When Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump visited Maine earlier this year, he gave a speech in which he made the following characterization of Lewiston, the most prominent home of Somali immigrants in the state:
“We’ve just seen many, many crimes getting worse all the time, and as Maine knows — a major destination for Somali refugees, right, am I right? Well, they’re all talking about it. Maine. Somali refugees. We admit hundreds of thousands, you admit, into Maine, and to other places in the United States — hundreds of thousands of refugees.”
Many, many crimes getting worse all the time? Well, guess what: we can test that according to the police reports for Lewiston, Maine compiled by the FBI into the latest Crime in the United States report for 2015. The handy thing about Somali immigration to Lewiston is that it began in a particular year: 2001. So if Somali refugees’ move to Lewiston, Maine is making “crimes getting worse all the time there,” then we should see a rise in crime in the 15 years since immigration, compared with the 15 years before immigration.
What do we actually see? Here are the trends for both violent crime and property crime from the 2015 Crime in the United States report:
The period after Somali immigration has lower violent crime and property crime rates than the period before Somali immigration. This bigoted claim by Donald Trump about dangerous dark-skinned immigrants simply isn’t true. If Donald Trump were a kind, open-hearted human being, he would apologize to the people and the community that he has slandered. Unfortunately, as we’ve all learned, Donald Trump is not that kind of a human being. That means that it’s up to you and me to spread the word of truth here. Pass it on: Lewiston Maine is acutally better with immigrants.
