First and foremost, Crime in the U.S. is down across the board. So anyone trying to tell you there is a country wide ‘crime wave’ is categorically wrong from the get go.
Crime, including murder, decreased significantly in 2023:
https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/crime/quarterly
https://jasher.substack.com/p/fbi-quarterly-data-points-to-declining
https://counciloncj.org/crime-trends-in-u-s-cities-year-end-2023-update/
https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/p00098/nypd-december-2023-end-of-year-citywide-crime-statistics
Same goes for early 2024 reports:
https://jasher.substack.com/p/its-early-but-murder-is-falling-even
https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/p00099/nypd-january-2024-citywide-crime-statistics
In fact, crime in the U.S. has been on a steady decline since the 1990s
current crime rates aside, Study after Study shows that Both Documented and undocumented Migrants in the U.S. are far less likely to commit crime than documented citizens, especially violent crime
This very extensive study provides “the first nationally representative long-run series (1870–2020) of incarceration rates for immigrants and the US-born. As a group, immigrants have had LOWER INCARCERATION RATES THAN THE US-BORN FOR 150 YEARS. Moreover, relative to the US-born, immigrants’ incarceration rates have declined since 1960: immigrants today are 60% less likely to be incarcerated (30% relative to US-born whites).”
LAW-ABIDING IMMIGRANTS: THE INCARCERATION GAP BETWEEN IMMIGRANTS AND THE US-BORN, 1870–2020, Stanford University.
Ran Abramitzky Leah Platt Boustan Elisa Jácome Santiago Pérez Juan David Torres Working Paper 31440 http://www.nber.org/papers/w31440
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w31440/w31440.pdf
This study from the Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice looks at immigration and crime rates across four decades and shows that immigration is “consistently linked to decreases in violent (e.g., murder) and property (e.g., burglary) crime throughout the time period.”
Urban crime rates and the changing face of immigration: Evidence across four decades
Robert Adelman, Lesley Williams Reid, Gail Markle, Saskia Weiss & Charles Jaret
The above research confirmed data analysis from almost two decades before. This study found: “After controlling for a host of demographic and economic characteristics, we find that immigration does not increase crime rates, and some aspects of immigration lessen crime in metropolitan areas.”
The immigration–crime relationship: Evidence across US metropolitan areas
Lesley Williams Reid, Harald E. Weiss, Robert M. Adelman, Charles Jaret
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0049089X05000104?via%3Dihub
This data analysis shows: “First, despite possessing characteristics usually associated with crime, undocumented immigrants are 33% less likely to be institutionalized compared to US natives. Second, there is no evidence that undocumented immigrants who have spent more time in the USA are more likely to be institutionalized compared to those who have been in the USA for a shorter time.”
On the association between undocumented immigration and crime in the United States
Christian Gunadi
Oxford Economic Papers, Volume 73, Issue 1, January 2021, Pages 200–224, https://doi.org/10.1093/oep/gpz057
https://academic.oup.com/oep/article-abstract/73/1/200/5572162?redirectedFrom=fulltext
“Analysis of data from 2019 suggests that, for the most part, Venezuelan migrants commit substantially fewer crimes—and certainly fewer violent crimes—than the native born, relative to their share in the overall population. This signals that public perceptions that immigration is driving up crime rates are misplaced.”
Venezuelan Migration, Crime, and Misperceptions: A Review of Data from Colombia, Peru, and Chile
Dany Bahar, Meagan Dooley and Andrew Selee
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/venezuelan-immigration-crime-colombia-peru-chile
Perhaps one of the most widely shared reports in news outlets is a report from Texas:
This report shows “Contrary to public perception, we observe considerably lower felony arrest rates among undocumented immigrants compared to legal immigrants and native-born US citizens and find no evidence that undocumented criminality has increased in recent years. Our findings help us understand why the most aggressive immigrant removal programs have not delivered on their crime reduction promises and are unlikely to do so in the future.”
This study found that a drop in crime that began in the United States in the early 1990s can actually be explained by increases in immigration:
Sociologist Robert Sampson: Sampson, R. (2006). Open doors don't invite criminals: Is increased immigration behind the drop in crime? The New York Times (March 11), A27.
