How do crime conviction rates for undocumented immigrants compare to native-born and legal immigrant populations?

1. What the best state‑level data show: Texas as the clearest signal

Researchers who gained access to Texas criminal history records compared native‑born, legal immigrant, and undocumented populations and consistently found undocumented immigrants had substantially lower felony arrest and conviction rates than native‑born Americans and often lower than legal immigrants; authors replicated results across arrests and convictions to check robustness ^{[1] [5]}. The National Institute of Justice summarized this Texas work, reporting undocumented immigrants were arrested at less than half the rate of U.S.‑born citizens for violent and drug crimes and about one quarter the rate for property crimes ^[2].

2. National and historical evidence: immigrants aren’t driving higher incarceration

Longitudinal and national studies broaden that pattern: research using census and incarceration records over 150 years shows immigrants have never been incarcerated at greater rates than people born in the U.S. in recent decades, and contemporary national analyses find immigrants—including many undocumented—have lower incarceration or conviction risks than the U.S.‑born ^{[3] [4]}. Migration Policy Institute and other reviews conclude that “immigrants of all legal statuses commit crimes at lower rates than those born in the United States,” reflecting multiple independent studies ^[6].

3. Academic consensus and major think‑tanks: consistent but not unanimous

Multiple academic bodies and policy centers — including university teams, the NIJ summary, and organizations like the American Immigration Council and the Brennan Center — report little or no correlation between immigrant share and crime, and often lower crime rates for immigrants and undocumented immigrants ^{[7] [2] [8]}. Some papers note exceptions or nuances: a few studies detect small links in particular places, offenses, or immigrant subgroups (for example, a narrow association in one study for unauthorized immigration from Mexico), so the literature is qualified rather than monolithic ^[9].

4. Why measurement matters: status, denominator, and data sources

Comparing conviction rates requires (a) accurately classifying immigration status, (b) estimating the size of the underlying population (the denominator), and (c) choosing arrests, convictions, or incarceration as the metric. Texas’ advantage is immigration‑status recorded at arrest; national work often relies on census incarceration counts or administrative datasets, which can undercount undocumented people and make national comparisons harder. Researchers repeatedly note these measurement limits and run sensitivity checks to address them ^{[1] [10]}.

5. Mechanisms and alternative explanations raised by researchers

Scholars propose several explanations for lower rates among immigrants: selection effects (those who migrate are often risk‑averse or work‑oriented), social and economic incentives to avoid detection, community networks that reduce crime, and policies that shape opportunity and enforcement ^{[7] [4] [11]}. Some work also highlights that age structure and regional variation can matter — younger populations tend to commit more crime, and immigrant concentrations in certain cities can shift local effects ^{[9] [6]}.

6. Areas of disagreement and political use of the evidence

While empirical studies largely show lower criminality among immigrants, political messaging sometimes emphasizes high‑profile individual cases or selected enforcement statistics (e.g., “criminal alien” counts compiled by border agencies) to argue the opposite; official enforcement tallies report convictions among apprehended noncitizens, but those counts are not population‑rate comparisons and are framed differently by enforcement agencies ^{[12] [13]}. Critics warn that using raw arrest or removal counts without denominators misleads about comparative risk ^{[2] [1]}.

7. What remains uncertain or under‑reported

Available sources do not mention a nationally representative dataset that records immigration status at arrest for all states; much of the strongest evidence comes from Texas and from national incarceration/census cross‑checks, meaning national conviction‑rate estimates by status remain imperfect ^{[1] [10]}. Researchers call for more jurisdictions to record status consistently and for cross‑agency data linkages to sharpen national estimates ^[1].

Conclusion — bottom line for the question asked: multiple peer‑reviewed analyses, state records (notably Texas), and national syntheses find that undocumented immigrants have conviction and incarceration rates lower than native‑born Americans, and immigrants overall do not raise crime rates; measurement caveats and some localized exceptions exist, and enforcement statistics can be misinterpreted when presented without proper population denominators ^{[1] [2] [7]}.