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The gap in crime rates between undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants, and U.S. natives is huge

New study suggests we need to rethink our attitudes on immigration.

via David Tan/Flickr

A man being arrested by the police.

Immigration was one of the biggest issues in the 2024 presidential election, and it helped propel Donald Trump to his second presidential term. Last year saw a significant shift in public opinion on immigration, with 55% of Americans believing that immigration levels should be decreased, the highest number in nearly 20 years.

One of the biggest reasons that people fear immigrants, both legal and undocumented, is that they believe they commit a disproportionate number of crimes and pose a danger to natural-born citizens. Polls show that 47% of Americans believe that immigrants increase crime in the United States.

It’s no surprise that many feel this way, given the increasingly polarized political rhetoric surrounding immigrants. Over the past decade, prominent politicians have referred to immigrants as “invaders,” “animals,” and “rapists,” who shouldn't come to America. Some have even suggested that they are being allowed in the country to “replace” white Americans.

immigration, crime, arrests, ICE, undocumented people, immigration lawA man being arrested by ICE.via ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations/Flickr

In addition to the abrasive rhetoric, a lot of Americans have also developed negative attitudes towards immigration because they fear foreign-born people will change the culture and could pose a threat to their employment. A majority of Americans have also been alarmed by years of chaos at the southern border.

Immigration is a complex issue that evokes strong emotions, so we must distinguish fact from rhetoric to craft humane policies that support a system where immigrants and native-born Americans thrive together. That’s why a recent report from the Cato Institute, a libertarian-leaning public policy research organization, is so important. The report shows that the fear-mongering over immigrant crime is unfounded and that native-born Americans pose a much greater threat to their safety.

Do immigrants commit more crime?

The study, conducted by Michelangelo Landgrave and Alex Nowrasteh, utilized American Community Survey (ACS) Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) from the US Census data from 2010 to 2023 to determine the crime rate per capita among undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants, and natural-born Americans. They found that undocumented people are incarcerated at about half the rate, per capita, than native-born Americans and that legal immigrants commit crimes at about half the rate of undocumented immigrants.

Here’s the Cato Institute's findings:

An estimated 1,617,197 native-born Americans, 67,813 illegal immigrants, and 58,515 legal immigrants were incarcerated in 2023. The incarceration rate for native-born Americans was 1,221 per 100,000; 613 per 100,000 for illegal immigrants; and 319 per 100,000 for legal immigrants in 2022 (Figure 1). Illegal immigrants are half as likely to be incarcerated as native-born Americans. Legal immigrants are 74 percent less likely to be incarcerated than natives. If native-born Americans were incarcerated at the same rate as illegal immigrants, about 806,000 fewer natives would be incarcerated. Conversely, if natives were incarcerated at the same rate as legal immigrants, about 1.2 million fewer native-born Americans would be incarcerated.


Further, the report shows that if you removed the people in ICE detention facilities on any given day, the undocumented crime rate would fall to 357 per 100,000 people, only 12% higher than that of legal immigrants.

Nowrasteh speculates that there are multiple reasons why undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than natural-born citizens. He suggests that they are more future-oriented because they faced huge risks in coming to the U.S. They also fear the consequences of committing crimes, including deportation, and often have stronger social bonds that discourage them from breaking the law.

The interesting change over the first 100 days of the new administration is that even though people were very concerned about the state of immigration, they are now turning against its aggressive and legally questionable deportation strategies. This points to a unique balance among Americans that shows they are concerned about immigration but also care for immigrants who are unfairly targeted by the system. Hopefully, Americans’ concern for immigrants’ welfare will be matched by a clearer understanding of the actual safety risks they pose, paving the way for policies that benefit everyone.

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It's time to act: 6 things you can do right now to help families separated at the border.

What's been happening at the border is an affront to human decency.

By now, we are presumably aware of the new 2018 policy at the U.S.-Mexico border that has children being taken from their parents arms and held in separate facilities — a practice that a UCLA psychology professor has likened to torture, that the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics has called "government-sanctioned child abuse," and that the U.N. high commissioner on human rights has called " unconscionable."

In just six weeks, nearly 2,000 children have been separated from their parents, with no guarantee they will see them again.

Photo by John Moore/Getty Images.

There are lots of myths and misunderstandings floating around about the policy and its implementation. So you might want to read this, this, this, and this to get the facts straight. Then get ready to act.

