The rate of violent crime at the border, and indeed across Arizona, has been declining, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as has illegal immigration, according to the Border Patrol. While thousands have been killed in Mexico’s drug wars, raising anxiety that the violence will spread to the United States, F.B.I. statistics show that Arizona is relatively safe.

That Mr. Krentz’s death nevertheless churned the emotionally charged immigration debate points to a fundamental truth: perception often trumps reality, sometimes affecting laws and society in the process.

The problem is that when it comes to crime statistics, in this case the Times’ perception trumps the reality of those living on the Arizona border. Tom Maguire, one of the smartest guys in the blogosphere took a quick look at the FBI crime statistics the Times cites and they don’t support the Times’ conclusion that immigration is having little affect on crime in Arizona.

Maguire’s post should be read in its entirety, but essentially, the FBI crime stats are broken down by region and while crime has fallen 20 percent in cities from 2000 to 2008, in towns outside major metropolitan areas and rural counties crime is up 39 and 45 percent, respectively. In other words, it sure looks like crime is way up in the border regions of Arizona.

Despite being deeply flawed, the Times doesn’t pass up an opportunity to basically lecture people in favor of immigration enforcement:

Judith Gans, who studies immigration at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy at the University of Arizona, said that what social psychologists call self-serving perception bias seemed to be at play. Both sides in the immigration debate accept information that confirms their biases, she said, and discard, ignore or rationalize information that does not. There is no better example than the role of crime in Arizona’s tumultuous immigration debate.

“If an illegal immigrant commits a crime, this confirms our view that illegal immigrants are criminals,” Ms. Gans said. “If an illegal immigrant doesn’t commit a crime, either they just didn’t get caught or it’s a fluke of the situation.”

Aside from the delicious irony of the comments about “confirmation bias,” is it totally lost on Gans that just the mere presence of an illegal immigrant is in and of itself a crime? The idea that pro-immigration enforcement citizens view an illegal immigrant who doesn’t run around committing crimes as a “fluke” is a borderline smear. Reasonable people can disagree on the need for more immigration enforcement, but it’s not paranoid or racist to see illegal immigrants as criminals. Obviously, most illegal immigrants don’t run around committing crimes, but by definition all illegal immigrants are criminals — hence the word “illegal.”

On Border Violence, Truth Pales Compared to Ideas