McGill-Gardner: Stoking Fears of Immigrant Victims Undermines Public Safety
by Joanna McGill-Gardner
Published on February 25, 2025
Anyone practicing immigration law the last few weeks has been barraged by calls from panicking clients wanting to know if they will be deported, if they will lose their children, if they should send them to school.
For me as a staff attorney with HIAS Pennsylvania’s program serving survivors of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, these callers included one mother, a victim-witness in an active prosecution of her abuser, who wanted to know: what about me? Does it help me at all that I have been going to court, testifying, and otherwise aiding prosecutors and investigators for the last two years? Are me and my children at risk?
The current administration rode a wave of exaggeration about immigrants and crime to the White House, but the numbers do not back up their claims that immigrants are criminals. To the contrary, the facts show for anyone who cares about data more than a raw anecdote, it is abundantly clear that undocumented immigrants, regardless of their legal status, are far less likely to commit crimes – violent or otherwise – than their U.S. citizens counterparts.
