AZ nutters claims of immigration crime spree is pure bs.

Serving up some irony this Monday morning, the state of AZ's Dept of Public Safety has released a report(pdf), along with the FBI's recently released report (pdf) on the level and types of crime being perpetrated by illegals and/or Mexican Nationals. It shows that all the bs being tossed out by the rightwing nutters is pure unadulterated fuckery. From AmericanProgess.org:

The facts on crime in Arizona

•  Violent crimes in Arizona are down by 15 percent since 2006: The FBI’s preliminary Uniform Crime Report, or UCR, for 2009 shows that violent crime—murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault—is down in Arizona for the third year in a row. The absolute number of violent crimes in 2006 was 30,916 in Arizona. By 2009 it had dropped by 15 percent to 26,094.
• Per-capita violent crime rate dropped by 22 percent: Factoring in the change in Arizona’s population, the rate of violent crime per 100,000 persons in 2009 was 390.5, which is a 22 percent decrease from 501.4 per 100,000 in 2006. For comparison’s sake, the violent crime rate in nonborder states such as Georgia and Tennessee was 410.6 and 604.9 respectively in 2009.
• Arizona’s violent and property crime rate drop was twice the national average: Nationally, violent and property crimes were down between 2008 and 2009, but Arizona saw rates of decline more than double that. The nation as a whole saw a -5.5 percent change in violent crime and -4.9 percent change in property crime from 2008 to 2009, but Arizona experienced a percent change of -11.1 in the former and -12 in the latter in this same time period.
• Kidnappings are tied to Mexico’s organized crime syndicate, not innocent Americans: It’s clear that Arizona has an organized crime problem, with 267 kidnappings in 2009 in Phoenix alone. But the kidnappings most often occur when human smugglers—who are usually part of Mexican drug cartels—demand more money for their services. As Phoenix police Sgt. Tommy Thompson said, “We’re talking about the kidnapping of smugglers and associates. I have no fear that my kids or grandkids will be victims.” This means that our efforts must be directed toward two fronts: fixing our broken immigration system so that people can immigrate legally with visas and not illegally with smugglers, and helping to resolve the deadly war on drugs in Mexico.

 The article is quite illuminating and also includes a section on just the border regions...which are some of the lowest crime areas in the United States.  

Another bit of irony for you: The Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police opposes S.B. 1070.