“From Henry Cabot Lodge in the late 19th century to Donald Trump, anti-immigration politicians have repeatedly tried to link immigrants to crime, but our research confirms that this is a myth and not based on fact.”

That’s Stanford economics professor Ran Abramitzky, lead author of a recent study called “Law-abiding Immigrants: The Incarceration Gap Between Immigrants and the US-born, 1850–2020”, which I discuss in this issue of the Notes.

Back in 2018, in NN #624, I published a piece entitled “Immigrants and Crime: Some Pesky Facts”. I quoted an article in the Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice in which the authors “investigate the immigration-crime relationship among metropolitan areas over a 40 year period from 1970 to 2010.” They said, “Our results indicate that, for property crimes, immigration has a consistently negative effect. For violent crimes, immigration has no effect on assault and a negative effect on robbery and murder. This is strong and stable evidence that, at the macro-level, immigration does not cause crime to increase in U.S. metropolitan areas, and may even help reduce it.”

Last July (2023) the Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) at Stanford University issued a news release headed The Mythical Tie Between Immigration and Crime. The release announced a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research that looks at the facts on the immigrant/crime link that goes back 150 years, all the way back to 1870.

The study is titled “Law-abiding Immigrants: The Incarceration Gap Between Immigrants and the US-born, 1850–2020.” Looking at the study itself, one only has to get as far as Page 3 to understand a large part of the motivation for conducting this research: “Anti-immigrant politicians,” explain the authors, “have associated immigrants with criminality throughout US history.” The authors then state their case clearly: “Contrary to the anti-immigrant rhetoric, we find that, as a group, immigrants have had similar or lower incarceration rates than white US-born men for the last 150 years of American history.”

It’s Not News, Really

Even that radical left wing newspaper, USA Today, agrees that immigrants to the USA are generally more law-abiding than native-born USAmericans. In a March 1 article headlined “No, Immigrants Aren’t More Likely to Commit Crimes than US-born, Despite Trump’s Border Speech,” USAT quoted Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a right-wing libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C. He said that “The findings show pretty consistently [that] undocumented and illegal immigrants have a lower conviction rate and are less likely to be convicted of homicide and other crimes overall compared to native-born Americans in Texas.”

USAT continues: “Research by Michael Light, a sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin, shows a similar pattern,” in support of which USAT quotes Light saying “We looked at homicides, sexual assaults, violent crimes, property crimes, traffic and drug violations. And what we find across the board is that the undocumented tend to have lower rates of crimes [than native-born USAmericans] with all of these types of offenses.”

So much for the pesky facts. Growing numbers of voters seem impervious to them. Read on…

In April the Gallup organization surveyed USAmericans, asking “What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?” Immigration topped the list. Gallup explained that “In February [2024], as a bipartisan measure to address the [immigration] issue failed in the U.S. Senate, immigration overtook the government as the nation’s most important problem and has remained there since.”

And that is partly due to a fear of crime, which so many believe—falsely—is related to immigration. The NY Times reports that “As of 2017, according to Gallup polls, almost half of Americans agreed that immigrants make crime worse.”

When asked specifically about the impact of immigration on crime in the United States, 57% of Americans surveyed by the Pew Research Center earlier this year said the large number of migrants seeking to enter the country leads to more crime. That’s a lot of people believing the same false narrative. Where do they get such ideas? Well…

On December 6 2017 Donald Trump stated that “the Democrats . . . want to have illegal immigrants; in many cases, people that we don’t want in our country. They want to have illegal immigrants pouring into our country, bringing with them crime, tremendous amounts of crime.”

At the end of February the Washington Post ran a great article headlined The Truth about Illegal Immigration and Crime. In it, they noted that Donald J. Trump in 2024 is continuing a pattern of “using anecdotal evidence to make an emotional case against undocumented immigrants.” What makes it a great article is that the Post reminds readers that, in doing so, “Trump is drawing on a long history of anti-immigrant rhetoric.”

In support of this statement, the Post cites a rather mind-boggling 2020 study, published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), which “analyzed 200,000 congressional speeches and 5,000 presidential communications on immigration since 1880, when a wave of Chinese immigrants led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 that barred Chinese laborers. When lawmakers spoke about immigration, their speeches were twice as likely as their speeches on other topics to mention words related to crime.”

