Is immigration status relevant?
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As staff writer Tony Barboza put it, ‘It might be worthwhile to post something about when and why reporters include immigration status in stories, and why they often don’t.’
He and other reporters -- and the readers’ representative office -- get the question whenever, it seems, a crime story is published about someone who ‘happens to have a Spanish last name,’ as Barboza puts it. Some readers ask whether the person is illegal and often believe that The Times is not reporting information that, in these readers’ opinions, would provide insight into a correlation between crime and illegal immigrants.
Examples are two stories from recent weeks: One did report on someone’s immigration status, the other did not.
A story about a man who was being sought on charges of rape and kidnapping noted that he was born in Mexico. And a story about a San Juan Capistrano man arrested in connection with the rape of a woman on the side of Interstate 5 did not provide details of the suspect’s citizenship.
There are two reasons the immigration status of a suspect isn’t routinely reported, according to editors on the California desk. The first: The status often isn’t known, even by authorities involved. And in a number of cases, notes California Editor David Lauter, the fact is not relevant.
Lauter notes, ‘As in many cases, the best test of what to report is to consider a parallel case with different facts. If the suspect in this story had been a U.S. citizen, would we have written ‘Alejandro Martinez Leyva, a U.S. citizen, was arrested Tuesday and charged with rape’? Clearly we would not have. Given that, there’s no reason why we would write ‘Alejandro Martinez Leyva, an illegal immigrant, was arrested Tuesday and charged with rape.’ There were no particular facts in this case that made his immigration status relevant. To report the immigration status only in some cases, not others, would give readers a skewed impression of the reality of who commits crimes.’
That is contrary to the opinion offered by many readers who contact the newsroom. Of the article about the arrest in the attack on the freeway, David Arthur of Colton said: ‘Your article omitted one important fact.... The man is an illegal alien. I’m well aware that the news media, for many years, has chosen not to disclose the names of rape victims so those individuals can be spared the embarrassment and humiliation of the ordeal. Does the L.A. Times have a similar policy regarding the arrests of illegal aliens whereby their immigration and legal status is, likewise, withheld from readers so they might be spared the embarrassment and humiliation of having it known they are in this country illegally?’
‘Who commits the crimes’ matters to those who believe that context of illegal immigration is relevant to a larger issue of crime.
Lauter counters that belief: ‘The Times has previously reported that about one-fifth of the people who pass through the jails in Los Angeles County are in the country illegally. That’s a significant number, although the number also means that the vast majority of people arrested for crimes are citizens or legal residents.’
The suspect’s citizenship status was relevant in the story about the fugitive wanted for rape, and Lauter says why: ‘In one recent story, a man who was already being sought on charges of rape and kidnapping snatched his 11-month old daughter from the home of his estranged wife. The story noted that he was born in Mexico. That fact was clearly relevant because earlier in the year, after the rape accusation, he had fled to Mexico and had briefly been in custody in Tijuana.’
Also, ‘in other cases, the police arrest someone who is a repeat offender who has been deported in the past and has now returned to the country illegally and committed another crime. In a case like that, the suspect’s immigration status would be part of his overall criminal history and should be reported if we know it. Similarly, there are stories in which we profile the suspect in a crime and provide considerable biographical detail about him or her. If, for example, we are writing a story in which we are describing the life of a violent gang member, the question of where he was born would be a normal thing to report. And if the person was born in another country, the circumstances under which he immigrated would be relevant and should be reported if we can ascertain them.’
On breaking news stories, though, the status often isn’t known, as Lauter points out: ‘Frequently, the police making the arrest do not know either. Sometimes, the question of whether a person is here legally is straightforward, sometimes it is quite complicated. That’s why the country has a system of immigration courts.’