By NAN Staff Writer
News Americas, WASHINGTON, D.C., Weds. Mar. 29, 2017: Latest federal justice statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice is highlighting immigration arrests including for nationals of the Caribbean who are either legal residents or undocumented. Here are five fast facts you should know:
1: Only 2 percent of defendants charged in U.S. district court in 2014, the latest date available, were from the Caribbean. That’s exactly 1,253 persons.
2: Most charged were non-citizens, including persons with legal status (permanent residents, persons in possession of a green card, persons with a valid temporary visa, and persons with refugee status) and the undocumented.
2: Of that 1,253 number, the majority or 1,117 were men.
3: Only a tiny number – 135 to be exact – were women.
4: Caribbean nationals in federal prison, however, declined from 6,638 in 2004 to 4,399 in 2014. Some 1,591 were under supervised release as of 2014.
5: The average annual decline in prisoners who were citizens of Caribbean countries and non-US citizens in 2014 was 4 percent.
Overall, studies have shown that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans. One study from the American Immigration Council analyzed available data to find immigrants were less likely than native-born Americans to engage in criminal behavior.
Meanwhile, a recent analysis by the liberal think tank Center for American Progress argues sanctuary cities enjoy lower crime and better economies than their non-sanctuary counterparts.
