Wikimedia Commons / Billy Hathorn
Automobiles wait at a U.S. Border Patrol station close to Laredo, pre-pandemic.
As Republicans proceed to wield immigration as a political cudgel, GOP lawmakers have painted the U.S.-Mexico border as a harmful place and invoked racist language likening the inflow of asylum seekers to an “invasion.”
For instance, when unveiling his Operation Lone Star border crackdown in June 2021, Gov. Greg Abbott claimed border crossers had unleashed “carnage” in South Texas and that “individuals are being threatened each day with weapons.”
And through a GOP-led border listening to within the U.S. Home earlier this 12 months, Arizona Republican Rep. Andy Biggs railed in opposition to the “harmful” border area: “Medication pour throughout, worldwide terrorists, felony gang members, individuals from all around the world.”
However FBI crime statistics collected this week by U.S. Henry Cuellar — a South Texas Democrat whose district consists of San Antonio — reveals that communities alongside the U.S.-Mexico border are safer than most different U.S. cities, and in relation to homicide charges, safer than the nationwide common.
The homicide price in Cuellar’s hometown of Laredo is simply 4.76 per 100,000 residents, in accordance with the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report. Examine that to the 72 murders per 100,000 reported in New Orleans, the 40 per 100,000 in Cleveland, the 19 per 100,000 in Houston and the 15.69 per 100,000 in San Antonio.
Different Texas border cities had equally low homicide charges per 100,000 residents: Brownsville at 2.12, El Paso at 3.24 and McAllen at 3.44.
In 2022, the nationwide homicide price was 6.3 per 100,000 individuals, in accordance with the FBI.
Courtesy Picture / U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar
Courtesy Picture / U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar
Related ratios maintain true for violent crime, in accordance with the FBI information. In that case, Laredo, Brownsville, El Paso and McAllen all had significantly decrease incidents of violent crime per 100,000 individuals than different giant U.S. cities.
Courtesy Picture / U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar
“As somebody who lives on the border and has raised a household right here, I’ve discovered that the rhetoric about our southern border affords little resemblance to what’s on the bottom,” Cuellar mentioned in an emailed assertion. “Yr after 12 months, FBI statistics present that crime charges are decrease on the border than non-border cities throughout the nation. The fact of our border communities is straightforward: our crime charges are low, and our residents really feel protected due to the efforts of our native, state, and federal regulation enforcement.”
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