In The News
WOAI: Border Cities Crime Rate Among Lowest in USA
Washington,
November 18, 2014
Border Cities Crime Rate Among Lowest in USA When Gov. Rick Perry deployed the National Guard to the Texas Mexico border he cited an increase in crime caused by illegal immigrants, and the general view of the Rio Grande Valley is of a lawless area where undocumented immigrants are running rampant in the streets. But FBI statistics released by U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo) show the opposite is true in every respect...that the cities in the Rio Grande Valley are in fact the safest cities in the entire country. "Many people characterize the southern border as being unsafe but today's numbers paint a very different picture," Cuellar said. "These statistics clearly show that some of the safest cities in the United States are on the U.S. Mexico border." The FBI statistics show that Laredo, population 260,000, had three murders in 2013, while Dallas, with roughly four times the population, had 143 murders. "The murder rate is actually higher in Washington DC, where I work, than in my hometown of Laredo," Cuellar said. In fact, the murder rate in Washington DC in 2013 was six times higher than Laredo. McAllen, population 136,000, which was Ground Zero in this summer's flood of Central American immigrants flooding into Texas, had two murders in 2013. Houston has about 15 times the population of McAllen, so if it had a crime rate equal to McAllen, there would have been 30 murders in Houston in 2013. In reality, there were 214. And let's not even talk about crime rates in cities like Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis. "These statistics should help to dispel some of the misinformation about the border region that hurts our local economy, and makes it harder to hire doctors and encourage investment," Cuellar said. |