National Commentator's View: Newark Murders Fan Black Hysteria Over 'Immigrant Crime Wave'
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson
August 21, 2007
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a nationally known author and political analyst. He is not a staff member of DiversityInc.
When Newark [New Jersey] Mayor Cory Booker learned that the alleged shooters in the execution killing of three black college students were undocumented immigrants, he did the responsible thing. He did not finger-point a porous border and lax law enforcement for allegedly letting so many supposed violent immigrants slip into the country as the cause of the killings. Booker may have said and done the right thing as a responsible public official, and in this case a black elected official, who did not want to arouse public passions any more than they already were over the murders. He certainly did not want to inflame the always-fragile tensions between blacks and Latinos any more than they already are.
But others have not exercised the same restraint. Some black talk-show hosts and black writers have burned up Internet sites and sent floods of e-mails (this writer got several) with outlandish and reckless charges that the killings were part of a concerted plot by Latino gangs to target African Americans for murder and mayhem. Leading immigration-reform foes from the Center for Immigration Studies to Bill O'Reilly also claimed that state and federal officials are so cowered by the thought of being branded racist that they have turned a blind eye to waves of undocumented immigrants who supposedly have unleashed a violent crime wave across the country. They gleefully added that Newark is a sanctuary city where police are forbidden to ask questions about a suspect's citizenship status. With the arguable exception of the spate of violent clashes between black and Latino inmates in California's prisons, and Los Angeles county jails last year, and the headline-grabbing murders of black teen Cheryl Green last December and three other young blacks in Los Angeles, there is no evidence that Latino gang members have embarked on a systematic campaign of ethnic cleaning against blacks.
The second claim about undocumented immigrants uncorking a violent crime wave is easier to sell. The movie industry and TV series such as The Untouchables, The Godfather, Scarface, "Miami Vice," and "The Sopranos" have long fed the popular image of violent immigrants reeking havoc in cities. Then there are the endless tales of crime cartels like the mafia, Cuban marielitos, Colombian cocaine cartels, Japanese yakuza and Chinese triads that also spread terror. The rumors were rife that the alleged shooters in Newark were connected with the Salvadoran Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). This gang has gotten a lot of press ink lately as a virtual immigrant's Drug and Murder Incorporated.
There is, however, no truth to the claim that undocumented immigrants have unleashed a crime wave in the country. There are more immigrants than ever in the U.S. and crime rates in the country have plummeted. The plunge has been most notable in the big cities with the largest undocumented-immigrant populations. FBI figures show big drops in property crimes and violent crimes, particularly the homicide rates, during the past decade. The sole exception to this has been a spike up in black-on-black homicides. Few of the killers here are undocumented immigrants.
Undocumented immigrants, whether juvenile or adult, are far less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans. That includes native-born Latinos. But facts never got in the way of a good politically-driven scare tactic to turn public opinion against any sort of meaningful immigration reform.
(See also: Debunking 10 Immigration Myths in the September 2007 issue of DiversityInc magazine, out soon)
It's heartbreaking to see the falsehood about an undocumented-immigrant crime wave masquerade as fact in the Newark slayings. Apart from the incidents of Latino-on-black violence cited earlier, and the Newark murders, black and Latino relations have not been marred by violence. Most of the violence in urban areas, and that includes Newark, have been black-on-black or Latino-on-Latino.
There is no evidence that the Newark killings were anything other than a random robbery attempt gone bad. Yet, the not-so-subtle inference that the killings are part of an ethnic-sanitizing plan against blacks comes at a time when more blacks continue to voice fears that undocumented immigrants are muscling them out of jobs and competing for scare resources in health, public services and public schools.
With 1930s Depression-era levels of unemployment among young black males, and with blacks making up more than nearly half of America's record 2-million-plus jail population, this is a concern that can't be ignored. The Newark slayings fuel fears among many blacks that they are losing ground to undocumented immigrants and are under siege from violent street gangs such as the Mexican Mafia and MS-13. The relatives of the three students gunned down in Newark demanded to know how one of the suspected shooters was back on a Newark street even though he had two prior felony arrests. This is a legitimate question. They're owed an answer.
But the victims' relatives and Booker did the right thing by not blaming their deaths on bad immigration policies, or worse, feeding the myth that undocumented immigrants are America's new gangsters. The pity is that others haven't done the same.
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