Editorial debunks myths about immigrants and crime
Perhaps I am connected to my immigrant roots more than most Americans. As a girl, I remember listening to my mother’s stories about her early struggles in Boston schools because she didn’t speak English and how her family worked long hours under poor conditions to get ahead. (By the time my mother, who was born here, was in the third grade, she had changed her name from Giovanna to Jennie to be more American.) My mother-in-law was an immigrant. Her family came here eight decades ago from Northern Ireland to make a better life for themselves and their children. As for me, an English-speaking, college-educated, home-owning American who lives in Lowell—a gateway city in a state with a declining population except for immigrants—the rise in anti-immigrant rhetoric seems both economically and socially short sighted. So, I was thrilled to read Jeff Jacoby’s editorial in yesterday’s Boston Globe where he cites statistics from the Public Policy Institute of California study regarding the impact of immigration on crime in that state. Jacoby writes: “Within the age group most often involved in crime (ages 18 to 40), US natives—astonishingly—are 10 times more likely to be in prison or jail than immigrants…Even when the focus is narrowed to inmates who were born in Mexico and are not citizens—the demographic group most likely to include illegal immigrants—the rate of incarceration is only one-eighth that of men born in the United States.” These numbers support what I have always believed about the vast majority of immigrants whether documented or not: Most immigrants, like my family, are here to work hard, get their children educated, and try to grab a piece of the American dream for themselves and their loved ones.