American citizens commit more crimes per capita than illegal a;iens?

1. The strongest direct evidence: Texas’s unique dataset

A landmark, peer‑reviewed study that used Texas Department of Public Safety records — the only state system that consistently records immigration status at arrest — found undocumented immigrants had substantially lower felony arrest rates than native‑born citizens and legal immigrants, with U.S. citizens more than twice as likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely for drug crimes, and more than four times more likely for property crimes ^{[1] [4] [6]}.

2. Government and research‑center corroboration

The National Institute of Justice summarized and funded analysis that reached similar conclusions: undocumented immigrants were arrested at less than half the rate of native‑born citizens for violent and drug crimes and at roughly a quarter the rate for property crimes during its study window ^[2]. Other research centers and nonprofits — including Migration Policy Institute and the American Immigration Council — likewise conclude immigrants, including unauthorized immigrants, are less likely to commit arrestable offenses and are associated with no uptick in local crime rates ^{[7] [3]}.

3. Long‑term and national patterns reinforce the finding

Historical and national analyses show the pattern is not confined to a single snapshot: a multi‑decade, cross‑city and historical work finds immigrant populations are not correlated with higher crime and in many cases are associated with lower crime rates, and a 150‑year incarceration comparison shows immigrants have not been incarcerated at higher rates than U.S.‑born people and in recent decades are substantially less likely to be incarcerated ^{[8] [9]}.

4. Why the evidence is persuasive — and where it is limited

The persuasive power of the finding comes from multiple independent methods — administrative arrest records, incarceration data, and large‑scale demographic comparisons — that converge on lower rates for undocumented immigrants ^{[1] [2] [3]}. But research limitations matter: most datasets do not record immigration status, Texas is exceptional in that respect, arrest data reflect policing choices as much as underlying offending, and detention populations (ICE detainees) are a selected group often detained for administrative or criminal grounds, complicating simple comparisons ^{[4] [5] [10]}.

5. Political uses, misreads and counterclaims

Politicians and some media outlets have emphasized high‑profile crimes by noncitizens and cited detention statistics to argue immigrants are more criminal; fact‑checks and analysts note such figures conflate immigration status, detention policy, and criminal conviction rates, and have sometimes overstated the share of detainees with criminal convictions ^[10]. Independent analysts warn that focusing on sensational anecdotes obscures the broader empirical pattern that unauthorized immigrants have lower arrest and incarceration rates per capita ^{[11] [3]}.

6. Bottom line and responsible interpretation

On the preponderance of available, peer‑reviewed and government‑commissioned evidence, U.S.‑born citizens commit more crimes per capita than undocumented immigrants — a conclusion supported by Texas’s arrest records, NIH summaries, and multiple national studies — but this conclusion rests on arrest and incarceration measures that carry known data and selection caveats and does not imply individual innocence or justify ignoring criminal acts by any group ^{[1] [2] [3] [5]}.