Donald Trump is the most prominent politician to link immigrants and crime but not the first

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Donald Trump has reached the greatest political heights while linking immigration to violent crime, but he’s hardly the first American politician to promote the unfounded narrative.

Historians go back to at least the 1850s when German and Irish immigrants were targeted as degenerate thieves. An undercurrent of popular belief that immigrants breed crime persisted through the 20th century and into the 21st.

But no one compares to Trump, who reached the pinnacle of power by making immigration a signature issue and portraying the foreign-born as criminals. Yet the weight of evidence shows no support for claims that immigrants are more responsible for crime than native-born Americans.

“As with most things Trump, he’s kind of one-of-a-kind in the loudness and brashness of the views, but he’s also not conjuring out of no history at all,” said Carl Bon Tempo, an immigration historian and associate professor at University at Albany. “This is not coming from nowhere.”

Here is a look at the issue and what studies have shown as Trump prepares to accept the Republican presidential nomination for a third time this week in Milwaukee.

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