Five Immigrant Cities Among The Top Ten Safest In America

Numerous independent studies over the past century have proven categorically that immigrants are far less likely to commit crimes or reside behind bars than native born people. A fact that dozens of academics who specialize in the issue wrote to President George W. Bush about in 2007 as the immigration debate heated up. One of those academics, Rubén G. Rumbaut, a sociologist who studies immigration at the University of California, Irvine wrote Reason Magazine via email last year, "The evidence points overwhelmingly to the same conclusion: Rates of crime and conviction for undocumented immigrants are far below those for the native born, and that is especially the case for violent crimes, including murder." This is interesting when you consider that many proponents of anti-immigrant measures like Arizona SB 1070 use "the rise in immigrant crime" as an argument for their cause. Recently, one such crime study, the CQ Press: City Crime Rankings, which analyzes crime statistics reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the categories of murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and auto theft, named at least five American cities largely populated by immigrants (including immigrants from Latin America) in their top ten safest U.S. cities with a population over 500,000. This is a list of those cities.

El Paso: Second Safest City In America

Despite being located across the Rio Grande from the most dangerous city in the world, El Paso, Texas is the second safest city in America. The low crime rate in El Paso suggests what those of us who grew up on the border already know; violence is no worse there than anywhere else in America. In fact, in most cases, it's much better. (Only Honolulu had a lower violent crime rate than El Paso on the CQ list.) And El Paso provides a particularly fascinating story because of it's proximity to Mexico's Ciudad Juarez where, people are fond of saying, it's more dangerous to walk down the street than in Baghdad. Despite Juarez's murder toll–5000 people in the past two years–El Paso authorities have recorded just two murderes in 2010. In 2009 there were 11.

But actions speak louder than stats and perhaps most telling was the City of El Paso's fight against the construction of Washington D.C.'s mandated border wall in their community. The city went to court in Washington in 2007, but lost the battle. In a move completely opposite to Arizona's, El Paso's local officials have also resisted federal efforts to enlist local police for immigration enforcement. "Most people in Washington really don't understand life on the border," El Paso Mayor John Cook told the Washington Post in 2007. "They don't understand our philosophy here that the border joins us together, it doesn't separate us."

New York City, NY: Third Safest City In America

New Yorkers have long lamented their city's decline in "street cred" with the drop in crime that came with Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's two terms in the 90's and early aughts. Subsequent Mayor Michael Bloomberg has continued the trend of making New York City, a city teeming with immigrants from every corner of the globe, a place that's safe for tourists and uncool for heroin addicts. It's now the third safest city in America and, on some lists, giving El Paso a run for it's safe money.

San Jose, California: The Fourth Safest City In America

America's fourth safest city has an immigrant population that comprises 39% of its citizenship, including a large population of poor immgirants from Latin America. Of the entire population of San Jose, 31.5% are Hispanic. San Jose also boasts the largest Vietnamese community outside Vietnam. They remain one of the safest places to live in America.

San Diego, California: The Sixth Safest City In America

What could be more dangerous than a big city on the border of Mexico adjacent to Tijuana, right? Well, a lot of places, apparently. San Diego California ranks as the sixth safest large city in America. That's the San Diego with the Mexicans in it as Mexican-born immigrants have long been a major source of labor for the region's lower-wage jobs in agriculture, construction and the hospitality industry. In 2008, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated there were about 335, 000 Mexican-born immigrants living in San Diego County at a time when the estimated total population of San Diego proper was 1,279,329. (The city was also rated the fifth best place to live in 2006 by Money Magazine.)

Los Angeles: Tenth Safest City In America

Last but not least, we have Los Angeles, the city some joke has more Mexicans in it than Mexico. Not to mention immigrants from all the other Latin American countries. (East Los Angeles is 98.6% Hispanic.) During the last U.S. Census, a reported 36.2% of Los Angeles' population was foreign born. 54.1% spoke Spanish-only in the home. And despite a population of almost 10 million and a proximity of 135 miles to the Mexico border, LA boasts the title of tenth safest city in America.

Source: Reason Magazine, Washington Post, BBC News