if they got a false identification, if they got a false driver’s license prior to us passing AB60, if they got a false green card, and anyone who has family members, you know, who are undocumented knows that almost entirely everybody has secured some sort of false identification (felonies).”
Neither the study from Cato or The Sentencing Project acknowledged these realities. And as a result, they tremendously understated the incidence of illegal alien criminal activity. Even the strongest supporters of illegal aliens acknowledge that 75 percent of illegal aliens routinely commit felonies of the aforementioned variety.
The Cato Institute further limited its study to the incarceration rate for legal immigrants, illegal aliens and U.S. citizens. But it was forced to acknowledge that the numbers of incarcerated illegal aliens are not readily available because “local and state governments do not record whether the prisoner is an illegal immigrant.” Cato was therefore forced to “use common statistical methods to identify illegal immigrant prisoners by excluding incarcerated respondents who have characteristics that they are unlikely to have. In other words, we can identify likely illegal immigrants by looking at prisoners with individual characteristics that are highly correlated with being an illegal immigrant.”
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Ronald Mortensen, Ph.D. is a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonprofit group that advocates for legal immigration. He previously worked as a Foreign Service Officer.
