The El Paso Miracle

Reason ^ | July 6, 2009 | Radley Balko

[neverdem]

How can a comparatively poor, high-immigration town that sits across the border from super-violent Ciudad Juarez be one of the safest big cities in America?

By conventional wisdom, El Paso, Texas should be one of the scariest cities in America. In 2007, the city's poverty rate was a shade over 27 percent, more than twice the national average. Median household income was $35,600, well below the national average of $48,000. El Paso is three-quarters Hispanic, and more than a quarter of its residents are foreign-born. Given that it's nearly impossible for low-skilled immigrants to work in the United States legitimately, it's safe to say that a significant percentage of El Paso's foreign-born population is living here illegally.

El Paso also has some of the laxer gun control policies of any non-Texan big city in the country, mostly due to gun-friendly state law. And famously, El Paso sits just over the Rio Grande from one of the most violent cities in the western hemisphere, Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, home to a staggering 2,500 homicides in the last 18 months alone. A city of illegal immigrants with easy access to guns, just across the river from a metropolis ripped apart by brutal drug war violence. Should be a bloodbath, right?

Here's the surprise: There were just 18 murders in El Paso last year, in a city of 736,000 people. To compare, Baltimore, with 637,000 residents, had 234 killings. In fact, since the beginning of 2008, there were nearly as many El Pasoans murdered while visiting Juarez (20) than there were murdered in their home town (23).

El Paso is among the safest big cities in America. For the better part of the last decade, only Honolulu has had a lower violent crime rate (El Paso slipped to third last year, behind New York). Men's Health magazine recently ranked El Paso the second "happiest" city in America, right after Laredo, Texas—another border town, where the Hispanic population is approaching 95 percent.

So how has this city of poor immigrants become such an anomaly? Actually, it may not be an anomaly at all. Many criminologists say El Paso isn't safe despite its high proportion of immigrants, it's safe because of them.

"If you want to find a safe city, first determine the size of the immigrant population," says Jack Levin, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Massachusetts. "If the immigrant community represents a large proportion of the population, you're likely in one of the country's safer cities. San Diego, Laredo, El Paso—these cities are teeming with immigrants, and they're some of the safest places in the country."

If you regularly listen to talk radio, or get your crime news from anti-immigration pundits, all of this may come as a surprise. But it's not to many of those who study crime for a living. As the national immigration debate heated up in 2007, dozens of academics who specialize in the issue sent a letter (pdf) to then President George W. Bush and congressional leaders with the following point:

Numerous studies by independent researchers and government commissions over the past 100 years repeatedly and consistently have found that, in fact, immigrants are less likely to commit crimes or to be behind bars than are the native-born. This is true for the nation as a whole, as well as for cities with large immigrant populations such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Miami, and cities along the U.S.-Mexico border such as San Diego and El Paso.

One of the signatories was Rubén G. Rumbaut, a sociologist who studies immigration at the University of California, Irvine. Rumbaut recently presented a paper on immigration and crime to a Washington, D.C. conference sponsored by the Police Foundation. Rumbaut writes via email, "The evidence points overwhelmingly to the same conclusion: Rates of crime and conviction for undocumented immigrants are far below those for the native born, and that is especially the case for violent crimes, including murder."

Opponents of illegal immigration usually do little more than cite andecdotes attempting to link illegal immigration to violent crime. When they do try to use statistics, they come up short. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), for example, has perpetuated the popular myth that illegal immigrants murder 12 Americans per day, and kill another 13 by driving drunk. King says his figures come from a Government Accountability Office study he requested, which found that about 27 percent of inmates in the federal prison system are non-citizens. Colorado Media Matters looked into King's claim, and found his methodology lacking. King appears to have conjured his talking point by simply multiplying the annual number of murders and DWI fatalities in America by 27 percent. Of course, the GAO report only looked at federal prisons, not the state prisons and local jails where most convicted murderers and DWI offenders are kept. The Bureau of Justice Statistics puts the number of non-citizens (including legal immigrants) in state, local, and federal prisons and jails at about 6.4 percent (pdf). Of course, even that doesn't mean that non-citizens account for 6.4 percent of murders and DWI fatalities, only 6.4 percent of the overall inmate population.

What's happening with Latinos is true of most immigrant groups throughout U.S. history. "Overall, immigrants have a stake in this country, and they recognize it," Northeastern University's Levin says. "They're really an exceptional sort of American. They come here having left their family and friends back home. They come at some cost to themselves in terms of security and social relationships. They are extremely success-oriented, and adjust very well to the competitive circumstances in the United States." Economists Kristin Butcher and Anne Morrison Piehl argue that the very process of migration tends to select for people with a low potential for criminality.

Despite the high profile of polemicists such as Dobbs and Michael Savage, America has been mostly welcoming to this latest immigration wave. You don't see "Latinos Need Not Apply" or "No Mexicans" signs posted on public buildings the way you did with the Italians and the Irish, two groups who actually were disproportionately likely to turn to crime. The implication makes sense: An immigrant group's propensity for criminality may be partly determined by how they're received in their new country.

