'There’s no evidence': Experts debunk Trump’s claims of 'migrant crime' wave in US cities

29 February 2024

Former President Donald Trump has made immigration the centerpiece of his 2024 campaign, and pledged to launch "the largest domestic deportation operation in American history" if elected to stem a supposed wave of crime from migrants. But experts say that Trump's assertions are a "myth."

NBC News reported Thursday that publicly available crime data from police departments across the country doesn't support the former president's claims that undocumented immigrants "beat up police officers... stab people, hurt people [and] shoot people." In fact, experts told the outlet that crime is actually much higher among native-born US citizens and second-generation immigrants.

"This is a public perception problem. It’s always based upon these kinds of flashpoint events where an immigrant commits a crime," College of William & Mary professor Graham Ousey told NBC. "There’s no evidence for there being any relationship between somebody’s immigrant status and their involvement in crime."

One of Trump's main gripes has been with "sanctuary cities," which bill themselves as safe and inclusive communities for immigrants where they limit cooperation with the federal government in enforcing anti-immigration laws. A Department of Justice study found that in the 20-year period between 1990 and 2010, "there was no evidence that the percentage of unauthorized or authorized immigrant population at the city level impacted shifts in the homicide rates and no evidence that immigration is connected to robbery at the city level."

More recent figures show that immigrants continue to commit far less crime than native-born citizens and second-generation immigrants. A 2020 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluded that "contrary to public perception, we observe considerably lower felony arrest rates among undocumented immigrants compared to legal immigrants and native-born US citizens and find no evidence that undocumented criminality has increased in recent years."

Researchers told NBC that Trump has seizing on individual events that get disproportionate coverage in the media has resulted in a lopsided view among the American public. Despite the wealth of data showing otherwise, 57% of respondents told Pew Research earlier this month they feel that large numbers of immigrants coming across the border leads to more crime. This comes after the US saw the biggest year-over-year drop in homicides on record in 2023. Other violent crime is also down, and robbery and burglary numbers also saw double-digit declines.

"They can be really egregious acts of criminality that really draw lots of attention that involve somebody who happens to be an immigrant," Ousey said. "And if you have leaders, political leaders who are really pushing that narrative, I think that would have the tendency to sort of push up the myth."

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