The PNAS study continues to say that “Despite the salience of anti-immigration rhetoric today, we find that political speech about immigration is now much more positive on average than in the past, with the shift largely taking place between World War II and the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1965.” Surprising, no? But keep reading:

“However, since the late 1970s, political parties have become increasingly polarized in their expressed attitudes toward immigration, such that Republican speeches today are as negative as the average congressional speech was in the 1920s, an era of strict immigration quotas. . . we find that modern Republicans are significantly more likely to use language that is suggestive of metaphors long associated with immigration, such as ‘animals’ and ‘cargo,’ and make greater use of frames like ‘crime’ and ‘legality.’ PNAS goes so far as to say that their analysis indicates that the leader the modern Republican Party, Donald Trump, “was the most anti-immigration president to sit in office over the past 140 years.”

A strong statement, that, but seemingly backed up by statements by the former President in a speech in Michigan on April 2nd at which Reuters and others reported that “Donald Trump called immigrants illegally in the United States ‘animals’ and ‘not human’.”

Anti-immigrant sentiment has long been linked to racism, as the PNAS study makes clear: “The tone of speeches also differs strongly based on which nationalities are mentioned, with a striking similarity between how Mexican immigrants are framed today and how Chinese immigrants were framed during the era of Chinese exclusion in the late 19th century. Overall, despite more favorable attitudes toward immigrants and the formal elimination of race-based restrictions, nationality is still a major factor in how immigrants are spoken of in Congress.”

This underlying racism and xenophobia is the soil in which racism and xenophobic policy grows. And that soil is fertilized by the hateful rhetoric of racism increasingly shouted out by the modern-day Republican Party, which perhaps should be called the Trump Party.

On page 2 of the study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that I’ve been quoting, we find this reference to “certain types” of immigrants, which is code for this particular form of racism:

“From anti-Chinese fearmongering in the 1880s to concerns about Southern and Eastern European immigrants in the 1920s to the anti-immigration rhetoric of the Trump administration (2017 to 2020), claims that certain types of immigrants can never truly join American society have been a perennial part of our discourse. For example, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, an architect of anti-immigrant legislation, declared a century ago, ‘[Immigration] is bringing to the country people whom it is very difficult to assimilate’ because immigrants are from “races most alien to the body of the American people.”

The assumption here, of course, is that “the American people” are white and “aliens” are not. Belief in the underlying idea here – that some people are better than other people – is central to the polarization we see in the 21st Century. As we’ve seen for hundreds of years. The role of race in the growth of anti-immigrant sentiment is obvious wherever you look. Here are just a few examples from recent months.

It’s Africa, It’s Asia, It’s the Middle East

Speaking in Richmond Virginia on the first weekend in March of this year, Donald Trump was heard to say:

“Two days ago, I was with Governor Greg Abbott at the Texas Border, he’s doing a really good job, to witness the total devastation that crooked Joe Biden and his stupid policy of open borders. Who would do this? Who would do this? No country would do this. What it’s done to us as a country, our border is an open and gushing wound pouring drugs, gangs, terrorists, and millions of illegal aliens into our country. Many, many people that are not supposed to be in our country. So unfair to people that are on line for 10 years. They study, they work, they do everything, and then they see millions of people come in with no recourse, no nothing, no retribution. Yet crooked Joe is fighting the state of Texas to stop them from defending our border. They’re doing a job for the country. They’re actually cutting the wire fences open to let thousands of migrants come pouring in, the migrants that they have no idea. They’re from parts unknown. You know what that means? Parts unknown. They’re coming from the Congo. They come from all parts of Africa, Asia, the Middle East.

“Last night they had four from the Congo. Where in the Congo do you live? I wonder what beautiful place do you live in the Congo? We are from prison. What did you do? Murder. They’re in the United States right now, right? This is what they’re allowing. But it’s Africa, it’s Asia, it’s the Middle East. It’s people that we’re bombing…

“Our country is being laughed at all over the world. But I will not let [Joe Biden] destroy Social Security. I will not let him crash Medicare. I will not let him turn our public schools into migrant camps, which is what they’re doing. And I will not let him turn the USA into a crime filled disease ridden dumping ground. People with terrible, terrible disease that is easily caught. I have to say, they’re pouring into our country in addition to everything else. It’s so crazy. Who would want this? Think of it. Who would want this open borders where people are allowed to come in from mental institutions and jails? Who would want this? Is there something good? I guess the only thing I can say is they’re trying to sign them up to get them to vote in the next election. That’s all it is. But they don’t really need that because what they do is they just use blank ballots.”

