Should arrest date really add fuel to the illegal immigration debate?”
Illegal immigrants and crime have been a toxic combination in the debate over immigration. One one side, people say those in the country illegally are committing all kinds of crimes, at a higher rate than U.S. citizens. Others say that’s all overblown. Here’s a Washington Post story that quantifies the situation: About 2 percent of the people charged with major violent crimes in Prince William County last year were illegal immigrants, but they were arrested for a larger portion of secondary offenses, according to newly released statistics and a Washington Post analysis that offer the first comprehensive look at criminal activity since the county implemented its controversial anti-illegal immigration measures. The number of illegal immigrants charged with crimes was included in the county police department’s annual report for the first time since Prince William’s immigration policy took effect in March 2008. The policy was crafted after many residents blamed illegal immigrants for overc
SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) — The mayor of this West Texas sheep ranching town offered a stunning explanation when he suddenly resigned: He was in love with a man who was an illegal immigrant and had gone to Mexico. They had to move, he said, because there was no legal way for them to remain together in the United States. “It wasn’t a decision that any U.S. citizen should have to make,” former Mayor J.W. Lown said in an interview from Mexico. “I left a home. I left a ranch. I left a promising political career.” His local prominence and his run for the border on the day he was supposed to be sworn in for a fourth term caused jaws to drop, but it also became a high-profile example of the thousands of Americans who face a similar choice — separate or move abroad — because they can’t secure green cards for their partners like heterosexual spouses can. An estimated 36,000 Americans are in this situation, said U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, citing information from the advocacy group Immigration
