Latinos can—and better—rage at the cheap political points earned by sliming Mexicans with the rapist stereotype. And the best way to do it is with the truth: A 2011 U.S. Government Accountability Office study “Criminal Alien Statistics: Information on Incarcerations, Arrests and Costs” found that of the three million arrests of immigrants, legal or not, examined by investigators, only two percent were for sex offenses—two percent too many, but hardly an epidemic. It didn’t break down the ethnicity or legal status of the offenders, but the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey does. For 2013 (the most recent year available), it shows that whites accounted for 71 percent of all sexual assaults documented (above their total percentage of 63 percent of the U.S. population), while Latinos accounted for 9 percent, far below their total percentage of 17 percent. And as a percentage of all “serious violent victimizations,” sexual assaults represent 11 percent of the violent crimes committed by Latinos. For gabachos? 18 percent.
For those who don’t comprende: white American citizens are far more rape-y than Mexicans can ever hope to become. Yet the lies about hordes of Mexican rapists perpetuated by Trump, Coulter and Schumer and so many others persist because they’re just engaging in good ol’ American paranoia about purity and the perpetual menace south of the border.
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