This is How You Apologize if You are Mensch

Brian Caplan offers an apology.

EconLog, Mea Culpa: How I Succumbed to Anti-Foreign Bias, Bryan Caplan: Library of Economics and Liberty

Mea Culpa: How I Succumbed to Anti-Foreign Bias
Bryan Caplan

A high fraction of immigrants are young, low-skilled, Hispanic males. Given these demographics, I long assumed that immigrants would have relatively high crime rates. While I kept this problem in perspective, I took it for granted that increased crime was a genuine drawback of immigration.

I was wrong.

A fascinating NBER Working Paper (earlier, free version here) by Kristin Butcher and Anne Piehl shows that, despite their demographics, immigrants are drastically less criminal than native-born Americans. In fact, immigrants have one-fifth the incarceration rate of natives. Yes, natives are incarcerated at five times the rate of the foreign-born:

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Let's be clear, the error here is minor, as he is pro large scale immigration, he was arguing for this in spite of what he thought were crime issues, which is far more benign than what Lou Dobbs done.

I tend to be closer to Dobbs than I am to Caplan, though for economic issues (I don't believe that there are jobs Americans won't do, just jobs they won't do for pennies.