IMPORTING THE SUPERIOR AMERICANS:

The core of Trump's argument is that a wall is needed because there's a flood of immigrants illegally crossing the border, driving up crime and violence in cities nationwide. It's such a foundational assertion that even foes of the president often don't pause to think critically about it any longer; instead, they get tied up debating logistical and cost-related points. So below are some big questions related to claims typically made around crime and immigration--responses to which come from numerous peer-reviewed studies, working papers, analyses, and government data CityLab has sifted through.

Are large numbers of migrants crossing the border?

Illegal immigration is the lowest it has been in over a decade. But a record number of families with children are crossing the border and turning themselves in to Border Patrol, in order to claim asylum: Border Patrol's apprehension numbers for financial year 2019 show that uptick. As Vox's Dara Lind recently put it, there is a crisis at the border--it's just not exactly the one the government is talking about. The problems at the border lie in the humanitarian need and the lack of capacity--and will--to meet it.

Do immigrants cause crime?

Sure, individual immigrants commit crimes. But a review of available research (a study of studies, if you will) does not support the claim that migrants are more likely to engage in criminal behavior than native-born Americans. In fact, researchers have often observed the opposite relationship.

One (imperfect) way to think about a group's relationship to crime is to see how many people from that group end up in prison--and why. An analysis by Michelangelo Landgrave and Alex Nowrasteh at the libertarian Cato Institute from 2016 found that legal and undocumented immigrants were less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans--and that likelihood appeared to be decreasing over time. Another one out of the Cato Institute focused specifically on the state of Texas. It showed that in 2015, undocumented immigrants had a criminal conviction rate 50 percent below that of native-born Americans. The conviction rate of those here legally was 66 percent below.

It does not appear that these are rates are low because immigrants found committing crimes were swiftly deported. A working paper from 2007 released by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) concluded that immigrants who come to the country either self-select so that they are less likely to cause crime to begin with, or they have much more to lose by committing crime and therefore are more easily deterred.

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