(Some Nygaard Notes readers may wonder where the references to Social Security and Medicare come from. That’s a story for another time.)

Nice countries, you know, like Denmark, Switzerland

The NY Times reported on a Trump speech given “at a multimillion-dollar fund-raiser” on April 6 of this year, noting that this particular comment by the would-be President drew “chuckles from the crowd”:

“And when I said, you know, Why can’t we allow people to come in from nice countries, I’m trying to be nice. [insert chuckles here]. Nice countries, you know like Denmark, Switzerland? Do we have any people coming in from Denmark? How about Switzerland? How about Norway?”

It’s Called ‘Migrant’

Now it’s 2024 and Donald Trump is trying to get back into the White House, in support of which the Big Lie that immigrants cause crime has been resurrected and asked to perform its racialized xenophobic duty once again. Here’s the candidate at a rally in Michigan in February: “You know, in New York, what’s happening with crime is it’s through the roof, and it’s called ‘migrant.’ They beat up police officers. You’ve seen that they go in, they stab people, hurt people, shoot people. It’s a whole new form, and they have gangs now that are making our gangs look like small potatoes.”

This reminds me of the American Party, the 19th-Century political party better known as the Know Nothing Party.

Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric builds on previous waves of xenophobia, such as the hate directed at Southern and Eastern European immigrants in the 1920s, and before that the anti-Chinese fearmongering in the 1880s. But even before that there was a remarkable anti-immigrant political party in the USA. Meet the Know Nothings.

It’s difficult to describe the Know Nothing Party briefly. It was around for a few years just prior to the U.S. civil war, and was anti-immigrant and xenophobic, to say the least. Here’s a paragraph from the website at the Falvey Library at Villanova University that I think captures the spirit of this particular group:

The Know Nothing Party essentially existed from about the years 1851 to 1858 and was fueled by religious prejudice and political hostility. The party grew out of the Native American Party with the formation of a secret society of Nativists in 1845 called the Order of United Americans. Later, in 1849, they would become the Order of the Star Spangled Banner. Members were required to be a native-born citizen, a Protestant either born of Protestant parents or raised with Protestant values, and not married to a Catholic. The purpose of the organization was to protect American citizens in their civil and religious rights, and resist policies of the Roman Catholic Church and other foreign influences. In 1852, this secret society became the party with members known as “knownothings” because of their refusal to answer questions about the association. Inquiries from outsiders got the response “I Know Nothing” in order to keep from revealing goings-on about the secret society. Thus, the Nativist movement became the Know Nothing Party, or KNP, which would later for political purposes become known as the American Party.

Well, at least they got rid of their ultra-ironic name The Native American Party!

Abraham Lincoln had a few words to say on the Know Nothing Party. On August 24, 1855 Lincoln wrote a letter to someone named Joshua F. Speed. It included the following:

I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we begin by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.’

Just a week after Donald Trump was inaugurated in January of 2017, a very astute writer named Lorraine Boissoneault published a prescient article in The Smithsonian Magazine. It was entitled “How the 19th-Century Know Nothing Party Reshaped American Politics,” with the subtitle “From xenophobia to conspiracy theories, the Know Nothing party launched a nativist movement whose effects are still felt today.”

“Know Nothings were the American political system’s first major third party. Early in the 19th century, two parties leftover from the birth of the United States were the Federalists (who advocated for a strong central government) and the Democratic-Republicans (formed by Thomas Jefferson). Following the earliest parties came the National Republicans, created to oppose Andrew Jackson. That group eventually transformed into the Whigs as Jackson’s party became known as the Democrats. [The Know Nothings] were the first party to leverage economic concerns over immigration as a major part of their platform. Though short-lived, the values and positions of the Know Nothings ultimately contributed to the two-party system we have today.”

Millard Fillmore was President of the USA just before the Civil War (1850-1853), and ran for re-election in 1856 as the nominee of the Know Nothing Party. He lost.

The Know Nothings Got Some Votes

When Congress assembled on December 3, 1855, 43 representatives were avowed members of the Know-Nothing party.

A 2020 study from the Kennedy School at Harvard called Understanding the Success of the Know-Nothing Party tells us some interesting things. “In 1854, the Know-Nothing party secured all but three seats in the Massachusetts legislature and won the governorship with over 60% of the popular vote. More generally, Know-Nothing popularity was positively correlated with manufacturing employment, immigration and urbanization.

