Immigrant crime compared to citizens
Executive summary
Across multiple national and state studies, immigrants—both lawful and unauthorized—are found to commit fewer crimes and have lower incarceration rates than U.S.-born residents; large-sample research using Texas arrest records, multi-decade census analyses, and national reviews all converge on this pattern while noting important data limits and measurement caveats [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. The headline: what the data actually show
Several independent analyses report that immigrants are arrested and incarcerated at lower rates than native-born Americans: a Texas data study found undocumented immigrants were arrested at less than half the rate for violent and drug crimes and about a quarter the rate for property crimes compared with U.S.-born citizens [2], a PNAS study using Texas DPS data reported considerably lower felony arrest rates among undocumented immigrants than among legal immigrants and native-born citizens [1], and long‑run census-based work shows immigrants have been less likely to be incarcerated than the U.S.-born since roughly 1960 and today are substantially less likely to be imprisoned (as much as 60 percent lower in recent-period estimates) [5] [6] [3].
2. Why multiple methods reach the same conclusion — and where they differ
Researchers use different measures—arrests, convictions, incarceration—and different geographies, yet many lines of evidence point in the same direction: national time‑series and census-based incarceration analysis (covering 1870–2019) finds immigrants’ incarceration rates are similar or lower than the U.S.-born [6] [7]; state-level work using Texas’s unique immigration-status coding in arrest records finds undocumented offenders have lower offending rates across many crime categories [1] [2]; and policy‑oriented reviews from Migration Policy Institute and advocacy researchers summarize consistent findings that immigrants do not raise crime rates and often have lower rates across violent and nonviolent offenses [4] [8]. That said, some organizations and analysts have published conflicting results (for example, Crime Prevention Research Center findings contrasted with the Cato Institute and PNAS results), which demonstrates methodological sensitivity to sampling, definitional choices, and timeframes [1].
3. Measurement limits and why caution matters
These studies repeatedly warn that arrest and incarceration data are imperfect proxies for actual offending: arrests reflect law‑enforcement activity and reporting patterns as much as criminal behavior, and immigration status is not recorded uniformly across jurisdictions, complicating national estimates [2] [1]. Texas is often cited because it records immigration status at arrest—a rare data advantage—but Texas is not representative of the entire country, and findings there may not generalize without caveats [1]. Longitudinal census approaches avoid some biases but use incarceration as a proxy and cannot capture unpunished or unreported crimes [6] [7].
4. Political framing, media narratives, and implicit agendas
Despite convergent evidence that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes, political rhetoric and selective media stories often amplify exceptional criminal cases involving immigrants to suggest a broader “crime wave”; analysts and advocacy groups note this mismatch between evidence and public debate and stress that such narratives can be weaponized for restrictive immigration policy or electoral gain [9] [8]. At the same time, some research outlets with different ideological bent have reached alternative conclusions, underscoring that methodological choices—what data to use, which time windows, and how to classify status—can be marshaled to support preexisting policy positions [1].
5. Bottom line and what further research is needed
The best-available, peer-reviewed and government‑funded analyses indicate immigrants—including many undocumented individuals—are less likely to be arrested, convicted, and incarcerated than U.S.-born people, and increases in immigration have not been shown to raise crime rates in aggregate [2] [1] [8]. However, limits in data coverage, the imperfect relationship between arrests and offending, regional variation, and contested studies mean the debate is not purely settled on every nuance; researchers continue to call for better, standardized recording of immigration status and more locally granular work to explain why immigrant communities often register lower offending rates [4] [2] [1].