, Columnist
How Data Can Make Immigrants Look Like Criminals
With crime statistics, what you look for can define what you see.
Bad hombres are in the eye of the beholder.
Photographer: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
Donald Trump plans to collect a lot more data about crimes committed by immigrants. This will inevitably give him a weapon to use against them, thanks to a peculiarity of crime statistics: If you look for something, you’ll almost always find more of it.
Trump recently started two initiatives focused on crime. He has promised to create a new office in the Department of Homeland Security, Victims of Immigrant Crime Engagement, to collect data on the transgressions of immigrants. And in his revised executive order halting visas and refugees from certain countries, he called for a public database on “honor killings,” defined as gender-based violence against women by foreign nationals.