"Look at Arab-Americans in the Midwest, especially in the Detroit area," Levin says. "The U.S. and Canada have traditionally been very willing to welcome and integrate them. They're a success story, with high average incomes and very little crime. That's not the case in Europe. Countries like France and Germany are openly hostile to Arabs. They marginalize them. And they've seen waves of crime and rioting."

El Paso may be a concentrated affirmation of that theory. In 2007 the Washington Post reported on city leaders' wariness of anti-immigration policies coming out of Washington. The city went to court (and lost) in an effort to prevent construction of the border fence within its boundaries, and local officials have resisted federal efforts to enlist local police for immigration enforcement, arguing that it would make illegals less likely to cooperate with police. "Most people in Washington really don't understand life on the border," El Paso Mayor John Cook told the Post. "They don't understand our philosophy here that the border joins us together, it doesn't separate us."

Other mayors could learn something from Cook. El Paso's embrace of its immigrants might be a big reason why the low-income border town has remained one of the safest places in the country.

Radley Balko is a senior editor of Reason magazine.

[neverdem]

I thought this was going to be a tribute to the Second Amendment. Instead, it's a paean to unfettered immigration with no mention of the downside.

Robert Putnam: Diversity Is Our Destruction

E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century PDF link that I haven't tried. I read it way back when I could find a free html version.

[VeniVidiVici]

Looking forward to some El Pasoites ;) to chime in.

I have relatives that live there. First time I went to go visit I was struck by the fact that just about EVERYONE had bars on the windows.

Also, PCS’d from Germany and bought a new car. Was shopping for a new US residence and someplace to tag my new vehicle. We had an alarm put into it when we picked it up in Philly.

Drove around the US visiting relatives and at each stop I’d find out how much it would cost to register and insure the vehicle.

Called when we got to El Paso. I can’t remember the exact amount of the insurance quote itself (it was 17 years ago) but I was stunned at the amount. I asked the insurance agent, “Does that include a discount for having a car alarm?” “Honey,” she said, “if you didn’t have an alarm we wouldn’t even insure it in El Paso.”

[gubamyster]

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[narses]

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Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment

Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

[ASOC]

safest city Barrio in the US?

Bawhahahahahahaha (snort) hahahahahahahaha

My SIL worked there as a contract nurse. The hospital had dorms - no windows, steel doors and an armed guard escorted the nuring staf at shift chance. Sheworked one cycle and said never again!

Safest (snort) my backside....

[Ron C.]

I was born in El Paso, lived there much of my youth (1940's) and visited often with family (nearly every year since.) The article is pure BS. The reason the city is safe is because most Americans carry guns there - lots of them... and they don't put up with ANY nonsense from any illegal alien that gets out of line... that alien will likely be dead, with everyone present swearing the illegal threatened life.

Word gets around - 'don't mess with the Texans, they will keel you, senor.'

But, MORE THAN THAT, there's another story about El Paso that goes well past the Texans there - and that is the many that are of Mexican or Spaniard decent that have been legal citizens of the US for MANY generations, and THEY DON'T LIKE seeing illegal Mexicans crossing the boarder and making trouble - in fact they are greatly feared by illegals - because they are well known to be 'hell-on-wheels,' as the saying goes, armed and quite dangerous if they catch ANYONE messing with their properties, family, friends or neighbors!

That is putting it mildly... they are really not to be messed with, and funny thing... a large number of them are very very CONSERVATIVE, very Pro-America. Quite frankly, it's like going back in time there... to the 'wild west,' so to speak. Drug gangs from across the border tried to move in a few years back, and very quickly about a dozen or so of them 'disappeared.'

[eclecticEel]

1) El Paso is a dump, sorry if anyone lives there, but it is.
2) Criminal activity gets pushed over the border into Jaurez, which is even more of a dump (if that’s possible).

[Ron C.]

"El Paso is a dump"

Well, yeah there's some poor parts of town, but there is more middle-class nice places than meets they eye of passers-by.

But, the whole of El Paso is hardly a 'dump.'

[Ajnin]

Apparently, the bullsh*t the open borders boot lickers were shoveling about how great illegals are for the economy has run it’s course, now that our economy is in the toilet. Now they need a new brand of manure, like how secure illegal aliens make our communities. They couldn’t make Mexico safe but they’re going to make us safe. LOL! Perhpas it’s a testament to how great this country is that the galactically stupid can not only survive, but thrive....or maybe not.

[An.American.Expatriate]

Countries like France and Germany are openly hostile to Arabs. They marginalize them.

Absolute BS! Both of those countries bend over backwards to accomodate Arabs / Muslims.

The roiting and crime in France is due to a large, nin-integrated, northern african slum population - which happen to be muslim.

[mc6809e]

Immigrants don't exactly make cities safer. Their presence improves the crime rate because in general they're better people than the native born Americans already living in our cities.

What we should be doing is offering a 1:1 trade -- for every immigrant that moves in, a native-born urban American is deported. Our cities would be even safer.

Of course no national of earth would take them.

