Apr 26, 2025

Stop Blaming Immigrants. Start Blaming the Real Criminals.

By Tim Hjersted / filmsforaction.org
Stop Blaming Immigrants. Start Blaming the Real Criminals.

Let's get something clear right off the bat: undocumented immigrants commit less crime than U.S. citizens. This isn't speculation. It's not "just one study." It's the consistent finding of virtually every serious analysis over decades. Study after study has shown that immigrants, both documented and undocumented, are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans. (Sources: Cato Institute, American Immigration Council, multiple state-level crime data reviews.)

The point is: continuing to conflate all immigrants with criminals is not just factually wrong. It's morally wrong. It's dehumanizing. It's cruel. And it's a deliberate strategy used by people in power to divide us against each other, while the real criminals — the ones robbing our future, exploiting workers, and rigging the system — walk free.

Gleefully cheering for the suffering of human beings, who are now under threat of deportation or being thrown in a torture prison in El Salvador for life — the vast majority of whom have committed no serious crime — is not the behavior of a moral, just society. It's un-Christian. It's anti-human. It's a stain on any tradition that claims to value dignity or compassion.

Let's be honest. Overstaying a visa? Crossing a border because you're fleeing violence or grinding poverty? That's not "crime" in the moral sense that matters. That's survival. That's trying to live. If you're serious about opposing crime — real crime — then focus your anger where it belongs: on violence, on exploitation, on the systems that crush human beings for profit.

And let's talk about the "concern" some are suddenly pretending to have. It's rich hearing someone gloat "14,999,999 law breakers to go! Wheeeeeee!" and then, five minutes later, claim they're just concerned about immigrants being exploited for cheap labor. That's not concern. That's cruelty dressed up in fake sympathy. If this person cared about immigrant exploitation, they'd be targeting the corporations that underpay, abuse, and exploit these workers — not the workers themselves.

They wouldn't be advocating for mass deportations that tear families apart. They'd be fighting for laws that:
 

  • Provide a clear and accessible path to citizenship
  • Expand the availability of work permits
  • Protect the right to organize and join labor unions, regardless of immigration status
  • Ensure fair wages and workplace protections for all workers
  • Don't waste billions on mass deporting non-violent, working-class people, instead using those funds to catch and prosecute real criminals 


Concern-trolling about "illegal immigration" while turning a blind eye to the corporate exploitation that drives it isn't righteous. It's cowardly. It's a distraction. It's a betrayal of any serious commitment to justice.

We all want a society where exploitation and crime are not tolerated. Good. Then let's get serious about who is doing the exploiting, and who is really benefiting from the divisions they sow.

It's not your immigrant neighbor. It's not the farm worker. It's not the dishwasher, the nurse, the construction worker, the nanny.

It's the executives, the billionaires, and the politicians they own.

Be mad at them. And join the rest of us who are fighting to:

  • Raise wages
  • Strengthen labor rights
  • Make citizenship accessible
  • Protect human dignity for everyone who calls this country home.
Corporations   Human Rights   Politics   Social Issues
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