CRIME/DHS/IMMIGRATION/JUSTICE DEPARTMENT/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “About one in five inmates in federal prison are foreign-born, and more than 90 percent of those are in the United States illegally, according to a report released on Thursday [12-21-17] by the Trump administration, which has sought to highlight the dangers it says unauthorized immigrants pose to public safety.
Officials at the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security quickly framed the statistics as evidence that the country needed stricter anti-immigration measures, particularly the wall President Trump has pushed to erect across the southern border.
The report arrives as the White House and Republicans in Congress insist that any legislative deal to restore legal protections for young immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children must include more restrictions on legal and illegal immigration…
Administration officials have repeatedly emphasized what it says are links between unauthorized immigrants and crime, even opening an office to advocate for the victims of crimes committed by immigrants. But a large body of research has suggested that immigrants are no more likely, and often less likely, to commit serious crimes than native-born Americans.”
-Vivan Yee, “Thousands of Federal Inmates Are in the U.S. Illegally, Administration Says,” The New York Times online, Dec. 21, 2017