Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell got headlines throughout the region Feb. 21 by showing he was tough on both immigration and sex offenders. Boasting that his cooperation with federal and state law enforcement authorities could be a model nationally, McDonnell said that more than 171 immigrant sex offenders had been identified and set up for deportation.
A closer reading (see my column, “The Big Lie?”) shows that most of the foreign-born people on the sex offenders list weren’t here, had been deported or were about to be deported. That’s hardly a call to arms for ever tougher enforcement.
It doesn’t matter, though, because headlines boost McDonnell, GOP gubernatorial candidate in 2009, once again unfairly tainting newcomers for craven political purposes. Research can’t decide if immigrants are a bigger sex crime threat than native born Americans. But if right-wing politicians like McDonnell keep repeating a Big Lie, people will believe it.
(Posted on behalf of Peter Galuszka.)