The horrible murder of Mollie Tibbetts is a tragedy deplored by every thoughtful person. But it isn’t a surprise that some jumped to politicize the crime. To give context to this issue, a Nick Gillespie column published in the New York Times on Aug. 24 cites a 2016 article by the Cato Institute’s Alex Nowratesh , who wrote, "the homicide conviction rate for native-born Americans in Texas was 3.2 per 100,000 natives while it was 1.8 per 100,000 illegal immigrants and 0.9 per 100,000 legal immigrants." In raw numbers, 32 undocumented immigrants and 28 legal immigrants were convicted of homicide in Texas, compared with 746 native-born Americans."
Alan Hoffman, Rochester
