Be Safe: Live along the border

By Gregg Wendorf
Advance News Journal

I shouldn’t even be writing stuff like this because I’m not in favor of further development in the RGV. Hate me if you will, but I hate traffic, and with more people, comes more traffic.

I’ll say it anyway, though — if you want to live in a safe place, you can’t really beat the Rio Grande Valley.

“You ever see the dude who lives behind me and cooks meth?”

Okay, sure, there are a few of those types, but most of the meth leaves the Valley, and besides that, the meth cook is probably the quietest neighbor on the block. He sure doesn’t want to draw any attention to his place.

Seriously, though, according to a recent Axios analysis of the latest FBI crime data, the eight U.S. border cities cited in the analysis had a lower homicide rate, 4.2 per 100,000 residents, vs. a national average of 6.3.

Axios is an American news website based in Arlington, Va. It was founded in 2016 and launched the following year by three seasoned journalists. The site’s name is based on the Greek meaning for “worthy.”

With every Yin, though, comes a Yang, and this survey was no exception: on average, the eight border cities named in the report — Brownsville, McAllen, Laredo, Eagle Pass, and El Paso in Texas; Sunland Park in NM; Yuma, Ariz.; and San Diego — scored lower with regard to homicides, yes, but when it came to violent crime in general, the eight showed a 10-percent increase from the year prior.

Experts, police and elected officials don’t know why rates stay so low compared to cities of the same size and similar demographics, but many point to research showing low crime in immigrant communities.

In fact, in a study published in Scientific American, a story published three years ago carried this headline: “Undocumented Immigrants Are Half as Likely to Be Arrested for Violent Crimes as U.S.-Born Citizens.”

“Simply put, we found that undocumented immigrants have lower felony arrest rates than both legal immigrants and, especially, native-born U.S. citizens,” says study co-author Michael Light, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin– Madison (Source: Scientific American).

One can almost conclude why that might be the case. Number one, undocumented immigrants (AKA, illegal aliens back in the day) want to stay away from any and all encounters with the law; and just maybe, most are so happy to escape whatever hell hole they used to call home, that they don’t want to jeopardize their stay here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

Now, what I need to do is check the county jails along the border and see how many beds are being taken up by undocumented immigrants arrested on a felony charge, which is an entirely different matter on its own. That should tell the real tale of how most are behaving here.

The practice of tracking the immigration status of inmates, by the way, is controversial in some circles. Some people argue that it is necessary to identify and deport undocumented immigrants. Others argue that it is discriminatory and that it violates the rights of undocumented immigrants.

So it goes. Bottom line, though, the border area, at least on this side of the river, is still safer than most places in the U.S. Just don’t tell anybody. They might move here.