Violent incidents along the border in which undocumented immigrants are alleged to have been involved in often become rallying cries for immigration restrictionists, despite the fact that immigrants are less likely than natives to commit crimes. For some reason though, this story hasn’t gotten much traction despite the shootings in Tucson weeks ago:
Shawna Forde, the head of a fringe anti-immigration patrol group called Minutemen American Defense, is charged with two counts of first degree murder.
Prosecutors say she organized a raid on the home of Gina Gonzalez and her husband Raul Flores on May 30, 2009. Forde allegedly believed Flores was involved in drug trafficking and that she and her associates would be able to seize cash or drugs in order to help fund their patrol efforts.
According to police, Forde led the raid, shouting order to two male accomplices (who will stand trial in March) during which Raul was shot multiple times and killed. Gina Gonzalez was shot twice, but survived to hear her daughter, Brisenia Flores, plead for her life before being shot twice and killed.
Stories of violence perpetrated by undocumented immigrants are generally manipulated for the purpose of arguing for more restrictive immigration laws. What are we to make of violence by anti-immigrant groups that think they have the right to take the law into their own hands?
I think the case for reforming our immigration policy is independent of events like this, but my point is that restrictionists would probably argue that there’s no need to draw conclusions about such groups as a whole based on this single incident, even as they’d urge us to do the opposite about immigrants in the case of the shooting of Rancher Robert Krentz.
