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Percent of illegal immigrants that commit serious crimes in the usa
Executive summary
Data and peer-reviewed research consistently show that immigrants — including those without authorization — are not more likely to commit serious crimes than U.S.-born residents; multiple national and state studies find lower arrest, conviction, and incarceration rates for immigrants [1] [2]. Official enforcement tallies document apprehensions of noncitizens with prior convictions (for example, CBP and ICE databases and recent counts of arrests), but those figures do not translate into a single “percent of illegal immigrants who commit serious crimes” and must be interpreted in context [3] [4].
1. What reporters and researchers actually measure — and what they don’t
Criminal-justice and immigration sources use different denominators and definitions: law-enforcement databases record “criminal aliens” when a person has a prior conviction in another jurisdiction, while academic studies typically compare crime rates per 100,000 people or incarceration/conviction rates between groups [3] [5]. That means headline counts of “immigrants arrested with prior convictions” (e.g., ICE/CBP tallies) are enforcement activity measures, not direct prevalence rates of offending among the entire unauthorized population [3] [4].
2. The balance of peer-reviewed and policy research: immigrants have lower or similar crime rates
Multiple scholarly reviews and public policy organizations report that unauthorized immigrants are less likely to commit violent or drug crimes than U.S.-born citizens, and immigrants overall often have lower arrest, conviction, and incarceration rates [1] [2] [5]. For example, national reviews and Texas-based studies — the latter important because Texas records arrests by immigration status — found immigrants were arrested at less than half the rate of U.S.-born citizens for violent and drug crimes in one federal study cited by Migration Policy [1].
3. Large enforcement numbers don’t equal high per-capita crime rates
Reporting that ICE or CBP arrested tens or hundreds of thousands of noncitizens with prior convictions between specified dates (e.g., more than 132,000 arrests cited in reporting) describes enforcement scope, not the share of the unauthorized population who commit serious offenses [4]. Enforcement numbers can rise because of policy changes, expanded interior operations, data-sharing, or repeat encounters — not necessarily because the underlying per-capita offending rate has increased [3] [4].
4. Studies find no link — and sometimes a negative link — between immigrant shares and crime trends
State- and national-level analyses find no statistically significant correlation between the immigrant share of the population and total crime rates; some research even links immigration to falling violent crime in places with established immigrant communities [6] [7]. The Brennan Center and Migration Policy analyses synthesize multiple studies showing either no increase or a decrease in crime associated with immigration, and one paper using long-term data found undocumented immigration was not associated with increased violent crime [2] [5] [7].
5. Texas is a rare jurisdiction with disaggregated data — and it doesn’t show higher immigrant offending
Texas publishes arrest and conviction data by immigration status; researchers using that data repeatedly report undocumented immigrants have lower conviction and incarceration rates than natives. Examples include findings that undocumented people were substantially less likely to be convicted or incarcerated than U.S.-born residents in Texas analyses [1] [2] [8].
6. Where disagreements and ambiguity remain
Available sources note limits: some enforcement databases classify someone as a “criminal alien” based on convictions anywhere in a record that may predate U.S. arrival, and national estimates of the unauthorized population are themselves uncertain; these methodological issues complicate any simple percent estimate [3] [5]. Also, high-profile violent incidents by undocumented individuals get outsized media attention — researchers acknowledge such cases exist but describe them as rare relative to population size [7]. Finally, enforcement-focused organizations emphasize counts of “immigrants with prior convictions” as a public-safety rationale for policy; advocacy and academic groups emphasize population-rate comparisons to argue the opposite — both perspectives use valid data but different framing and denominators [4] [2].
7. Practical takeaway for the original question
If your question asks for “the percent of illegal immigrants that commit serious crimes,” available sources do not provide a single, authoritative national percentage because researchers and agencies use different measures and denominators [3] [5]. The best summary from peer-reviewed and policy literature is this: unauthorized and other immigrant groups, on average, have lower rates of serious offending, conviction, and incarceration than the U.S.-born population, while enforcement counts show many noncitizens with prior convictions enter enforcement statistics without establishing a population-wide crime prevalence figure [1] [2] [4].
Sources referenced: Migration Policy (explainer) [1]; Brennan Center and American Immigration Council fact sheets [2] [6]; Northeastern University reporting [7]; CBP enforcement statistics and related enforcement counts [3] [4]; academic long-term analyses [5].