Immigrants found less likely to commit crimes

Independent, UK - An increased number of immigrants in the US might have contributed to an historic drop in crime rates, according to a new study. Research also shows that immigrants are less likely than US-born citizens to commit crimes and be imprisoned.

Both reports cast doubt on President Donald Trump’s and his administration’s populist rhetoric that immigrants and particularly undocumented immigrants are more likely to commit violent crimes.

Undocumented immigrants in the US have risen from 3.5 million in 1990 to 11.1 million in 2014. Yet a report from criminal research and advocacy group the Sentencing Project suggested that rising immigration may have even contributed to “an historic drop in crime rates” in that time.

These findings were backed up by a report from the libertarian Cato Institute, which looked at how many people were in prison by migratory status, ethnicity and gender, and found that “all immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than natives relative to their shares of the population”.