Read this extensive review of statistics showing immigrant crime rates far lower than citizens and that periods of high immigration correlate with a decrease in crime:
Rumbaut, R. & Ewing, W. (2007). The myth of immigrant criminality.
Ful report: https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/sites/default/files/research/Imm%20Criminality%20%28IPC%29.pdf
Multiple reports showing migration and crime increases are not linked. Book:
Martinez, R., & Valenzuela, A. (2006). Coming to America: Immigration, ethnicity and crime. New York: New York University Press.
https://www.amazon.com/Immigration-Crime-Ethnicity-Violence-Perspectives/dp/0814757057
Overview of studies in the field of criminology showing no connection between rise in crime and immigration, in fact showing the opposite:
The impact of immigration policy on criminological research, by Ramiro Martinez Jr.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-9133.2008.00490.x
Another overview of social science studies that show through real data that crime and immigration are not linked:
Immigration, Crime, and Victimization in the US Context An Overview Philip M. Pendergast, Tim Wadsworth, Joshua LePree
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781119113799.ch3
See full book: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781119113799
These findings show that immigration is not associated with higher levels of overdose or homicide deaths:
More immigrants, less death: An analysis of immigration effects on county-level drug overdose deaths, 2000–2015, Ben Feldmeyer, Diana Sun, Casey T. Harris, Francis T. Cullen
“Findings reveal that immigration is not associated with higher levels of overdose or homicide deaths, and when effects are significant, immigration is linked to lower levels of overdose mortality across multiple substances and destination types.”
This study, presented at the 2017 American Sociological Association annual meeting and the 2017 American Society of Criminology annual meeting, shows undocumented immigration does not increase violent crime:
Michael T. Light and Ty Miller
“The results from fixed-effects regression models reveal that undocumented immigration does not increase violence. Rather, the relationship between undocumented immigration and violent crime is generally negative, although not significant in all specifications.”
These researchers collected data from around the country using multivariate analyses, all of which indicated “that violent crime rates tended to decrease as metropolitan areas experienced gains in their concentration of immigrants.”
“This inverse relationship is especially robust for the offense of robbery. Overall, our results support the hypothesis that the broad reductions in violent crime during recent years are partially attributable to increases in immigration.”
Immigration and the Recent violent Crime Drop in the United States: A Pooled, Cross-Sectional Time-Series Analysis of Metropolitan Areas
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2009.00162.x
This study found: “Although we are sceptical of the views on immigration that turn merely on cost–benefit analyses for the receiving state, if any such ledger is drawn up, it is clear that when it comes to crime, immigration is favourable for receiving states” (Hagan et al. 2008: 106–107).
Hagan, J., Levi, R., & Dinovitzer, R. (2008). The symbolic violence of the crime-immigration nexus: Migrant mythologies in the Americas. Criminology and Public Policy, 7(1), 95–112.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-9133.2008.00493.x
Review of social science studies with similar findings
Introduction. The Immigration-Crime Connection: Competing Theoretical Perspectives
Scot Wortley
This study states: “The findings were clear and unequivocal: more immigrants did not mean more homicide, and that outcome held across time and place.”
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716212437363
Extending Immigration and Crime Studies: National Implications and Local Settings
Ramiro Martinez, Jr. and Jacob I. StowellV
This study in the journal Sociology studies the “longitudinal relationship between immigration and violent crime across U.S. cities” over a 20 year period and “provides the first empirical assessment of theoretical perspectives that offer explanations of that relationship.” Their findings support the argument that immigration lowers violent crime rates.
The Connection between Immigration and Violent Crime Rates in U.S. Cities, 1980–2000
Graham C. Ousey, Charis E. Kubrin Social Problems, Volume 56, Issue 3, 1 August 2009, Pages 447–473, https://doi.org/10.1525/sp.2009.56.3.447
This research “overwhelmingly indicates that immigrants are less likely than similar US natives to commit violent and property crimes and that areas with more immigrants have similar or lower rates of violent and property crimes than areas with fewer immigrants.”
Do Immigrants Threaten US Public Safety?
Madeline Zavodny University of North Florida Pia Orrenius Vice President and Senior Economist
https://cmsny.org/publications/jmhs-orrenius-zavodny-070219/
This report shows how documented and undocumented immigrants both commit fewer crimes than citizens:
Is There a Connection Between Undocumented Immigrants and Crime? It’s a widely held perception, but a new analysis finds no evidence to support it.
