Continuing his ongoing immigration policy feud with California, President Donald Trump tweeted today that Gov. Jerry Brown isn’t participating wholeheartedly enough in his decision to send National Guard troops to the border as some kind of anti-immigration stunt. (Whether in California or in Trumpier states, National Guard forces will not actually be used for immigration enforcement.)
Trump tweets: “The crime rate in California is high enough.” California is a safer-than-average state.
Immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than native-born Americans.
“The crime rate in California is high enough,” Trump warns darkly. “We need border security and action, not words!”
In reality, in 2016 (the most recent year for which data is available) the murder rate in California was 4.9 per 100,000 residents. Every murder is a tragedy, of course, but that’s lower than the national average of 5.3 per 100,000 despite California’s significantly larger-than-average immigrant population.
Or perhaps I should say that California has a below-average murder rate likely because of its high foreign-born population since immigrants appear to commit crimes at a lower rate than the native-born population. Indeed, the three most murderous states in the country — Louisiana, Missouri, and Alabama — all have low foreign-born populations.
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