In 2024, as immigrant scapegoating leads people to blame immigrants for their problems rather than, say, capitalism, the Harvard study holds some lessons for us. Listen to this:

“Massachusetts was the vanguard of industrialization during [the 1850s] and received a disproportionate share of the immigrants from Ireland. On the labor supply side, a shock came in the form of mass migration of Irish. An estimated one million Irish fled their homeland during the Potato Famine of 1846. Over the period 1841 to 1851, Boston absorbed over 100,000 Irish immigrants, and by 1855 the Irish comprised one-quarter of the city’s overall population and 85% of its foreign-born population. Irish immigrants competed with low-skill native-born workers mainly as laborers, as factory operatives, and in fishing. On the labor demand side, the shock came from deskilling in manufacturing. As early as the mid-1820s, manufacturing had grown to be the largest sector of the Massachusetts economy. By the 1850s, the movement to factory production led to the hollowing out of the skill distribution in manufacturing as skilled- mechanics and artisans were replaced with less skilled factory operatives.”

In early June President Biden issued an executive order that the New York Times says is “the most restrictive border policy instituted by Mr. Biden, or any other modern Democrat, and echoes an effort in 2018 by President Donald J. Trump to curb migration that Democrats assailed and federal courts blocked.”

Why would he do such a thing? Because, as The Times explains, “Mr. Biden is under intense political pressure to address illegal immigration, a top concern of voters before the presidential election in November. The decision shows how the politics of immigration have shifted sharply to the right over the course of Mr. Biden’s presidency. Polls suggest growing support — even in the president’s party — for border measures that Democrats once denounced and Mr. Trump championed.”

Upon releasing his order, Biden said, “I’ll never refer to immigrants as poisoning the blood of a country,” as Trump did earlier this year.

And here we must remember that there are two types of propaganda: Overt Propaganda and Deep Propaganda. While Overt Propaganda tends to be specific and conscious, Deep Propaganda is usually general and unconscious. Overt Propaganda is the thing you are supposed to believe. Deep Propaganda is what makes it believable.

The Deep Propaganda animating the immigration debate is the idea that some groups of people are better than others. The Good People are “us”. The Bad People are “them.” Or, to put it another way: Some people Belong and some people are The Other.

Once you have accepted this Deep Propaganda, then it will seem to you that any statements are true if they substantiate what you already think is true. And any evidence to the contrary is “fake news.” So, it makes sense that immigrants are criminals, subversives, that they pose a threat to the implied “Us.” Don’t bother me with the facts!

And this is the great power, and the great danger, of Donald Trump. He is willing—indeed, happy—to play the “race card” in order to attain power, in the process reinforcing the Deep Propaganda of racism in service to an agenda of minority rule.

In 1855 Abraham Lincoln reminded us that, although the USA began “by declaring that ‘all men are created equal,’ we now practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.'”

Today the Republican Party has aligned itself with the MAGA movement, becoming the modern-day Know Nothing Party. And while the original Know-Nothings believed that all men are created equal, “except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics,” today the Othering superstructure built and maintained by the MAGA movement casts a much broader net.

If we amend the vision of the Declaration of Independence from “All men are created equal” to “All people are created equal”, we have a vision that can be the basis for a society that is truly democratic and inclusive.

It’s a stark contrast with Trumpism, or MAGA-ism, or whatever we call it, with its vision of a society which attempts to deny full membership on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, age, national origin, religion, disability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, education, marital status, language, veteran status, physical appearance or, finally, subversive ideas and values. Like the idea that all people are created equal.

Heidi Altman, the policy director at the National Immigrant Justice Center, speaking of Biden’s executive order limiting immigration, called it “a dangerous shift” that will “put the United States at odds with core values and commitments.” She referred to what she called the “fear-based politics on immigration” that forms the soil in which such draconian policies grow.

The reason that Biden is back-tracking on immigration is that Trump and the New Know-Nothings have internalized, and then proclaimed, the Deep Propaganda which tells us that some people are better than others. And growing numbers of people agree. Enough to re-elect Donald Trump to the Presidency? We’ll see. [Obviously… We saw.]

And that’s how Nygaard Notes #713 looked when I finished it in June of last year. In the next Notes I plan to tell you what and how I’m thinking about publishing in the future.