How Trump Is Forcing These Sexual Assault Survivors Into the Shadows

On Tuesday, Sean Spicer pointed to the rape of a Maryland teen last week as proof that the Trump administration's "crackdown" on immigration is needed to protect Americans. The girl was allegedly attacked by two classmates; one of the teens charged in the crime is a native of Guatemala who was living in the US illegally. Spicer is absolutely right to claim that Donald Trump's approach to immigration will widely impact victims of sexual assault — just not in the way he implied.

In reality, the administration's hard line on immigration has stoked a level of fear that is endangering women, rather than protecting them — and there are hard numbers to prove it. The same day Spicer gave his press conference, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck gave one of his own and shared some distressing numbers that directly challenge Spicer's narrative. Beck revealed that sexual assault reporting in LA's Latino community has dropped by 25 percent this year to date, while reports of domestic violence have dropped by 10 percent. He made a strong argument that the connection is clear: with the threat of deportation looming, women who are undocumented — or who have family members or friends who are — simply are not willing to take a chance by seeking help from law enforcement when they are victims of violence. Considering that the greater LA area alone is home to an estimated 1 million undocumented immigrants, this trend is extremely troubling and serves to further marginalize many of the most marginalized among us.

"Imagine a young woman — imagine your daughter, sister, mother, your friend — not reporting a sexual assault because they are afraid that their family will be torn apart," Beck said. He was flanked by LA Mayor Eric Garcetti, who signed an executive directive banning LA police and civil workers from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement activities at the event. "That's not what LA is about. That is certainly not what this mayor is about. And it's not what the Los Angeles Police Department is about."

For Spicer to trot out a single rape case and exploit its details in an attempt to support the administration's inhumane stance on immigration is wrong and misleading. But we shouldn't be surprised; this was yet another example of Team Trump using anecdotes that are not representative of reality to push forward a skewed version of the truth. They've done it since the beginning of the presidential campaign, when Trump appeared in his (literally) gilded tower to claim that undocumented immigrants are to blame for a wave of crime — he specifically mentioned rape — in this country. He doubled down on this depiction of undocumented immigrants as violent criminals at the RNC in July. There, he referenced the 2015 murder of 34-year-old Kate Steinle, who was shot by an undocumented immigrant in San Francisco. "My opponent wants sanctuary cities," Trump said in his address. "But where was the sanctuary for Kate Steinle? . . . Where was the sanctuary for all of the other Americans who have been so brutally murdered and who have suffered so, so horribly?" Trump used her story to lead directly into his hard sell of the border wall. The connection couldn't be clearer or more simplistic: illegal immigrants kill people, and we must keep them out.

The truth is, Steinle's death is particularly upsetting, and it does represent a failing on the part of government and law enforcement. This is not to diminish that fact. The man who killed her had seven felony convictions and had already been deported five separate times. But statistics bear out that the overwhelming majority of those who are undocumented and living in the United States are otherwise law-abiding, nonviolent citizens who contribute to their communities. In fact, undocumented immigrants commit felonies at a far lower rate than the rest of the population. The Migration Policy Institute finds that less than three percent of illegal immigrants have committed felonies, while the Population Association of America finds that six percent of people in the overall population have done so.

This is why so many leading law enforcement organizations support the very sanctuary cities Trump himself rails against. They understand, better than anyone, that an increased threat of deportation decreases the chance that undocumented residents will be willing to cooperate with police. That, in turn, keeps cops from doing their jobs, solving crimes, arresting criminals, and protecting communities from further harm.

Can't all decent Americans agree that women anywhere in the world, and of any legal status, deserve protection from sexual violence? That they deserve the right to speak out against their attackers and pursue justice? If so, they should know that Sean Spicer's framing of the immigration "crackdown" is not just exploitative, but will do real harm to real women. It already has.