The scapegoating of ethnic and religious minorities is well-tread historical ground in the United States, and immigrants have always made for an easy target. Chinese, Irish, Italian, Muslim, Mexican—all these people and more have been falsely accused of bringing crime into the United States, particularly during times of economic or political unease. Today, some politicians are peddling the same, tired myth, this time of a “migrant crime surge” among immigrants who recently arrived in the country.
However, a robust body of research shows that welcoming immigrants into American communities not only does not increase crime, but can actually strengthen public safety. In fact, immigrants—including undocumented immigrants—are less likely to commit crimes than the U.S.-born. This is true at the national, state, county, and neighborhood levels, and for both violent and non-violent crime.
Total crime rates are a combination of violent crimes, categorized as murder and manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault;8 and property crimes, categorized as burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft.9 The same pattern holds true for data from recent years. From 2017 to 2022, the immigrant share of the U.S. population rose from 13.7 percent to 13.8 percent, an increase of 1.7 million people. At the same time, the national total crime rate dropped from 2,758 per 100,000 people to 2,335 per 100,000 people, a 15.3 percent decrease. The violent crime rate alone dropped from 395 per 100,000 people to 381 per 100,000 people, a 3.6 percent decrease. Using Uniform Crime Reporting data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)10 and population data from the U. S. Census Bureau,11 the Council also explored the relationship between total crime rates and immigrant shares of the population between 2017 and 2022 at the state level
As Immigration Has Risen, Crime Has Fallen
The American Immigration Council compared crime data to demographic data from 1980 to 2022, the most recent data available. The data showed that as the immigrant share of the population grew, the crime rate declined. In 1980, immigrants made up 6.2 percent of the U.S. population, and the total crime rate was 5,900 crimes per 100,000 people. By 2022, the share of immigrants had more than doubled, to 13.9 percent, while the total crime rate had dropped by 60.4 percent, to 2,335 crimes per 100,000 people. Specifically, the violent crime rate fell by 34.5 percent and the property crime rate fell by 63.3 percent.
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