No Evidence to Support Immigrant Crime Narrative

Chris Walker, Truthout, Mar. 4, 2024

"As Republicans — including likely GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump — continue to push the racist belief that immigrants are bringing crime to the United States, a new analysis has shown that such claims are outright false. ... [N]umerous studies showcase that undocumented immigrants are actually less likely to engage in crime, including violent crimes, than U.S. residents. ... Graham Ousey, a professor of crime and sociology at the College of William & Mary, told NBC News in its report that Republicans’ claims about migrant crimes are false. “There’s no evidence for there being any relationship between somebody’s immigrant status and their involvement in crime,” Ousey said. ... U.S.-born residents are many times more likely to commit crimes than are undocumented immigrants. The U.S.-born residents were more than two times more likely to commit violent crime and nearly two and a half times more likely to violate a drug law. U.S.-born residents were four times more likely to engage in property crime than immigrants were, and 2.52 times more likely to commit a homicide, according to the figures. “Criminality among the undocumented is a paramount social science concern. Yet despite substantial public and political attention, extant research has established surprisingly few empirical findings on the criminological impact of undocumented immigration,” the report noted, adding that “undocumented immigrants have substantially lower rates of crime compared to both native U.S. citizens and legal immigrants.” "