Republicans Fibbing About Violence Along The Border

It’s a tired line — one that’s been in vogue at least since the 1980s — “we cannot consider immigration reform until the border is secure.” Texas Congressman Silvestre Reyes, a Democrat, took this idea and put it to the test. Turns out, border cities are much more safe than the cities in Republican House Leader John Boehner’s home state of Ohio, see:

Homicides in Dayton, Ohio and Texas Border Cities

City	Population	2009	2010
Dayton	141,527	39	35
El Paso	649,121	12	5
Laredo	236,091	17	9
Brownsville	175,023	4	7
McAllen	129,876	4	5
TX Border Cities Total	1,190,111	37	26

So it looks like Speaker Boehner’s house is in much more disarray than the heavily-Latino border area, ey? In response to Boehner’s repeated statements that the border must be “secured,” Rep. Reyes said:

Speaker Boehner should focus on controlling the level of violence in his own state before tarnishing the image of border communities that remain among the safest places to live in America. As his office asserts that Congress cannot consider reforming our broken immigration system until border violence is under control, the fact remains that the six largest cities in Ohio all have higher rates of violence and crime than every major city along the U.S.-Mexico border.

In fact, the Speaker’s own district in Dayton, Ohio saw more homicides in 2009 and 2010 than Texas’ four largest border cities combined, despite the fact that Dayton’s population of 141,500 is only about one-tenth of the size by comparison. According to the most recent City Crime Rankings Survey by CQ Press, Ohio’s cities have higher rates of violence and crime in every category, including murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, and motor vehicle theft than border communities.

President Obama will visit the border region when he speaks in El Paso [today], the largest border city in Texas and the safest large city in America.  As Republicans continue to distort the facts and use border violence as an excuse to delay immigration reform and disparage the outstanding work of our local, state, and federal law enforcement professionals, I hope the President’s visit will help expose Republicans’ distorted rhetoric on border violence, and renew the push for much-needed reforms to our immigration system that are long overdue.

Silvestre’s office included many more crime statistics, which we republish for you below.

2010 – 2011 City Crime Rankings CQ Press

Murder Rate (National Rate = 5.0 Murders per 100,000 Population)

Rape Rate (National Rate = 28.7 Rapes per 100,000 Population)

Robbery Rate (National Rate = 133.0 Robberies per 100,000 Population)

Aggravated Assault (National Rate = 262.8 Aggravated Assaults per 100,000 Population)

Burglary (National Rate = 716.3 Burglaries per 100,000 Population)

Motor Vehicle Theft (National Rate = 258.8 Motor Vehicle Thefts per 100,000 Population)

Cities Ranked by Highest Rates of Crime (400 total)

Follow Sara Inés Calderón on Twitter @SaraChicaD

[Photo By Jim.Greenhill]