Senator JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican candidate for vice president, defended his previous unsubstantiated claims on immigration on Friday, citing the film “Gangs of New York,” in which he suggested that early waves of immigration from Italy, Ireland and Germany had led to higher crime and ethnic conflict.
At a campaign rally in front of the Milwaukee Police Association, Mr. Vance was asked about comments – which have resurfaced in recent days – from a 2021 interview with far-right podcaster Jack Murphy and whether he would have ordered the kind of mass deportations that he and former President Donald J. Trump have made the central theme of their platform today.
Mr Vance largely avoided the issue of deportations, but stuck to his comments on crime and ethnic and inter-ethnic conflict, pointing to the Martin Scorsese film depicting gang violence between Irish immigrants and native Protestant Americans.
“Well, first of all, I also said that this wave of immigration brings a lot of benefits, but has anyone ever seen the movie ‘Gangs of New York’? That’s what I’m talking about,” he said. “We know that the formation of these huge ethnic enclaves in our country can sometimes lead to higher crime rates.”
He later added: “What happens when there is massive illegal immigration? That actually leads to ethnic conflict. It leads to higher crime rates.”
Asked to provide evidence for these claims, a campaign spokeswoman pointed to a report by an anti-immigrant think tank that claims the number of crimes committed by immigrants is underestimated because many crimes go unreported, and to a rise in violence in Minnesota that authorities attribute to a rivalry between East African gangs in St. Paul and Minneapolis.
Since the founding of the United States, nativist politicians and anti-immigration activists have tried to confuse immigration with crime. But historians and criminologists say there are no empirical studies to support claims like Mr. Vance’s. The studies that do exist have repeatedly concluded that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the United States. A 2023 study by researchers at Stanford, Princeton and other major institutions found that immigrants have been incarcerated no more often than people born in the United States since 1880. And while immigration to the United States has increased, crime has declined in recent years.
Tyler Anbinder, a historian who wrote the book “City of Dreams: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York” and served as a historical consultant for the film “Gangs of New York,” said that immigrants in New York during the period the film was made and afterward did not commit crime disproportionate to the population and that they were almost always arrested less than natives.
“Immigrants are so happy to be in America,” Anbinder said, adding that one of the main reasons immigrants commit fewer crimes than natives is “because they don’t want to be deported.”
Alex R. Piquero, a criminology professor at the University of Miami and a former director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, said it was also wrong of Mr. Vance to raise concerns about “ethnic enclaves.” Immigrants – regardless of era or ethnic background – tend to cluster in neighborhoods where they have relatives, know others who speak their native language and can feel safe in their new environment.
“The strange thing about these statements is that these ethnic enclaves are not breeding grounds for crime,” he said of Mr Vance’s stance, adding: “In fact, they serve as a protective buffer against crime.”
In his remarks, Vance also called for a return to the mindset of the early 20th century. He said the United States was a “nation that welcomed immigrants,” but Americans had realized that the country “can only take in so many people.” He argued that deportations would benefit the country.
“I think this will promote assimilation and a common American culture, which is in the best interest of all,” he said.
But by claiming that more immigrants would lead to more crime and ethnic conflict, historians say Vance was repeating arguments made by American nativists who have been using them since at least the 19th century to classify and marginalize certain population groups as racially inferior, genetically prone to crime and unassimilable.
These negative stereotypes and misconceptions – once focused on certain Europeans, but more recently on Mexicans and Latin American migrants – have fed prejudice and led to more extreme treatment of immigrants by government officials, police, courts and the press.
In “Gangs of New York,” the most vicious killer is the native who despises immigrants, Anbinder said. But Vance seems to associate the Irish immigrants in the film with the violence, he added.
“Throughout American history, those who fear or hate immigrants have always wanted to scapegoat them and portray them as the cause of crime in America,” Anbinder said. “What Vance is doing now is not much different.”
