Crimes committed by illegal immigrants

California has the largest immigrant population in the US, and immigrants are under represented among prison inmates.^[120] The most recent research indicates approximately 35% of the California population consists of immigrants, while immigrants represent 17% of the prison population. This implies that immigrants are about half as likely to become involved in crime, although deporting illegal immigrants soon after incarceration lowers the immigrant prison population. In fact, U.S. born adult men are incarcerated at a rate over two-and-a-half times greater than that of foreign-born men.^[120] However, this does not separate the illegal versus legal immigrants.

The fastest growing prison demographic are functionally illiterate adult male US citizens, which is over represented by the children of immigrants that failed to obtain an education because of the English-only movement. ^[121]

Illegal immigrants avoid involvement in criminal activity to reduce interaction with law enforcement officials, and evidence shows a decline in crime correlates with an increase in immigration in most large cities.^[122]

According to Edmonton and Smith in The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration, "it is difficult to draw any strong conclusions on the association between immigration and crime".^[53] Cities with large immigrant populations showed larger reductions in property and violent crime than cities without large immigrant populations.^[123] Almost all of what is known about immigration and crime is from information on those in prison. Incarceration rates do not necessarily reflect differences in current crime rates.^[53]

The Center for Immigration Studies in a 2009 report argued that "New government data indicate that immigrants have high rates of criminality, while older academic research found low rates. The overall picture of immigrants and crime remains confused due to a lack of good data and contrary information." It also criticized reports using data from the 2000 Census according to which 4% of prisoners were immigrants. Non-citizens often have a strong incentive to deny this in order to prevent deportation and there are also other problems. Some better but still uncertain methods have found that 20-22% of prisoners were immigrants. It also criticized studies looking at percentages of immigrants in a city and crime for only looking at overall crime and not immigrant crime as well as having other possible problems.^[124]

As of 2010, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) under its "Secure Communities" project has identified 240,000 illegal immigrants convicted of crimes, according to Department of Homeland Security figures. Of those, about 30,000 have been deported, including 8,600 convicted of what the agency calls "the most egregious offenses.^[125]

A few of the other reasons also cited for why the extent of illegal immigrants' criminal activities is unknown are as follows:

• For many minor crimes, especially crimes involving juveniles, those who are apprehended are not arrested. Only a fraction of those who are arrested are ever brought to the courts for disposition.^[53]

• Many illegal immigrants who are apprehended by Border Patrol agents are voluntarily returned to their home countries and are not ordinarily tabulated in national crime statistics. If immigrants, whether illegal or legal, are apprehended entering the United States while committing a crime, they are usually charged under federal statutes and, if convicted, are sent to federal prisons. Throughout this entire process, immigrants may have a chance of deportation, or of sentencing that is different from that for a native-born person.^[53]

• We lack comprehensive information on whether arrested or jailed immigrants are illegal immigrants, nonimmigrants, or legal immigrants. Such information can be difficult to collect because immigrants may have a reason to provide false statements (if they reply that they are an illegal immigrant, they can be deported, for instance). The verification of the data is troublesome because it requires matching INS records with individuals who often lack documentation or present false documents.^[53]

• Noncitizens may have had fewer years residing in the United States than citizens, and thus less time in which to commit crimes and be apprehended.^[53]

In 1999, law enforcement activities involving illegal immigrants in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas cost a combined total of more than $108 million. This cost did not include activities related to border enforcement. In San Diego County, the expense (over $50 million) was nine percent of the total county's budget for law enforcement that year.^[126]

A study published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas has found that while property-related crime rates have not been affected by increased immigration (both legal and illegal), in border counties there is a significant positive correlation between illegal immigration and violent crime, most likely due to extensive smuggling activity along the border.^[127]

On August 6, 2008, an audit done by agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement found that 122 of the 637 jail inmates in the Lake County, Illinois jail were of questionable immigration status. Of those 122 originally suspected, 75 were later ordered to face deportation proceedings by the ICE. According to Lake County sheriff Mark Curran, illegal immigrants were charged with half of the 14 murders in the county.^[128]

The Arizona Department of Corrections reported in 2010 that illegal immigrants are over-represented in the state's prison population. In June 2010, illegal immigrants represented 14.8 percent of Arizona state prisoners, but accounted for 7 percent of the state's overall population according to the Department of Homeland Security. In addition, the data showed that the undocumented accounted for 40% of all the prisoners serving time in Arizona state prisons for kidnapping; 24% of those serving time for drug charges; and 13 percent of those serving time for murder.^[129]

A US Justice Department report from 2009 indicated that one of the largest street gangs in the United States, Los Angeles-based 18th Street gang, has a membership of some 30,000 to 50,000 with 80% of them being illegal aliens from Mexico and Central America. Active in 44 cities in 20 states, its main source of income is street-level distribution of cocaine and marijuana and, to a lesser extent, heroin and methamphetamine. Gang members also commit assault, auto theft, carjacking, drive-by shootings, extortion, homicide, identification fraud, and robbery.^[130]

