Absolute numbers, yes. That's stating the obvious... Per capita, somebody needs to dig up the numbers...
Crime rates have gone down in areas with high immigration growth. Trump is doing what Fox News does, play on fears. Nothing is more powerful.
There is no question that some illegals commit violent crimes, including murder. In fact, such articles are quite common. The left is constantly reminding everyone that if we could strengthen gun laws, it would be worth it if it saved only one life. I suggest that if we simply follow our immigration laws, it would save many lives, and therefore it should be worth it.
Don't we need to divide each statistic by the number of illegals and the number of legals, respectively.
Is a criminal who gets away with a crime more likely to continue to commit more crimes? Entering the country illegally is still a crime, isn't it? I'm not saying most come with the intent of becoming criminals, but those who come to expand their gang activities, or are themselves criminal fugitives from there own countries find it fertile ground, especially when they hear of prison releases of illegals who have committed crimes (assuming such stories are factual), or of simply being deported instead of imprisoned. We either have law, or we don't. Of course, we have what one could call "selective enforcement" of existing laws. I often wonder how this illegal immigrant debate looks to those who have been waiting years or longer to come hear "legally".
The Donald is a marvelous populist candidate. We voters like to hear our too simple solutions to the country's problems parroted back to us. It validates our positions, and the candidates who are most adept at distilling complex issues down to simple choices do best: nuke Syria or suffer endless attacks from those who hate us for our freedom; seal the border or let raping and murdering Mexicans take all our good jobs; eliminate the IRS or go on paying way too much tax; return to the gold standard and put Congress in charge of our money, or suffer the thieving bankers and the secretive, "privately owned" Federal Reserve; repeal Obamacare or let medical insurance companies continue to rob us, etc... Now these are not all Trumpisms, they simply illustrate the intellectual quality and appealing message of the populists. Candidates who venture off into nuance on complex issues don't fare well. In my lifetime, there were a few of these: Stevenson, Dukakis and perhaps Kerry could be put in that category. They all had a trace of elitism about them that was off-putting to the lower middle class voter. They overcame this on the local stage where their personal charm came through and let us forget that they were way smarter than us. But they foundered of the rough waters of national politics. There, they just weren't enough like us -- wouldn't even kill a rapist without thinking about it first. They just weren't Presidential timber. There main problem was they thought entirely too much. We could picture them just sitting there in the oval office thinking, and even though they seemed nice enough for the most part, that was just too dangerous, flip-floppy, and down right un-American for us to be able to trust them. The "W" was our most recent thoroughly populist President. His bungling only made him more endearing -- more like us. He was so like us you might not have known he had millions stashed away if you hadn't of heard it on You Tube. Will the Donald be the Next One? He definitely is good at what he does. And what makes it seem so genuine is that it IS genuine. He has all the right qualities: the ability to take hopelessly complex issues and make them seem simple, and not waste time overthinking things or getting bogged down in nuance. His little everyday faux pas make him seem just like us, with a bit more money. He knows about owning sports teams and real estate, and may have even been to a Nascar race. Yes, he's definitely qualified to be in charge of 4000 fusion war heads. And best of all, he has no aura of intellectualism about him. I hereby declare him eminently electable by the American People.
I think Ricter's point was in regard to rapists and murderers, or whatever the Trump categories were, for Mexicans coming across our border.. It seems to me, but there I go overthinking things again, that you would need to divide the number of Mexicans that recently came across our border and commited one of the Donald's designated crimes by the total number of Mexicans coming across the border in the same time period and then compare that fraction to the fraction of U.S. citizens committing similar crimes. And you'd need large numbers in both cases to be valid. I'll go out on a limb and predict the fractions would be quite similar, but who cares about facts in a presidential campaign.