A lot of facts in that article. The problem is that Trump was referring to the recent influx of illegals across the Mexican border, and much of the quoted data is historic, and refers to 'immigrants' generically, whether legal or illegal, without reference to place of origin. But it's worth taking note of the first, arguably most relevant, piece of data quoted -
Trump’s campaign pointed to data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which tracks citizenship of offenders in federal prisons by primary offense, which is the offense with the longest maximum sentence when a person is convicted of multiple offenses. Of 78,022 primary offense cases in fiscal year 2013, 38.6 percent were illegal immigrant offenders. The majority of their cases (76 percent) were immigration related. Of total primary offenses, 17.6 percent of drug trafficking offenses and 3.8 percent of sex abuse were illegal immigrants. Of 22,878 drug crime cases, 17.2 percent were illegal immigrants.
Maybe I shouldn't be offering an opinion about something of which I have such limited knowledge, but from what I've read, there seems to be a feeling among people living in the border States, including many Latinos, that the character of illegals has changed for the worse in recent times. The keep your head down, work hard, and make a new, better life in America type no longer predominates - many less savoury characters now cross the border with nothing in mind beyond making a quick killing.
Despite the plethora of stats in the liberal Washington Post's article, I don't think it proves a more moderate interpretation of what Trump said wrong; since, as I said, most of the quoted stats are not relevant. The assertion in my first post that anecdotal evidence 'almost certainly' shows the opposite to be true is equally dubious.
The central point I was making though - what Trump said did not equate to 'All Mexicans are rapists' - still stands.
We're through the looking glass here, people.