It's easy to feel helpless and hopeless — but don't. Here's a list of real things you can do today.

Awareness is important. Action is vital. Here's what you can do:

1. Pressure President Donald Trump to put an end to this policy.

Trump appears to be using children as hostages to get his immigration agenda passed through Congress. But Trump has the power to end this policy all by himself now. He apparently has an executive action in the works to end the policy, so pressure appears to be working. Keep it up. Call the White House. Bombard Trump on Twitter, his chosen way to communicate with the American people. Let the administration know that this policy crosses a red line.

2. Call your senator and ask them to support the Keep Families Together Act.

If Trump doesn't put an end to the policy himself, Congress will have to act. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) has introduced a bill that would bar border agents from separating children under 18 from their parents unless a court or welfare official determines it is in the child's best interests to do so or if there is a strong likelihood that the child is being trafficked or doesn't actually belong with the adult they are traveling with.

3. Participate in a #FamiliesBelongTogether march on June 30.

Or organize one in your area if there isn't one already in the works. A large anchor rally will be held in Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., with other rallies and marches taking place across the country. Go to Moveon.org to find a rally near you.

4. Donate to legal aid organizations that specialize in immigration at the border.

The most immediate need for these families is legal representation and advocacy. Here's a list of nonprofits that are on the ground at the border providing legal aid to help get children reunited with their parents.

  • ASAP: Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project connects families seeking asylum to community support and emergency legal aid.
  • The Florence Project for immigrant and refugee rights provides free legal and social services to detained immigrants in Arizona and ensures that people facing removal have access to counsel, understand their rights under the law, and are treated fairly and humanely.
  • KIND: Kids in Need of Defense ensures that no child appears in immigration court alone without high-quality representation.
  • Tahirih Justice Center provides a broad range of direct legal services, policy advocacy, and training and education to protect immigrant women and girls fleeing violence.

(Also, if you need a little inspiration that hope for humanity is still alive, thisFacebook fundraiser for RAICES, the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services in Texas, has already raised more than $10.5 million — in just four days — making itthe most successful Facebook campaign to date.)

5. Support the ACLU.

The American Civil Liberties Union is an organization that works consistently to support human rights to all people in our country, to not only assist when injustices occur but to try to prevent rights from being infringed in the first place.

Separating families is more than cruel and unnecessary – it’s torture. We won't sit quietly while the Trump administration terrorizes asylum seekers.

Posted by ACLU on Tuesday, June 19, 2018

6. Keep speaking out and sharing reliable journalism about this story.

This atrocity, which should transcend partisan politics, is being turned into a war fueled by highly biased media outlets. Misinformation is part of what got us here, so utilize tools like MediaBiasFactCheck.com to determine the reliability of where you get your information. Share the facts, bust the myths, and keep putting the truth out there for these families.

This is our country. We should not accept cruelty to children being done in our name.

And we don't have to. Now is the time to act to end this shameful and inhuman practice.

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Think it's illegal to be stuck in jail without bail for 3 years for a misdemeanor? Nope.

Alejandro Rodriguez has lived in the United States. since he was 1 year old. He’s a father now, and until recently, worked as a dental assistant. So why — after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor more than 15 years ago — did it take three years for him to get a bond hearing?

That’s right: Rodriguez wasn’t serving a 3-year sentence. He was simply waiting to see a judge to find out what his bail might be.

Even more suprising? The Supreme Court declared last week that this treatment of him was all perfectly legal.

See, even though Rodriguez is a legal permanent resident, SCOTUS just announced that immigrants — including asylum seekers and green card holders — do not have the right to periodic bond hearings.

The ruling comes from the Jennings v. Rodriguez case, in which Rodriguez was the lead plaintiff. And the whole thing is way more complicated than you’e ever expect.

But let’s back up. Back in 2004, the Department of Homeland Security placed Rodriguez in immigration detention for three years after he plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge for drug possession. (In 1998, he was also convicted for “joyriding.”)

And we know how that turned out.

In 2007, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, Rodriguez filed a lawsuit stating that he had the right to a bond hearing. In response, the Ninth Circuit Court ruled immigrant detainees do have a constitutional right to a bond hearing. But that ruling was ultimately reversed on Feb. 27, 2018.

In the majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, the court said that “immigration officials are authorized to detain certain aliens in the course of immigration proceedings while they determine whether those aliens may be lawfully present in the country.”

