Believe it or not, most cops don’t think they’re bad at their jobs.
But over the last few years, it seems to have become strangely acceptable for self-proclaimed supporters of law enforcement to claim that we are. Amid routine attempts to portray American cities as crime-ridden hellscapes where nobody is safe, some political officials have led the public to believe police have lost control completely—an abject failure that has made the communities we serve basically unlivable.
And now, figures like White House advisor Stephen Miller are blaming immigration for our supposed incompetence, with his recent claim that two decades of “mass migration” have transformed once “completely peaceful, completely stable” communities into “violent,” “unsafe” places where “you cannot use the public parks.”
As a retired police lieutenant who spent more than 20 years on the force, I find Miller’s statement offensive—and I suspect others in law enforcement feel the same. It’s not just that his claim is false, though it most certainly is. It also completely disregards the valuable work officers do every day to keep their communities safe. Miller’s narrative of cities wholly overtaken by criminals, and specifically immigrants, simply doesn’t reflect the reality officers experience on the ground. And while this sort of fear-based rhetoric may be useful for inciting a moral panic to bolster an aggressive and increasingly unpopular deportation strategy, it only makes our jobs harder by undermining public confidence in law enforcement and deepening the divide between officers and the communities they serve.
Let’s start with the facts. Although any violent crime is too much, we cannot ignore data from the past few years pointing to promising declines in many major cities. Following a concerning spike in bloodshed during the COVID-19 pandemic, violent crime rates in many places have now returned to pre-pandemic levels. Contrary to these claims, many cities are now experiencing violent crime rates below where they were two decades ago—before this supposed era of “mass migration.” There is always more work to do on this front, of course. But we cannot take these improvements for granted. Instead, we should recognize them as the result of dedicated work by community leaders, local governments, and police to build safer, more resilient cities.
Considering these facts, the narrative about a crime wave fueled by immigration has even less basis. Still, this remains a popular argument, even though it has been disproven time and again. The research on this is overwhelmingly clear: There is no meaningful link between increased immigration and rising crime rates. Some studies have shown that undocumented immigrants are in fact less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born citizens.
None of this is to say we should dismiss the crime that is committed by immigrants. Undocumented immigrants who break the law must be held accountable, just like anyone else, and in some cases that may warrant deportation. But broad-brush fearmongering does nothing to help us support these efforts. In fact, it only harms our ability to uphold public safety by eroding trust between immigrant communities and police, which officers need to bring real perpetrators to justice.
More to the point, these kinds of claims insult the officers who are actually doing the work. When someone says a city is “unrecognizable” or “out of control,” what they’re saying is that law enforcement has failed at their jobs.
If you truly support law enforcement, you wouldn’t spread falsehoods that discount the contributions of police and ultimately make our jobs harder. Instead, you might start by acknowledging the progress we’ve made and the complex realities we face. You might even advocate for smart, measured policies that produce both short and long-term public safety benefits by strengthening police-community relationships or addressing the root causes of crime. But at the very least, you wouldn’t diminish the hard work of police just for a cheap attack meant to stoke division and fear.
Most people in law enforcement believe deeply in protecting their communities. And that means every part of their communities. Officers don’t pick and choose who deserves safety based on the color of their skin or where someone was born. They show up when people need help, and they work hard to build trust, so they can make life safer for all of the community’s residents.
Police may not be perfect, but their commitment to the mission deserves respect, not baseless narratives that distort the truth for political gain. The picture Miller paints simply doesn’t align with what’s actually happening in our cities. And anyone who claims to support police while tearing down the communities we serve has a strange way of showing it.
Diane Goldstein is a 21-year police veteran and executive director of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP), a nonprofit group of police, judges, and other law enforcement professionals who support policies that improve public safety and police-community relations.