[Greg123456]

Maybe the illegals there just don’t call the police when someone breaks into their home or robs them. They’re probably afraid of being deported back to Mexico. This results in an artificially low crime statistic.

[Red in Blue PA]

"If the immigrant community represents a large proportion of the population, you're likely in one of the country's safer cities.

[raybbr]

You can add Lawrence Auster's essay from 1990 to the list of essays debunking "diversity". Long read but worth it.

The Path to National Suicide by Lawrence Auster (1990)

An essay on multi-culturalism and immigration.

Click the Pic!!!!

Excerpt....

How can we account for this remarkable silence? The answer, as I will try to show, is that when the Immigration Reform Act of 1965 was being considered in Congress, the demographic impact of the bill was misunderstood and downplayed by its sponsors. As a result, the subject of population change was never seriously examined. The lawmakers’ stated intention was that the Act should not radically transform America’s ethnic character; indeed, it was taken for granted by liberals such as Robert Kennedy that it was in the nation’s interest to avoid such a change. But the dramatic ethnic transformation that has actually occurred as a result of the 1965 Act has insensibly led to acceptance of that transformation in the form of a new, multicultural vision of American society. Dominating the media and the schools, ritualistically echoed by every politician, enforced in every public institution, this orthodoxy now forbids public criticism of the new path the country has taken. “We are a nation of immigrants,” we tell ourselves— and the subject is closed. The consequences of this code of silence are bizarre. One can listen to statesmen and philosophers agonize over the multitudinous causes of our decline, and not hear a single word about the massive immigration from the Third World and the resulting social divisions. Opponents of population growth, whose crusade began in the 1960s out of a concern about the growth rate among resident Americans and its effects on the environment and the quality of life, now studiously ignore the question of immigration, which accounts for fully half of our population growth.

This curious inhibition stems, of course, from a paralyzing fear of the charge of “racism.” The very manner in which the issue is framed—as a matter of equal rights and the blessings of diversity on one side, versus “racism” on the other—tends to cut off all rational discourse on the subject. One can only wonder what would happen if the proponents of open immigration allowed the issue to be discussed, not as a moralistic dichotomy, but in terms of its real consequences. Instead of saying: “We believe in the equal and unlimited right of all people to immigrate to the U.S. and enrich our land with their diversity,” what if they said: “We believe in an immigration policy which must result in a staggering increase in our population, a revolution in our culture and way of life, and the gradual submergence of our current population by Hispanic and Caribbean and Asian peoples.” Such frankness would open up an honest debate between those who favor a radical change in America’s ethnic and cultural identity and those who think this nation should preserve its way of life and its predominant, European-American character. That is the actual choice—as distinct from the theoretical choice between “equality” and “racism”—that our nation faces. But the tyranny of silence has prevented the American people from freely making that choice.

[Dusty Road]

I wouldn’t call it a dump but I would call it a culture shock for those not familiar with TX border towns. I love El Paso but I sure hate driving there, it’s 300 miles due west of me across some real TX desert.
Here’s a challenge to the El Paso gang, show me a picture of a wooden fence in El Paso. In all the times I’ve been there I’ve yet to see one, all the fences are made from stone.

[bondjamesbond]

Every murder committed by a illegal immigrant in this country is a crime that should not have happened.

Every “accidental” drunk driving death caused by an illegal immigrant in this country is a death that should not have happened.

[Aurorales]

I also grew up in El Paso. Late 60’s, 70’s and part of the 80’s.

I agree with your post above. Many of the Hispanic residents who live in El Paso have lived there for many, many, MANY generations.
They have no tolerance for the Mexicans coming over illegally.

Actually many of the families I knew growing up who were Mexican were very assimilated to the American way of life. As I moved to different places in the country, I never saw such a large hispanic population assimilate to the US as much as they do in El Paso.

Also, I agree. Many gun owners who have no problem pulling them out and if need be shoot them.

Very interesting place to live in. The history of El Paso makes for some incredible reading. If you like cowboys, indians, banditos, and senoritas in your history, this is the town to read about, that is for sure.

[ME-262]

Let me see.....
El Paso has 736,000 people 4% of whom are Black for a total of around 30,000 Blacks. Divide that by 18 murders and you get one murder for every 1667 Blacks in El Paso.

Now take 234 murders in Baltimore at one per 1667 Blacks Would mean Baltimore should have over 390,000 Blacks. Divide that by the city's total population of 637,000 and it follows that Baltimore should be over 61% Black.

Baltimore's actual percentage of Blacks as of 2007 was 64.6%. Less than four percent deviation in murder rate divided per Black in the two respective cities given as examples.

But hey, it's just a statistical oddity.

[Altura Ct.]

"If you want to find a safe city, first determine the size of the immigrant population," says Jack Levin, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Massachusetts. "If the immigrant community represents a large proportion of the population, you're likely in one of the country's safer cities. San Diego, Laredo, El Paso—these cities are teeming with immigrants, and they're some of the safest places in the country."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! The MSM really treats the public with disdain. We are all stupid sheep don't ya know!

[BillM]

NOPE!