Many posts have discussed immigration. Maria Sacchetti and Emily Guskin report at The Washington Post
A Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation survey of nearly 1,700 Americans — including more than 1,000 in rural areas — reveals that attitudes toward immigrants form one of the widest gulfs between U.S. cities and rural communities.
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President Trump won the November election with broad support from rural America, and his aggressive stance against illegal immigration resonated strongly there. In the Post-Kaiser poll, rural residents are almost three times as likely as city dwellers to consider immigrants a burden to the United States — 42 percent vs. 16 percent.
...Michelangelo Landgrave and Alex Nowrasteh write at Cato:
One reason for rural Americans’ concern about immigrants could be their lack of exposure to them. Foreign-born residents make up 2.3 percent of the population in rural counties, compared with nearly 15 percent of urban counties, according to Census Bureau data for 2011-2015.
In his first week in office, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security to deport most illegal immigrants who come in contact with law enforcement.1 His order is based on the widespread perception that illegal immigrants are a significant source of crime in the United States.2 This brief uses American Community Survey data to analyze incarcerated immigrants according to their citizenship and legal status. All immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than natives relative to their shares of the population. Even illegal immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans.
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There were an estimated 2,007,502 natives, 122,939 illegal immigrants, and 63,994 legal immigrants incarcerated in 2014. The incarceration rate was 1.53 percent for natives, 0.85 percent for illegal immigrants, and 0.47 percent for legal immigrants (see Figure 1). Illegal immigrants are 44 percent less likely to be incarcerated than natives. Legal immigrants are 69 percent less likely to be incarcerated than natives. Legal and illegal immigrants are underrepresented in the incarcerated population while natives are overrepresented (see Figure 2). If native-born Americans were incarcerated at the same rate as illegal immigrants, about 893,000 fewer natives would be incarcerated. If natives were incarcerated at the same rate as legal immigrants, about 1.4 million fewer natives would be incarcerated. The ACS data include illegal immigrants incarcerated for immigration offenses and in ICE detention facilities.16 Subtracting out the 17,000 convicted for immigration offenses and the 34,000 in ICE detention to focus on non-immigration alien offenders lowers the illegal immigrant incarceration rate to 0.50 percent, which brings it close to the legal immigrant incarceration rate of 0.47 percent.17
1. “Executive Order: Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,” Executive Order of the President, January 25, 2017,https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/25/presidentialexecutive-order-enhancing-public-safety-interior-united.2. Lesley Stahl, “President-Elect Trump Speaks to a Divided Country on 60 Minutes,” CBS News, November 13, 2016,http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-donald-trump-familymelania-ivanka-lesley-stahl/16. 2015 American Community Survey/Puerto Rico Community Survey Group Quarters Definition, https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/tech_docs/group_definitions/2015GQ_Definitions.pdf.17. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Corrections Statistical Analysis Tool (CSAT)—Prisoners; https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p08.pdf.
