How do arrest rates for violent crimes compare between undocumented immigrants and legal residents or citizens?
Executive summary
Research that directly compares arrest rates by immigration status finds undocumented immigrants have lower felony arrest rates than native-born U.S. citizens and often lower rates than legal immigrants: a Texas-based PNAS study reported U.S.-born citizens were over two times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes than undocumented immigrants, 2.5 times more likely for drug crimes and more than four times for property crimes [1]. Multiple policy and research organizations — Migration Policy Institute, American Immigration Council, Brennan Center and others — report consistent findings that immigrants, including unauthorized immigrants, do not raise violent-crime rates and in many studies have lower offending or incarceration rates than the native-born population [2] [3] [4].
1. What the best cross‑study evidence says: lower arrest rates for undocumented immigrants
The most-cited empirical comparison comes from Texas administrative data analyzed in PNAS, which found "considerably lower felony arrest rates" for undocumented immigrants versus legal immigrants and native-born citizens; specifically, U.S.-born citizens were over twice as likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely for drug crimes and over four times more likely for property crimes [1]. Policy analysts and research syntheses — Migration Policy Institute and the American Immigration Council — echo that the balance of research shows immigrants, including unauthorized immigrants, are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born residents and do not raise local violent-crime rates [2] [3].
2. Why Texas matters — and why it is not nationally representative
Texas is unique because its law-enforcement records include immigration status, enabling direct rate comparisons; the PNAS/Texas analysis relies on more than 1.8 million arrests and cross-checks DHS indicators, convictions and alternative population estimates to test robustness [1] [5]. Available sources caution, however, that Texas is one state and patterns can vary across jurisdictions; Migration Policy and other reviewers note that most national data do not record immigration status at arrest, which complicates nationwide measurement [2] [6].
3. Measurement challenges and political distortion
Available federal enforcement datasets focus on ICE and CBP actions; these records reflect enforcement priorities and can over-represent people with prior convictions or targets of immigration operations while also showing many arrests of people without criminal records — for example, ICE operational releases show many detained people lack prior convictions and recent reporting found large shares arrested in operations had no criminal records [7] [8]. Agencies such as CBP report “criminal alien” conviction tallies but those counts depend on how "criminal" is defined and on database matches after apprehension [9] [10]. These measurement and definitional differences create space for politicized claims on both sides [11].
4. Multiple independent syntheses reach similar conclusions
Academic reviews, think‑tank analyses and mainstream outlets converge: Migration Policy explains that a growing volume of research demonstrates immigrants do not increase crime and in some contexts are tied to declining violent crime [2]. The American Immigration Council and the Brennan Center summarize studies showing no relationship or a negative relationship between immigration (including undocumented flows) and violent crime, and that immigrants overall have lower incarceration or arrest rates than the U.S.-born [3] [4].
5. Contradictory evidence, government claims and enforcement data
Government communications sometimes frame immigration enforcement as a public-safety tool and attribute local crime declines to removals; DHS released a statement claiming declines in several violent categories in 2025 and asserted ICE removals helped reduce violence [12]. Meanwhile investigative reporting and watchdog data show recent ICE arrest surges and that a substantial fraction of people arrested by ICE had no prior conviction, complicating simple safety claims [7] [11] [8]. These conflicting narratives reflect different goals: research seeks to measure population rates; enforcement agencies highlight removals of people with convictions; watchdogs highlight arrests of people without criminal records.
6. What remains uncertain and what journalists should watch
Nationally comparable arrest rates by immigration status are scarce because most jurisdictions do not record immigration status at arrest; therefore, the PNAS/Texas evidence is the strongest direct comparison but may not generalize to all states [1] [6]. Recent administrative data releases from ICE and CBP provide fresh enforcement snapshots but cannot alone establish population-level offending rates because enforcement is selective and sometimes politically driven [13] [9] [11]. Available sources do not mention a definitive national dataset that directly compares arrest rates for undocumented immigrants and citizens across all states.
7. Bottom line for readers
The peer-reviewed and policy literature consistently finds undocumented immigrants have lower felony arrest rates — including violent-crime arrests — than U.S.-born citizens in the datasets studied (most notably Texas) and that immigration overall is not associated with higher violent crime in the United States [1] [2] [3]. At the same time, enforcement statistics and government messaging can present a different frame focused on removals and specific criminal populations; readers should distinguish selective enforcement tallies (ICE/CBP arrests and “criminal alien” counts) from population-rate studies when evaluating claims about immigrants and violent crime [9] [7] [12].