Are Undocumented Immigrants More Likely to Commit Crimes Than U.S. Citizens?

Immigration-related crime statistics released by the Department of Homeland Security are drawing scrutiny from policy experts who point to contradictions between various datasets, raising questions about the actual relationship between immigration and crime rates in America.

DHS recently reported that New York state released nearly 7,000 individuals with active ICE detainers between January and early December 2025. These were cases where Immigration and Customs Enforcement had specifically requested the state hold individuals for federal custody, but those requests went unheeded.

According to the department, these individuals had been charged with or convicted of serious offenses including 29 homicides, 2,509 assaults, 300 weapons offenses, and 207 sexual predatory offenses. These figures, drawn from local and state arrest records, have become central to political debates around immigration enforcement.

However, policy analysts note that these numbers represent only a specific subset of cases that intersected with New York’s criminal justice system, rather than providing a comprehensive view of immigrant crime rates nationally.

Federal conviction data paints a markedly different picture. Department of Homeland Security statistics on criminal non-citizens show that immigration violations themselves—illegal entry and re-entry—constitute the largest category of federal convictions among this population, typically ranging between 8,000 to 10,000 cases annually. DUI offenses represent the second-largest category, while drug and theft convictions number in the hundreds to low thousands each year.

This federal dataset is limited in scope, capturing only federal convictions rather than state or local crimes, which explains part of the discrepancy between the alarming figures in DHS press releases and the more moderate statistics in comprehensive federal data.

The CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank that has extensively studied immigration and crime, offers yet another perspective based on analysis of U.S. Census and American Community Survey data. Their 2023 incarceration rate findings show native-born Americans are incarcerated at a rate of 1,221 per 100,000 population, while illegal immigrants show a rate of 613 per 100,000, and legal immigrants just 319 per 100,000.

“Illegal immigrants are about half as likely to be incarcerated as native-born Americans, and legal immigrants are the least likely of all,” the CATO Institute concluded. This pattern has remained consistent in their data tracking from 2010 through 2023.

Only two states—Texas and Georgia—systematically track immigration status in their criminal justice records, providing rare insight into state-level trends. CATO’s analysis of these states’ data reinforces their broader findings: in Texas, illegal immigrants had lower conviction and arrest rates than native-born residents, even for serious crimes like homicide. Similarly, Georgia’s data showed illegal immigrants with lower incarceration rates compared to U.S.-born residents.

These conflicting datasets highlight a significant challenge for policymakers and the public trying to understand the relationship between immigration and crime. The discrepancies stem partly from methodology—looking at specific detainer cases versus overall incarceration rates—and partly from limitations in how criminal justice data is collected and categorized.

CATO researchers have called for more comprehensive data collection by federal and state governments, noting: “The states and federal government should collect better incarceration, conviction, and arrest data by immigration status so that the public and policymakers can more accurately understand how immigrants affect crime in the United States.”

This data gap has significant implications as immigration remains at the forefront of political debate. The Trump administration has cited migrant crime as justification for increased deportations and stricter border enforcement, while immigrant advocates point to studies showing immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than native-born citizens.

As the debate continues, the contradictory nature of available statistics underscores the need for more consistent, comprehensive data collection to inform evidence-based policy decisions regarding immigration enforcement and public safety.