When the SCOTUS ruling was announced last week, it prompted mass outrage from immigration advocates and progressive political commentators.

But according to two immigration attorneys who spoke with Upworthy, this outsized response is born out of disinformation from media coverage about the case. A big misunderstanding can be pointed to news headlines that suggest the decision could lead to the indefinite detention of immigrants.

According to Diego Aranda Teixeira, an immigration attorney who is administered in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (which is where the Jennings v. Rodriguez case will be heard next), the SCOTUS ruling does not allow for immigrants to be detained indefinitely.

“This decision does not make it possible to detain all immigrants forever,” Teixeira says.

The ruling is far more narrow than what has been reported. The Jennings v. Rodriguez case was based on the concern of indiscriminate administrative bond hearings for detained non-citizens with a criminal background.

“Before that, in [the Ninth Circuit], only people who had not been detained at or near the time and place of crossing a border or asking for admission, who were not in categories of people mandatorily detained for certain reasons largely related to criminal history, and who were not detained to enforce an existing removal order, very broadly speaking, you had the right to one bond hearing if detained,” Teixeira added.

In other words, the SCOTUS ruling does not “greenlight” indefinite detention for immigrants.

While Michael Edelman, an attorney based in Philadelphia, believes it is “egregious” to detain people as a “human rights matter,” he agrees with Teixeira’s assessment.

According to Edelman, the decision not apply to all immigrants since a lot of other SCOTUS cases already and explicitly “protect the vast majority of immigrants from indefinite, hearing-less detention.”

“The decision says that certain immigrants can be detained throughout the duration of their immigration proceeds,” Edelman added. “That is all.”

Here’s what happens next.

Well, the Jennings v. Rodriguez case has now gone back to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. There are several outcomes to this. The Ninth Circuit, which is considered to be quite progressive, could say that denying bond hearings to immigrant detainees is a violation of their constitutional right.

The Ninth Circuit could also propose other solutions for administrative bond hearings on a case by case solution based on the detainees in question.

But for now, the door remains open in finding an answer to the issue of prolonged detention. If the Ninth Circuit comes to a new decision, and has to go back to the Supreme Court, Teixeira says a lot of immigrant detainees who had their bonds are going to remain detained until the new decision is taken or another new lawsuit is filed.

“It would have been far better for SCOTUS to affirm the Ninth Circuit, I feel,” Teixeira added. As of right now, there isn’t much to do to challenge the decision except to wait.

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Houston's mayor sent a blunt message of support to undocumented immigrants fleeing Harvey.

With President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown looming and Hurricane Harvey's devastating effects still unaccounted for, many undocumented Houstonians were left to wonder if it was safe to leave their homes and seek help during the storm.

But Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, who is also a lawyer, is standing up for his city's undocumented residents.

At a press conference on Aug. 28, 2017, he offered an unambiguous show of support.

"If you need help and someone comes and they require help, and then for some reason, then somebody tries to deport them, I will represent them myself, OK?" Turner said.

The mayor, who is a member of the State Bar of Texas, stood by his controversial decision not to issue an evacuation order for the city. He urged residents to seek help regardless of their immigration status. "I and others will be the first ones to stand up with you," he said.

An estimated 575,000 undocumented immigrants live in the Houston metropolitan area.

During 2008's Hurricane Ike, the last major hurricane to hit Texas, federal officials de-emphasized immigration enforcement in their communication to the public.

Airmen assess the damage after Ike. Photo by Paul Flipse/US Air Force via Getty Images.

"We're not going to be bogging people down with checks or doing things to delay the rapid movement of people out of the zone of danger," Michael Chertoff, Homeland Security secretary at the time, said.

In sharp contrast, the Texas Tribune reported on Aug. 24 that U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) checkpoints would remain open during Harvey, prompting fears that undocumented residents of the city could be apprehended while trying to evacuate.

The following day, the agency clarified that the checkpoints would "close as state highways close" but that those outside the hurricane's range would remain open during the storm. In a joint statement, CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced they would be suspending enforcement operations at evacuation sites, shelters, and food banks.

As rumors swirl about immigration enforcement, at least Houston's city government is working to calm anxious residents enough to request the services they need.

"We want you to call," Turner said in the press conference. "There is absolutely no reason why anyone should not call."

A mayor shouldn't have to stand up and offer legal services just so his city's residents can get help in a life-threatening crisis. But it's good to see he's willing to do whatever it takes to bring people to safety.

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