Degree of illegal immigrants' involvement in smuggling drugs, other crimes uncertain

the country illegally, more than 35 percent were brought in on misdemeanor allegations, meaning they were arrested for relatively low-level offenses.

The remainder faced felony charges. Some crime statistics, though, suggest a greater level of offense than they really represent.

Arizona lawmakers, with the support of their constituents, have taken steps in recent years to criminalize some of the behavior associated with living in the country illegally, such as changing identity theft from a misdemeanor to a low-level felony. Immigrants are often charged with ID theft for using fake employment documents.

The changes have contributed to more illegal immigrants being charged as felons, doubling the number of charges for identity theft in Maricopa County from 149 in 2007 to more than 300 in 2009.

Federal courts have experienced a similar shift in the past twenty years, according to an analysis from the Pew Hispanic Center.

In 1991 immigration offenses made up 7 percent of all federal convictions, and by 2007, immigration offenses represented nearly 25 percent of federal convictions.

Mark Lopez conducted the Pew study and said the changes in the federal-court system reflected a few different patterns. “In this period, we’ve seen the current wave of immigration really take off,” he said. “We’ll see more Hispanics in federal court because of changes in enforcement, changes in federal laws and just more people.”

Hensley notes that Arizona’s new immigration law adds another possible charge. Senate Bill 1070 makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally and states that an officer engaged in a lawful stop, detention or arrest shall, when practicable, ask about a person’s legal status when reasonable suspicion exists that the person is in the U.S. illegally.

Public image

Drawing any definitive conclusions from crime statistics can be a dangerous proposition, said Bill Hart, a policy analyst at Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute who studies criminal justice.

The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that half of all violent crimes in America go unreported, he said, and data on undocumented immigrants are unreliable.

Violent crime is down statewide as it is in the rest of the nation, according to FBI statistics. The discussion of violent crime and illegal immigration, however, draws on several dynamics, Hart said. The violence that accompanies smugglers is real and documented.

Last Thursday, a massive gun battle between rival smugglers twelve miles south of the Arizona border near Nogales killed twenty-one people and wounded at least six others.

“It’s this conflation that people get mixed up when they think of this. They think of several things being the same thing,” Hart said, noting violence in Mexico, border crossings, and violence in the Valley associated with drug and human smugglers.

“People too easily can be put in a state of general fear when people talk too loosely about associating concerns with undocumented immigration with concerns about crime,” Hart said. “But the two are not that connected.”

Critics of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s immigration-enforcement efforts, which center on work-site raids and crime sweeps to net illegal residents, contend that the operations largely impact those whose most serious crime is illegally crossing the border. They contend that Arizona’s new immigration law won’t deter hardened criminals from remaining in the state.

Though there is little evidence to support the idea that half of the immigrants illegally entering Arizona are involved in the drug trade, there is no question that drug smuggling plays a significant role in violent crime.