“No wave of migrant crime” – experts review election campaign rhetoric

In February, El Cajon Mayor and Republican congressional candidate Bill Wells sounded a familiar alarm on Fox News.

“There are a lot of people coming over and we have no idea who they are,” Wells said of the migrants crossing the border illegally. “It's obvious that many of them are criminals.”

Such statements are not supported by crime statistics. Yet, in the run-up to the presidential election in November, politicians are using fear of “migrant crime” as a justification for measures such as mass deportations and the closure of the asylum system.

No one has sounded this drum louder than former President Donald Trump, who is seeking a second term in the White House.

“Bad things are going to happen,” Trump told a cheering crowd at the Republican National Convention last month. “That's why the Republican platform, to keep families safe, promises to launch the largest deportation effort in the history of our country.”

It is a centuries-old political narrative in the United States that has persisted because it works. More than half of all Americans believe that illegal immigration is linked to higher crime rates, according to a recent Axios poll.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, President Joe Biden vowed to roll back Trump-era harsh immigration policies and even criticized the Border Patrol's treatment of migrants. But this election cycle, Biden and Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris are taking a much tougher stance.

In June, Biden issued executive actions that Effectively closing asylum for people who cross the border illegallyAnd last week, Harris praised her “tough” border policy at the Democratic Party convention.

“Last year, Joe and I brought together Democrats and conservative Republicans to write the strongest border bill in decades,” she said. “The Border Patrol supported it.”

Critics of this bipartisan bill point out that it would make it much harder for people to apply for asylum and that it would increase border security – at a time when More migrants are dying at the southern border than ever before.

The statistics say something different

All this is happening while data from the FBI and the Border Patrol – along with several academic studies – show that people born in the United States are much more likely to be arrested and convicted of violent crimes.

Although Wells claims they have “no idea” who the illegal immigrants are, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials are pursuing migrants who have criminal records.

In the last fiscal year, agents arrested more than 15,000 migrants with criminal records attempted to cross the border. These arrests represent less than 1% of the more than 2.4 million migrant encounters at the southern border this year.

Critics of the “migrant crime” narrative point out that border cities are among the safest in the country. For example, San Diego has a lower violent crime rate than similarly sized cities like Dallas and San Antonio. And El Paso has lower rates than Boston or Denver. according to the FBI.

In 2024, both violence and property Crime in San Diego has decreased – and this after border patrol agents have already released thousands of migrants into the region. The same is true of New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco – other cities that attract large numbers of migrants.

“Crime in most of the big cities where migrants are moving has gone down,” said Aaron Riechlin-Melnick, policy director for the American Immigration Council. “Not only is there no migrant crime wave, there isn't even a crime wave.”

The evidence refuting the theory of high crime rates among immigrants is overwhelming, says Alex Nowrasteh, vice president for economic and social policy studies at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute.

“The results of all the studies are similar in that they all find that native-born Americans have the highest conviction and arrest rates,” said Nowrasteh, who has written extensively on the subject. “Illegal immigrants have rates in the middle range and legal immigrants have rates in the lowest range.”

Texas is best

Nowrasteh examines data from Texas, the only state that tracks the immigration status of people charged or convicted of crimes. He calls Texas an ideal state for his research because it has the second-largest illegal immigrant population in the country, borders Mexico and has a long history of tough law enforcement.

In Texas, undocumented immigrants are 26% less likely to be convicted of murder than native-born immigrants, and legal immigrants are 60% less likely to be convicted. Research shows.

“If the goal is to reduce crime, you shouldn't focus on a population that has a lower conviction rate than native-born Americans,” he said.

But even these hard facts can cause such a permanent Narrative about migrant crime. At various points in history, Irish, Italian and Japanese immigrants were viewed as a threat to public safety.

And one way politicians like Trump stoke fear is by cherry-picking particularly cruel examples of immigrants.

“Of course there were isolated incidents that were really horrific,” Reichlin-Melnick said. “You saw several women murdered by undocumented people. Those were really horrific circumstances and I feel for the family.”

But, he says, these reports always lack context. They are isolated examples from a population of more than 12 million people.

“It is not right to point to one or two cases and draw conclusions about a whole population of people of different origins, religions, beliefs, denominations and nationalities who actually have only one thing in common, namely the lack of paperwork,” said Reichlin-Melnick.