A study of the crime rates of immigrants–both the documented and the undocumented–was released in September 2024. It found that undocumented immigrants had the lowest crime rates, compared to native-born citizens and documented immigrants.
This is directly counter to the current claim by Republicans that undocumented immigrants are responsible for vicious crimes.
The study was funded by the National Institute of Justice, which is part of the U.S. Department of Justice.
September 12, 2024
An NIJ-funded study examining data from the Texas Department of Public Safety estimated the rate at which undocumented immigrants are arrested for committing crimes. The study found that undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes and a quarter the rate of native-born citizens for property crimes.[1]
The question of how often undocumented immigrants commit crimes is not easy to answer. Most previous research on crime commission by immigrant populations has been unable to differentiate undocumented immigrants from documented immigrants. As a result, most studies treat all immigrants as a uniform group, regardless of whether they are in the country legally.
The estimates in this study come from Texas criminal records that include the immigration status of everyone arrested in the state from 2012 to 2018. These data enabled researchers to separate arrests for crimes committed by undocumented immigrants from those committed by documented immigrants and native-born U.S. citizens. (For more detail on the study’s data sources and methodology, see the sidebar “What Makes the Texas Data Unique?”)
The researchers tracked these three groups’ arrest rates across seven years (2012-2018) and examined specific types of crime, including homicides and other violent crimes.[2] They used these arrest rates as proxies for the rates of crime commission for the three groups. It should be noted that arrest is a commonly used, but imperfect measure of crime that in part reflects law enforcement activity rather than actual offending rates.
During this time, undocumented immigrants had the lowest offending rates overall for both total felony crime (see exhibit 1) and violent felony crime (see exhibit 2) compared to other groups. U.S.-born citizens had the highest offending rates overall for most crime types, with documented immigrants generally falling between the other two groups.
Exhibit 1.Total felony crime offending rates in Texas for U.S.-born citizens, documented immigrants, and undocumented immigrants
Exhibit 2.Violent felony crime offending rates in Texas for U.S.-born citizens, documented immigrants, and undocumented immigrants
Researchers also looked specifically at homicide arrest trends. These rates tend to fluctuate more than the overall violent crime arrest rates because murders are relatively rare compared to other crimes. In addition, a large share of homicides go unsolved. Still, undocumented immigrants had the lowest homicide arrest rates throughout the entire study period, averaging less than half the rate at which U.S.-born citizens were arrested for homicide.[3] (The homicide rate for documented immigrants fluctuated. Sometimes it was higher than the rate for U.S.-born citizens and sometimes it was lower.)
Every other violent and property crime type the researchers examined followed the same general pattern. The offending rates of undocumented immigrants were consistently lower than both U.S.-born citizens and documented immigrants for assault, sexual assault, robbery, burglary, theft, and arson.
For drug offenses, too, undocumented immigrants were less than half as likely to be arrested as native-born U.S. citizens.[4] Moreover, the drug crime arrest rate for the undocumented population held steady throughout the seven years of data, while the rate for native-born citizens increased almost 30% during that time. As a result, undocumented immigrants had a smaller share of arrests for drug crimes in 2018 than they had in 2012.
Finally, the researchers conducted statistical tests to determine whether the share of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants had increased for any offense types between 2012 and 2018. They concluded, “There is no evidence that the prevalence of undocumented immigrant crime has grown for any category.”[5] As with drug offenses, evidence suggests the share of property and traffic crimes committed by undocumented immigrants decreased or remained close to constant throughout the period.
About This Article
The work described in this article was supported by NIJ award number 2019-R2-CX-0058, awarded to the University of Wisconsin.
This article is based on the grantee report, “Unauthorized Immigration, Crime, and Recidivism: Evidence From Texas” (pdf, 78 pages), by Michael T. Light.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
When you finally arrive in a place where you are not being threatened on a daily basis by cartel thugs. And many people around you speak Spanish. And your kids are enrolled in a halfway decent school system where Spanish is also respected and understood. And you and your partner are both working 2 and 3 jobs to make ends meet. You don’t really have much time left over for thievery, drug use, drunk & disorderly, murder, rape or any other forms of distraction/amusement.
Texas depends on the good, sturdy, dependable people who have made their way from faraway lands to the Bluebonnet State. Where everyone speaks the same language = a booming economy.
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The convied rapist, fraud and felon, and his fascist MAGA cult, only believes altenative facts.
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They also lower wages (much easier to push around than a citizen and great for stopping unionization campaigns) and overcrowd the housing market etc. But not allowed to mention that.
Once you scratch beneath the surface of the people praising immigration and preaching diversity, you’ll quickly see the cheap labor lobby for what it is.
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Linton,
Big business has always praised immigration, for the reasons you cite. Trump usually champions their interests. Is it because nativism is valued more than cheap labor?
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This information is being removed from government sites!
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Trump claims that he is ending censorship and “cancel culture@ but now it’s govt policy
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Like Joshua said, this NIJ has just put this report and Michael T. Light’s Unauthorized Immigration, Crime, and Recidivism: Evidence From Texas from which this report derives it’s data from, under review! This is just blatant censorship, very concerning.
It seems like the current administration wants to perpetuate the myth that illegal immigrants exponentially increase crime rates and threaten public safety. There’s no question about the legality of their occupation in the US, but drawing a false narrative that is disingenuous to these people is sickening!
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