Illegal immigrant criminality is a major contentious issue in the debate over immigration policy in the United States and is likely to feature prominently in Thursday’s presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Cato has published much original research on illegal immigrant criminality over the years because of the importance of this issue. The arrest and indictment of Jose Antonio Ibarra for the murder of Laken Riley is a recent and brutal example of an alleged illegal immigrant killer. This case and those like it are truly awful, and Ibarra, if he murdered Riley, should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. These cases are tragic, but analyzing the broader facts of illegal immigrant criminality is crucial before changing public policy.
In a new Cato Institute policy analysis released today, I examine data from Texas on homicide rates for illegal immigrants, legal immigrants, and native‐born Americans. Over the ten years from 2013 to 2022, the homicide conviction rate in Texas for illegal immigrants was 2.2 per 100,000, compared to 3.0 per 100,000 for native‐born Americans and 1.2 per 100,000 legal immigrants.
Accordingly, illegal immigrants were 26 percent less likely than native‐born Americans to be convicted of homicide, and legal immigrants were 61 percent less likely (Figure 1). This general trend also holds for 2022, where the illegal immigrant homicide conviction rate was 3.1 per 100,000, 1.8 per 100,000 for legal immigrants, and 4.9 per 100,000 for native‐born Americans (Figure 2).
Those statistics are only for the state of Texas, which uniquely keeps data on the immigration statutes of those arrested and convicted of crimes. Texas is a great state for many reasons (no state income tax, great food, good housing policy, etc.) and for social scientists seeking to understand illegal immigrant criminality. Texas has the second‐highest illegal immigrant population behind California, shares the longest state border with Mexico, has a reputation for strictly enforcing criminal laws, is governed by Republicans, and doesn’t have any sanctuary jurisdictions.
It’s not certain that the low Texas illegal immigrant crime rates generalize to all other states, and there may be a few states where they have higher rates than native‐born Americans, but it will likely hold in most states because Texas is an excellent sample.
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