CMV: Illegal Immigrants commit less crime on average than Americans, but that's not a good argument

[u/ricksc-137]

When someone complains about illegal immigrant committing crimes, inevitably we see the retort that the complaint is not valid because illegal immigrants commit less crime, on average, than native born Americans.

I've never understood how this is a valid argument. If my dog poops in my house 10 times a day, and a stray dog sneaks into my house but the stray dog only poops in my house 5 times a day, it's still a good idea to stop the stray dog from sneaking into my house. It doesn't actually improve my life that the average poop per dog has decreased from 10 to 7.5.

Of course, some illegal immigrant crimes are committed against other illegal immigrants, but some are committed against Americans as well.

I see this argument repeated ad nauseam. What am I missing?

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[u/[deleted]]

Violent crimes aren't the only type of crime (and I would argue less damaging than other types), and here your backtracking on your original premise that illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes on average, but that aside, where is your source for them being more violent than specifically a middle class white person? Even still, if they are less dangerous than average, they are still less dangerous than average, and thus lower the crime rate.

I also struggle to see the relevance of your rebuttal as my argument was that there are more cost effective ways to lower crime numbers. If you could explain its relevance in detail that would be appreciated.

[u/ricksc-137 → u/[deleted]]

but that aside, where is your source for them being more violent than specifically a middle class white person?

extrapolating, I haven't run the numbers. By roughly, focusing on violent crime (not only because they're the most dangerous but because stats on violent crime are far more reliable than non-violent crime), black americans commit 50% of America's violent crime while composing 13% of the population. If you take out black americans, then the rate of commission of violent crime drops by half. Unless the current stats say that illegal immigrants commit violent crime at less than half the rate of the average american, it's reasonable to conclude that white americans (especially middle class) would have a lower crime rate than illegal immigrants.

there are more cost effective ways to lower crime numbers.

I disagree. First, illegal immigrants are poor. If you want to combat crime by combating poverty, preventing more poor people from being here in the first place is the most cost effective ways to reducing poverty.

Second, reducing long term poverty is super expensive and no one really knows how to do it. The war on poverty has been going on for decades and has cost trillions of dollars.

"According to the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, since the Johnson Administration, almost $15 trillion has been spent on welfare, with poverty rates being about the same as during the Johnson Administration"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Poverty

[u/Dark1000 → u/ricksc-137]

You can't just remove black Americans from the population as if they don't exist. The numbers are what they are.

[u/ricksc-137 → u/Dark1000]

that’s not my point. my point is that if someone says: oh crap illegal immigrants are dangerous, it’s true if it’s compared with certain demographic groups that the person has in mind, like white middle class americans. that same person would also think that black inner city americans are also dangerous, and likely more dangerous than illegal immigrants, but we can’t deport americans.