At RNC, immigrants are blamed for fentanyl deaths and crime. The data tells a different story

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Republicans are gathered in Milwaukee this week for their national convention, and some politicians are heavily focused on immigration and the border.

Speeches from several politicians tied migration along at the U.S.-Mexico border to everything from fentanyl overdoses to crime.

U.S. Senate hopeful Kari Lake said policies supported by President Joe Biden and Congressman Ruben Gallego had put control of Arizona into the hands of drug cartels.

“Because of them, criminals and deadly drugs are pouring in and our children are dying. Our children are getting their hands on these drugs and dying,” Lake said.

Data from the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection consistently shows the majority of drug smuggling at the border happens at ports of entry, often by U.S. citizens.

Dr. Nancy Foner, a sociology professor at City University of New York’s Hunter College, says linking crime rates to immigrants is an old, but persistent, myth.

“The foreign-born in fact are much less likely than the native-born to commit violent crimes, and in fact, cities and neighborhoods with greater concentrations of immigrants have much lower crime and violence than comparable non-immigrant neighborhoods,” she said in a webinar for journalists this week.

A Northwestern University study examining more than a century of data found that over the past six decades, immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than their U.S.-born counterparts.