What percent of American crimes are cimmitted by immigrantsi
Executive summary
Academic and policy research in the provided reporting shows immigrants in the U.S. — including undocumented immigrants in many studies — generally have lower incarceration, arrest, and offending rates than U.S.-born residents; several national reviews and state-level studies find no evidence that higher immigrant shares raise crime rates [1] [2] [3]. Available sources do not give a single, simple national percentage of crimes “committed by immigrants” as a uniform statistic across all offenses and years; instead, researchers report relative rates (e.g., lower arrest or incarceration rates for immigrants) and analyses of trends and correlations [4] [5].
1. What the data researchers actually measure — and why that matters
Studies cited in the reporting typically compare arrest rates, incarceration rates, or state/city crime rates against immigrant population shares, rather than calculating a single “percent of crimes by immigrants.” Arrests and incarcerations are imperfect proxies for offending because they reflect policing, reporting, and legal definitions as well as behavior; for example, the National Institute of Justice study used Texas arrest records to estimate offending rates and emphasized arrest is an imperfect measure [2]. MigrationPolicy Institute and American Immigration Council materials stress that many conclusions are about rates (per capita) and correlations, not raw shares of all recorded crimes [1] [3].
2. Main finding from recent reviews: immigrants are not more criminal, and often less so
Multiple syntheses and studies reported here conclude immigrants do not increase crime and in many measures commit fewer crimes per capita than the U.S.-born. The Migration Policy Institute notes national studies “overwhelmingly” find immigrants of all legal statuses commit crimes at lower rates than those born in the U.S. [1]. The American Immigration Council states research consistently shows immigration does not increase U.S. crime rates and that many studies find immigrants are less likely than citizens to commit crimes [3].
3. Strong state-level evidence: Texas as a detailed example
Texas — a state that records arrests and convictions by immigration status — provides detailed estimates: an NIJ-funded analysis of Texas data found undocumented immigrants were arrested at less than half the rate of native-born citizens for violent and drug crimes and about one-quarter the rate for property crimes [2]. The Migration Policy Institute’s deeper explainer also cites Texas-based research as evidence that immigrants, including unauthorized immigrants, have lower arrest and incarceration rates [4] [1].
4. Long-term and historical perspective
Long-term, historical work on incarceration shows immigrants have not been incarcerated at higher rates than U.S.-born people across decades and centuries. Research assembling 150 years of incarceration data found immigrants consistently had similar or lower incarceration rates than the native-born, challenging the narrative that immigration increases crime over the long run [6] [7].
5. Studies analyzing population shares and crime trends
Several analyses examine whether places with higher immigrant shares have higher crime. The American Immigration Council and Migration Policy Institute cite statistical work showing no positive correlation between immigrant population share and total crime rates across states; some city-level studies even link rising immigration to lower homicide and property crime rates in municipalities with established immigrant communities [8] [1].
6. Contradictory or alternative data sources reported here
Enforcement agencies and some news reports highlight counts of immigrants arrested by ICE or identified as “criminal aliens” — for example, a WBEZ report cited more than 132,000 immigrants with prior convictions arrested by ICE in a recent period — but these counts are enforcement-oriented and do not translate directly into population-rate comparisons or into the overall share of American crime [9] [10]. The Global Statistics piece offers specific conviction counts and percentages for “illegal immigrants,” but it is not positioned as a peer-reviewed data synthesis and should be weighed against academic studies [11].
7. What the sources do not say (limits you should know)
Available sources do not provide a single, authoritative national percentage of all crimes committed by immigrants across all years and offenses; instead they report relative rates (lower or higher per capita) and correlations [2] [1]. They also note methodological limits — arrest and incarceration records are affected by policing, reporting, and legal processes — and that state-level recording practices differ [2] [10].
8. Bottom line for readers and policymakers
The preponderance of the cited research shows immigrants are not driving higher crime rates in the United States and often have lower arrest and incarceration rates than the U.S.-born; rigorous analyses find no positive link between immigrant population shares and state-level crime rates, and some city-level work finds immigration can be associated with declines in violence [1] [3] [2]. However, exact shares of crimes “committed by immigrants” are not reported as a single national percentage in the provided sources, so claims that specify a precise national percent should be checked against comparable, transparent datasets or peer-reviewed studies rather than enforcement tallies alone [2] [10].