Baltimore murder rate worse than Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, driving asylum surge
August 1, 2019 in News by RBN Staff
Source: Washington Examiner | by Paul Bedard
The Baltimore murder rate is higher than the three Central American nations driving the border surge by migrants seeking to flee crime and murder back home.
In an analysis of the murder rates done after President Trump criticized Baltimore Rep. Elijah Cummings over the weekend, Baltimore’s was reported at 56 per 100,000. The city is on track for 340 murders.
By comparison, said the Princeton Policy Advisors analysis, the murder rate in El Salvador was 50, in Guatemala it was 22 and Honduras was 38.
“That Baltimore’s murder rate is higher than the most dangerous countries’ in Central America is frankly appalling on many levels, and as someone who grew up in Baltimore, I believe increased accountability is long overdue,” said Princeton Policy President Steven Kopits.
Those three nations are the so-called Northern Triangle from where the majority of migrants seeking asylum based on claims of “credible fear” are coming from on the Mexico-U.S. border.
The murder rates in Central America have fallen by roughly half since 2011 (https://t.co/ELOP5VxfIN).
Over that same time period, the number of migrants from those countries has soared. Migrants aren’t coming to the US for safety, but for jobs (as they openly say when polled). https://t.co/Qwp94pfv7V
— Center for Immigration Studies (@CIS_org) July 30, 2019
Kopits said that people “will no doubt be surprised to read that Baltimore has a higher murder rate than the Central American countries whose violence the left has claimed led to the asylum crisis. Central America used to be much worse. As late as 2015, for example, El Salvador’s murder rate was about 100 — almost twice that of Baltimore. But security is much improved across the Northern Triangle countries (one reason we concluded that the asylum surge was caused by a change in U.S. policy, rather than push factors in Central America),” he said.