I was disturbed to read Cody Kittle's Friday column ("Resolution threatens Evanston," Feb. 22) regarding illegal immigration in Evanston. While indeed a controversial issue and one with a number of valid viewpoints on either side, I am afraid that Kittle places far greater faith in his reasoning than it deserves.
His argument against Evanston's proposed resolution appears to be based on three lines of reasoning: that illegal immigration causes increased crime, that it imposes substantial costs on the community and that it sends "the wrong message" with respect to federal and community standards. Unfortunately, the evidence marshaled for each of these propositions is shaky at best. Kittle begins by quoting a series of misleading statistics regarding Los Angeles. Although unsourced, I believe these ideas first surfaced as part of Heather MacDonald's congressional testimony to a House Judiciary subcommittee (MacDonald is a member of the conservative Manhattan Institute). Sadly, these statistics are logically flawed as well as unsubstantiated.
The idea that 95 percent of outstanding homicide warrants in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens may seem shocking - but it shouldn't surprise anyone that warrants are likely to go unserved on a population with a strong incentive to flee the jurisdiction when under investigation (even if they're innocent, they could still be deported following their arrest). Furthermore, studies that have looked at this topic support the proposition that crime rates for illegal immigrants in Los Angeles are at worst proportional to their size of the total population.
And finally, as Snopes.com noted in its debunking of this urban legend, the LAPD doesn't even track the immigration status of suspects by crime - so it's impossible for this figure to be documented, let alone supported. Similarly, Kittle distorts the statistic that two-thirds of all felony warrants in the city are for illegal aliens. Although there may indeed have been 17,000 outstanding warrants in 2004, the two-thirds figure actually comes from another study - from 1985. The study led to the formation of a special task force to resolve such cases, and it's unclear how that figure has changed since. This, of course, leaves aside the issue of whether any results from Los Angeles are applicable to the country as a whole.
2008 Woodie Awards
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