How have immigrant and native-born arrest and conviction trends changed in the U.S. over the last 20 years?

1. The headline: immigrants commit less crime on the measured metrics

Carefully measured studies conclude immigrants are less likely to be arrested, convicted or incarcerated than U.S.‑born people. The Texas administrative‑records study that directly linked immigration status to criminal records found felony arrest rates roughly 1,000 per 100,000 for U.S.‑born citizens, 800 per 100,000 for legal immigrants and 400 per 100,000 for undocumented immigrants; the National Institute of Justice summarized the finding that undocumented arrests were less than half native rates for violent and drug crimes and a quarter for property crimes ^{[1] [4]}.

2. Trends across time: gaps stable or widening slightly because native rates rose

When researchers tracked trends over the 2012–2018 window in Texas, immigrant arrest rates were relatively stable while native‑born felony arrest rates rose slightly — widening comparative gaps — particularly for drug offenses where U.S.‑born arrests increased about 30% while undocumented drug felony rates held steady ^[1]. Nationally, long‑run work shows immigrants have had lower incarceration risk than natives dating back decades and across multiple cohorts ^{[5] [6]}.

3. Geographic and measurement limits: Texas is unusually informative — and uniquely limited

Texas is the only U.S. state that, during the cited study period, systematically recorded immigration status for every person arrested, which allowed direct comparisons by legal status. That is a scientific advantage but also a limitation: Texas may not perfectly represent the whole country, and researchers caution more work is needed to see if Texas patterns generalize to all jurisdictions ^{[7] [1]}.

4. Convictions and incarcerations: corroborating signals, not perfect mirrors

Analyses using convictions or incarceration measures generally support arrest‑based conclusions: multiple policy and research reviews find immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than native‑born Americans and exhibit similar or lower conviction likelihoods in many studies ^{[2] [3]}. The Brennan Center and Cato Institute materials cited in reporting both point to lower incarceration risks for immigrants ^{[2] [3]}.

5. Why might immigrants show lower measured criminality? Competing explanations in the literature

Scholars propose several mechanisms: selection (people who migrate are less crime‑prone), deterrence (higher perceived cost for noncitizens), demographic and socioeconomic composition, and differences in law‑enforcement interactions. Cato lists a range of plausible causes; researchers also warn that enforcement practices (e.g., immigration‑related detentions counted as incarceration) can distort comparisons for some national origin groups ^{[6] [8]}.

6. Policy and political context: how data get used and misused

Researchers and advocacy groups say selective incidents and administrative enforcement figures are often used to claim a “migrant crime wave,” despite aggregate data showing declines in many crime categories and lower immigrant involvement by standard metrics ^{[2] [9]}. Government enforcement dashboards (ICE, CBP) report arrests and convictions among noncitizens, but those statistics reflect enforcement activity as much as underlying offending and can be highlighted for political ends ^{[10] [11]}.

7. What we still don’t know — and what reporters should avoid claiming

Available sources do not mention nationally consistent, longitudinal arrest‑and‑conviction series that separate documented vs undocumented status outside Texas; researchers warn evidence on undocumented trends beyond specific states is “virtually nonexistent” or limited ^{[1] [7]}. Also, some population estimates for undocumented residents vary across methods, which affects rate calculations; alternatives and robustness checks are used in Texas analyses but broader replication is needed ^{[1] [12]}.

8. Bottom line for readers and policymakers

The strongest available, peer‑reviewed and policy syntheses conclude immigrants — including undocumented immigrants in the Texas data — record lower arrest, conviction and incarceration rates than native‑born Americans, and recent trend evidence shows those relative gaps have not eroded and in some measures widened because native‑born rates rose modestly ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Policymakers and journalists should treat single high‑profile cases and enforcement counts as distinct from population‑level offending rates and recognize geographic and measurement limits in the data ^{[7] [10]}.