Right-wing immigration opponents know that they can't find success for their agenda unless they can make the issue seem like an existential threat. It's the only way they can sell it to the average American who doesn't have a deep cultural or racial aversion to latinos. The most popular choice of threat is crime, with visions of out-of-control immigrants breaking into houses, stealing cars, and generally wreaking societal mayhem.

On the May 10th edition of The John Carlson Show, the host continued with his previous efforts to blame immigrants for a supposed crime wave:

CARLSON: Pick a high crime urban area like Hilltop, or like Washington DC nationally, most of those people are here legally. When you look at some of the crimes, you know Yakima made the top 10, the 10th leading city for car theft in terms of auto theft rates. Much of that crime is being committed by people who shouldn't be here in the first place.

Once again Carlson has made a blanket statement that pins "much" of the auto theft problem in Yakima on illegal immigrants. I suppose the logic is that since Yakima doesn't have many black folks (unlike the Hilltop neighborhood in Tacoma or Washington DC), the only remaining minorities that could be responsible are the latinos that have moved to Yakima to work in agriculture.

But while that may explain Carlson's frame of mind, it doesn't come close to proving his case. What data does he use to drive his conclusion? Surely he must have some hard proof if he is going to blame "much" of the crime in a specific location on a specific group of people.

I won't be holding my breath waiting for John to present that proof.