“A lot of research has shown that there’s no causal connection between immigration and crime in the United States. But after one such study was reported on jointly by The Marshall Project and The Upshot last year, readers had one major complaint: Many argued it was unauthorized immigrants who increase crime, not immigrants over all. This story was published in collaboration with The New York Times's Upshot. An analysis derived from new data is now able to help address this question, suggesting that growth in illegal immigration does not lead to higher local crime rates.”
This Intercept articles reveals lawmakers in the process of lie-making. “Top Trump official ordered ICE officials across country to portray undocumented immigrants swept up in mass raids as criminals”
FBI Data Confirms Falling Crime Rates in Arizona [as immigration increased]:
“Many supporters of Arizona’s harsh new anti-immigrant law, SB 1070, continue to insist that the law is, in part, a crime-fighting measure. However, the latest crime statistics released by the FBI confirm what previous data had already indicated: that Arizona is in the midst of a years-long decline in violent crime that pre-dates SB 1070, despite the growing number of unauthorized immigrants in the state during those same years.”
Immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than their native‐born peers
https://www.globalrefuge.org/get-involved/advocate-with-us/combatting-disinformation/
“Trump's claims of a migrant crime wave are not supported by national data. An NBC News review of available 2024 crime data shows overall crime levels dropping in cities that have received the most migrants.”
“An NBC News review of available 2024 crime data from the cities targeted by Texas’ “Operation Lone Star,” which buses or flies migrants from the border to major cities in the interior — shows overall crime levels dropping in those cities that have received the most migrants.
Just like anyone else, immigrants are capable of committing crimes. However, criminal charges against immigrants are a minuscule fraction of criminal charges across the country, and, while already small, have in fact decreased in recent years.
“Over the past decade, the number of criminal-related charges listed on Notices to Appear as the basis for deportation has declined dramatically.” And these numbers represent charges, not convictions:
https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/690/
Excerpt from Dr. Ernesto Castañeda and Carina Cione’s forthcoming book “Immigration Realities.” “Immigrants Commit Less Crime than Native-born People.” American University.
https://www.academia.edu/116054078/Immigrants_Commit_Less_Crime_than_Native_born_People
Immigration, Crime, and Victimization: Rhetoric and Reality, by Marjorie Zatz. The Annual Review of Law and Social Science.
“Contrary to popular perceptions that immigration increases crime, the research literature demonstrates that immigration generally serves a protective function, reducing crime.”
“We begin by exploring the conditions under which immigration reduces crime and those under which it has less or no effect, with particular attention to traditional and new destination sites. We then demonstrate how the moral panic about immigration has contributed to unprecedented levels of new legislation and intensified enforcement practices.”
https://www.academia.edu/47663296/Immigration_Crime_and_Victimization_Rhetoric_and_Reality
Immigration Effects on Homicide Offending For Total and Race/Ethnicity-Disaggregated Populations (White, Black, and Latino) D. Steffensmeier 2009, Homicide Studies
“Findings reveal that immigrant concentration has trivial (nonsignificant) effects on overall homicides and Latino homicides, but slightly reduces White and Black homicide offending, net of controls. Implications of these findings are as follows: (a) Immigration does not have violence-generating effects but instead appears to have violence-neutral or perhaps some violence-reducing effects on homicide offending, and (b) This small or null effect is fairly consistent across racial/ ethnic populations.”
Immigrants and Crime: The Relationship Between Foreign- Born Populations and Criminal Activity at the State Level, Mark Gius, Journal of Applied Economics and Business
“Results suggest that foreign-born populations have no significant effects on most state-level crime rates. States with higher percentages of foreign-born populations have statistically similar crime rates to those states with lower percentages of foreign-born populations. There is, however, a significant and negative relationship between rape and foreign-born populations. States with higher percentages of foreign-born populations have lower reported rates of rape. These results are noteworthy because they suggest that the percentage of the state population that is foreign born does not result in more criminal activity at the state-leve”
DOES IMMIGRATION INCREASE HOMICIDE? Negative Evidence From Three Border Cities, Sociology Quarterly
“This study of Miami, El Paso. and San Diego neighborhoods shows that, controlling for other influences, immigration generally does not increase levels of homicide among Latinos and African Americans. Our results not only challenge stereotypes of the “criminal immigrant” but also the core criminological notion that immigration, as a social process, disorganizes communities and increases crime.”
