President Donald Trump accuses immigrants of being dangerous criminals almost daily in his public speeches, interviews, and posts. For example: “Our communities are being ravaged by migrant crime.” (Trump, 2024) His accusations are false. Criminology research of records going back to the 1870s has shown that immigrants to the United States, both legal and undocumented, have committed less crime than native-born Americans. The National Bureau of Economic Research found that immigrants are “less likely to offend than native born Americans” and “for property crimes, immigration has a consistently negative effect” on a region’s crime rate.

A detailed study by the Cato Institute, an established think tank known as having a conservative bias, showed that “During the 10-year span from 2013 to 2022, the homicide conviction rate in Texas was 2.2 per 100,000 illegal immigrants, 1.2 per 100,000 legal immigrants, and 3.0 per 100,000 native-born Americans.” That means that native-born Americans were 2.5 times more likely to be convicted of homicide than legal immigrants, and 36% more likely than undocumented immigrants.

These studies and many more prove that immigrants as a group are not the criminals that President Trump portrays. On the contrary, they are more law-abiding than native-born Americans. They also contribute enormously to U.S. productivity, economic growth, and innovations. Spreading the truth about immigrants is important, because lies about immigrants being criminals are one of the most powerful, destructive forces tearing the social fabric of our country apart. A step toward mending that fabric is to tell the truth.

Joshua Berk Knox