Another prominent street gang, Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS 13, with a membership of some 8,000 to 10,000 members in the US, is estimated to be predominantly composed of illegal immigrants (with some reporting up to 90%).^[131][132] MS-13 members smuggle illicit drugs, primarily powder cocaine and marijuana, into the US and transport and distribute the drugs throughout the country. Some members also are involved in alien smuggling, assault, drive-by shootings, homicide, identity theft, prostitution operations, robbery, and weapons trafficking.^[130] With over 3,000 members in Northern Virginia alone making it the largest gang in the region,^[133] MS-13 has been targeted by the Northern Virginia Regional Gang Task Force which reports that 40% of arrests from 2003-2008 were of illegal aliens.^[132][134] It is also reported that 71% of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) gang arrestees under "Operation Community Shield" in Northern Virginia from February 2005 to September 2007, were of EWI "Enter Without Inspection" status.^[132]

[edit] Identity theft

Identity theft is sometimes committed by illegal immigrants who use social security numbers belonging to others, in order to obtain fake work documentation.^[135] However, the US Supreme Court has ruled that undocumented immigrants cannot be prosecuted for identity theft if they use "made-up" social security numbers that they do not know belong to someone else; to be guilty of identity theft with regard to social security numbers, they must know that the social security numbers that they use belong to others.^[136]

[edit] Drug trafficking

According to proceedings from a 1997 meeting of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims, "Through other violations of our immigration laws, Mexican drug cartels are able to extend their command and control into the United States. Drug smuggling fosters, subsidizes, and is dependent upon continued illegal immigration and alien smuggling."^[137]

Drug cartels have been reported using illegal immigrants, sometimes armed, to cultivate marijuana within American National Forests, in California's Los Padres National Forest,^[138][139] Tahoe National Forest,^[140] Six Rivers National Forest,^[141] and Sequoia National Forest,^[142] as well as in Arizona,^[143] Oregon,^[144] and Colorado.^[145]

[edit] Gang violence

As of 2005, Operation Community Shield had detained nearly fourteen hundred illegal immigrant gang members.^[146]

Members from the Salvadoran gang MS-13 are believed by authorities to have established a smuggling ring in Matamoros, Mexico. This smuggling involved transporting illegal aliens from foreign countries into the United States. MS-13 has shown extreme violence against Border Patrol security to “teach them a lesson.”^[147] "Mexican alien smugglers plan to pay violent gang members and smuggle them into the United States to murder Border Patrol agents, according to a confidential Department of Homeland Security memo obtained by the Daily Bulletin."^[148]

[edit] Environment

Waves of illegal immigrants are taking a heavy toll on U.S. public lands along the Mexican border, federal officials say.^[149] Mike Coffeen, a biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service in Tucson, Arizona found the level of impact to be shocking.^[149] "Environmental degradation has become among the migration trend's most visible consequences, a few years ago, there were 45 abandoned cars on the Buenos Aires refuge near Sasabe, Arizona and enough trash that a volunteer couple filled 723 large bags with 18,000 pounds of garbage over two months in 2002."^[150]

"It has been estimated that the average desert-walking immigrant leaves behind 8 pounds of trash during a journey that lasts one to three days if no major incidents occur. Assuming half a million people cross the border illegally into Arizona annually, that translates to 2,000 tons of trash that migrants dump each year."^[151]

Illegal immigrants trying to get to the United States via the Mexican border with southern Arizona are suspected of having caused eight major wildfires in 2002. The fires destroyed 68,413 acres (276.86 km²) and cost taxpayers $5.1 million to fight.^[152]

[edit] National security and terrorism

Mohamed Atta and two of his co-conspirators had expired visas when they executed the September 11 attacks. All of the attackers had U.S. government issued documents and two of them were erroneously granted visa extensions after their deaths.^[153] The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States found that the government inadequately tracked those with expired tourist or student visas.

Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think-tank that promotes immigration reduction, testified in a hearing before the House of Representatives that

"out of the 48 al-Qaeda operatives who committed crimes here between 1993 and 2001, 12 of them were illegal aliens when they committed their crimes, seven of them were visa overstayers, including two of the conspirators in the first World Trade Center attack, one of the figures from the New York subway bomb plot, and four of the 9/11 terrorists. In fact, even a couple other terrorists who were not illegal when they committed their crimes had been visa overstayers earlier and had either applied for asylum or finagled a fake marriage to launder their status."^[154]

Vice Chair Lee H. Hamilton and Commissioner Slade Gorton of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States has stated that of the nineteen hijackers of the September 11, 2001 attacks, "Two hijackers could have been denied admission at the port on entry based on violations of immigration rules governing terms of admission. Three hijackers violated the immigration laws after entry, one by failing to enroll in school as declared, and two by overstays of their terms of admission."^[155] Six months after the attack, their flight schools received posthumous visa approval letters from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) for two of the hijackers, which made it clear that actual approval of the visas took place before the September 11 attacks.^[156]

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, illegal immigrants within the United States have attempted to carry out other terrorist attacks as well. Three of the six conspirators in the 2007 Fort Dix attack plot--Dritan Duka, Shain Duka, and Eljvir Duka—were ethnic Albanians from the Republic of Macedonia who entered the United States illegally through Mexico with their parents in 1984. Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, an illegal immigrant from Jordan who remained in the United States after the expiration of his tourist visa, was arrested in September 2009 for attempting to carry out a car bomb attack against Fountain Place in Dallas.