Among absurd claims that we are in a ‘migrant crime wave,’ speakers at this year’s RNC claimed that this [falsehood] is happening because countries in Central and South America are ‘emptying’ their jails and sending their criminals to the U.S. This is also, a very made up thing.
Helen Fair, co-author of the World Prison Population List, which tracks the global prison population, and a research fellow at the Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research at Birkbeck, University of London recently reported, “I do a daily news search to see what’s going on in prisons around the world and have seen absolutely no evidence that any country is emptying its prisons and sending them all to the US.”
As CNN reports, "the prison population across the world “increased from October 2021 to April 2024, from about 10.77 million people to about 10.99 million people, according to the World Prison Population List.”
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/16/politics/fact-check-night-2-republican-national-convention/index.html
As PBS recently reported: “Trump claims Bukele is “sending all of his criminals, his drug dealers, his people that are in jails. He’s sending them all to the United States.” But El Salvador’s prison population has drastically increased in recent years, according to InSight Crime, a think tank focused on crime and security in the Americas. In 2020, El Salvador’s prison population stood at around 37,000. In 2023, it was more than 105,000 — around 1.7 percent of the country’s population, InSight Crime said.”
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-trumps-rnc-speech
another entirely made up claim about migrant crime is that immigrants are responsible for the Fentanyl crisis
The Republican National Committee created a website called 'Biden Bloodbath' .com (now ‘Harris Bloodbath’), that attempts to trace migrant crime rates. While listing a few crimes committed by migrants, the website mostly lists deaths from Fentanyl overdoses, but does not actually show these are related to immigrants, as John Oliver recently noted. A relationship between immigration and fentanyl deaths is implied, without giving any sort of information or data that shows an actual correlation. At this year’s RNC, Wisconsin Senate candidate Eric Hovde claimed that Biden's "open border" policy has "emboldened drug cartels to flood our streets with fentanyl, killing over 100,000 Americans every year."
However, according to Border Patrol’s own data, 90% of fentanyl is seized during legal crossings at formal ports of entry, and 91% of of those seizures are from U.S. citizens. .009% of undocumented people crossing the border were found to possess fentanyl. As the CATO institute reports,
“Fentanyl smuggling is ultimately funded by U.S. consumers who pay for illicit opioids: nearly 99 percent of whom are U.S. citizens.”
“In 2021, U.S. citizens were 86.3 percent of convicted fentanyl drug traffickers—ten times greater than convictions of illegal immigrants for the same offense.”
“Over 90 percent of fentanyl seizures occur at legal crossing points or interior vehicle checkpoints, not on illegal migration routes, so U.S. citizens (who are subject to less scrutiny) when crossing legally are the best smugglers.”
“The location of smuggling makes sense because hard drugs at ports of entry are about 97 percent less likely to be stopped than are people crossing illegally between them.”
“Just 0.02 percent of the people arrested by Border Patrol for crossing illegally possessed any fentanyl whatsoever.”
“The government exacerbated the problem by banning most legal cross border traffic in 2020 and 2021, accelerating a switch to fentanyl (the easiest-to-conceal drug).”
“During the travel restrictions, fentanyl seizures at ports quadrupled from fiscal year 2019 to 2021. Fentanyl went from a third of combined heroin and fentanyl seizures to over 90 percent.”
“Annual deaths from fentanyl nearly doubled from 2019 to 2021 after the government banned most travel (and asylum).”
Border patrol stats:
https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-22-104568.pdf
https://www.ussc.gov/research/datafiles/commission-datafiles
Recent Fentanyl smuggling bust of U.S. citizen: largest in history
Largest Fentanyl bust by u.s. citizen at official port of entry “CBP officers in Arizona seize more than half a ton of fentanyl in largest seizure in agency history”
Actual violent crime we should be worried about
Far-Right Domestic Terrorist Attacks Committed by Citizens
“Militant, nationalistic, white supremacist violent extremism has increased in the United States. In fact, the number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism.”
https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/what-nij-research-tells-us-about-domestic-terrorism
What Research Tells Us about Political Violence
https://blog.ucsusa.org/chris-williams/what-research-tells-us-about-political-violence/