Must not link illegals and criminality

Some clever-dick stuff from Leftists below.  They want statistics on illegals. But how do you get statistics on illegals?  They do their best NOT to be in any database

BY DEFAMING whole segments of the state population, Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson is pushing the political rhetoric in Massachusetts into dangerous, Trumpian territory. Immigration is a touchy subject, and pending legislation that would limit local police cooperation with federal immigration authorities deserves a full and frank debate. But voters need to insist that elected officials step back from divisive, even incendiary, posturing that tears at the fabric of the Commonwealth.

Hodgson, a longtime critic of illegal immigration, crossed the line of decency during a recent Beacon Hill hearing on the legislation, which he opposes. At the hearing, Hodgson blithely asserted that Massachusetts communities are exposed to “more crime by illegals being here,” an unsupported and untrue attack. State Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz pushed back: “I’m wondering if you have any evidence to substantiate that claim? . . . What I’m looking for is statistical information and evidence rather than anecdotal.”

The sheriff was momentarily stumped — as if someone had challenged Joseph McCarthy to produce his list of communists. But he said he would get the data for the committee.

The sheriff’s office never followed up with the promised statistics. That is, until the Globe started asking questions about it last week. On Thursday, the sheriff’s public information officer e-mailed Chang-Diaz’s office with some cherry-picked numbers from the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonprofit research center that favors low immigration. None of the data Hodgson’s office provided supported his claim that crime is higher in Massachusetts communities where undocumented immigrants live.

One data point, the officer said, “shows that a disproportionate number of noncitizens are committing certain types of crimes, including drug trafficking, murder, fraud, kidnapping, etc.” But saying “noncitizens” is vastly different than “undocumented immigrants.” He then added: “Somewhere I have a similar table that shows how many of them are illegal, but I will have to search my nonfunctioning computer for that one at another time.”

Hodgson won reelection unopposed last year, and he has the right to his personal views. But Massachusetts deserves better than elected officials who use their office to distort and inflame.

SOURCE