Another set of deciding factors are deeply engrained ideologies such as political orientation, belief that there are too many immigrants in an individual’s area, and personal levels of nationalism. This category is perhaps the greatest indicator of negative attitudes toward immigrants and opinions about high immigrant criminality. In recent years, political leanings have come to be one of the most accurate indicators of beliefs on immigrant criminality, with those who lean Liberal believing less in immigrant criminality, and those leaning towards the Right holding the opposite (Krogstad 2015). Similarly, perception of how many immigrants live in an individual’s neighborhood is a strong indicator of intense beliefs regarding immigrant criminality.
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Recently, the concepts of xenophobia and nationalism have become conflated in much the same manner as immigration and criminality, leading to a new variety of firebrand politicians. Preaching harsher border patrol policy and less leniency for unauthorized migrants through the use of scare tactics, they forcefully suggest that U.S. citizens are under siege by immigrant criminality, using nothing but rhetoric. This modern form of xenophobic nationalism has served to legitimize the concept of immigrants as harbingers of crime, and creates a wider divide between citizens and non-citizens. One statistic widely used by politicians espousing this message is the purported correlation between spikes in immigration and simultaneous spikes in incarcerations rates; this can be easily and empirically disproven. statistics taken in 2000 and reported by Rumbaut (2007), the incarceration rate for U.S.-born men between the ages of 18-39 was 3.5 percent – 5 times that of foreign-born men (0.7 percent). Interestingly, as Latin American immigrants begin to assimilate, incarceration rates for them and their children begin to rise, while foreign born incarceration rates for all ethnicities were never higher than the national average. Incarceration rates for male, foreign born Latino immigrants were at roughly 1 percent – far lower than average. This case study alone suggests that there is little to no merit to the claims of high rates of criminality within Latino – or any – recent immigrant communities and
Recently, the concepts of xenophobia and nationalism have become conflated in much the same manner as immigration and criminality, leading to a new variety of firebrand politicians. Preaching harsher border patrol policy and less leniency for unauthorized migrants through the use of scare tactics, they forcefully suggest that U.S. citizens are under siege by immigrant criminality, using nothing but rhetoric. This modern form of xenophobic nationalism has served to legitimize the concept of immigrants as harbingers of crime, and creates a wider divide between citizens and non-citizens. One statistic widely used by politicians espousing this message is the purported correlation between spikes in immigration and simultaneous spikes in incarcerations rates; this can be easily and empirically disproven. statistics taken in 2000 and reported by Rumbaut (2007), the incarceration rate for U.S.-born men between the ages of 18-39 was 3.5 percent – 5 times that of foreign-born men (0.7 percent). Interestingly, as Latin American immigrants begin to assimilate, incarceration rates for them and their children begin to rise, while foreign born incarceration rates for all ethnicities were never higher than the national average. Incarceration rates for male, foreign born Latino immigrants were at roughly 1 percent – far lower than average. This case study alone suggests that there is little to no merit to the claims of high rates of criminality within Latino – or any – recent immigrant communities and