Like a lot of conservatives, Donald Trump claims that Mexico sends its criminals to the United States. However, immigrants are not really coming in droves and committing crimes. Instead, US-born Americans are the ones with the higher crime rate.
Areas with higher concentrations of immigrants have long been shown to have a lower crime rate. This should be enough to show that immigrants are not automatically criminals. However, the same conservatives who claim that high crime rates among African-American communities are indications of African-Americans being criminals are not applying that same logic when they see that areas with more immigrants have less crime.
The incarceration rates of immigrants vs Americans also shows that immigrants are committing fewer crimes overall. Immigrant men between the ages of 18 and 39 were incarcerated at 1/4th the rate of American men of the same ages.
Data everywhere shows that first-generation immigrants commit fewer crimes, and there is no data to back up Donald Trump’s claim of Mexico sending its criminals to the United States. Not only that, but immigrants keep themselves healthier than Americans and cannot be said to be a burden on the U.S. heathcare system. And as if that is not enough, they are learning English more quickly than the immigrants of generations past did.
Therefore, there is nothing to indicate that immigrants are anything less than an asset to the United States.