Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes.
Undocumented immigrants have lower felony arrest rates than legal immigrants or native-born Americans. Over decades, evidence shows a lack of evidence to support the relationship between illegal immigration and crime trends. After illegal immigration plummeted in 2020 because of COVID, the murder rate rose. And after illegal immigration spiked in 2021 and 2022, murders fell.
U.S. rates of crime and immigration have actually moved in opposite directions in recent years. The number of foreign-born Americans has increased for decades, while the murder rate has gone up and down at different times, as these charts by my colleague Ashley Wu show:
Source: U.S. Census Bureau; American Community Survey; Jeff Asher, F.B.I. | By The New York Times |
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