Meryl Horn

And then finally, I talked to Bill about the supposed reason for all of this.

So there's this claim that the raids are making the U.S.

safer because the goal is to deport violent criminals.

What does the evidence show?

Do these raids make communities safer?

Less likely.

And how come?

Yeah, so we cover this in our old immigration episode.

A few years ago.

Yeah, immigrants are less likely to commit crimes compared to other people in the general population.

And there was an analysis recently from the Cato Institute, that libertarian think tank, that analyzed a bunch of deportation data that was FOIA'd.

And it found that ICE is arresting 1,100% more non-criminals on the streets in the summer of last year compared with about like 10 years ago.

So the vast majority of ICE arrests happening today are basically people with either nonviolent criminal convictions or people with no criminal record at all.

And then there's also some evidence that what's happening right now will actually make people less safe.

For example, when ICE starts working with local cops, undocumented people are less likely to report crimes, which the authors of that study said can undermine public safety.

And we also see that domestic violence calls also drop in places with a relatively high Latinx population, which means that when that type of like violence is happening, people might be less likely to call for help.

So yeah, it does seem like people are generally less healthy and less safe when ICE raids happen.

Yeah.

Okay.

Hi, I'm Meryl Horne filling in for Wendy Zuckerman, and you're listening to Science Versus.