Revisited: The truth about crimes committed by illegal immigrants in the United States
Bottom Line: One of the more commonly advanced false notions, is that an illegal immigrant is less likely to commit crime than legal immigrates/Americans. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Using the most recent incarceration info from ICE, 2016, and doing a little math here’s what’s real.
- An average of 488 illegal immigrants are incarcerated for federal crimes per day in the US
- 5.9% of all federal incarcerations are illegal immigrates (117,994 in 2016)
According to the most recent data from the Pew Research Center there were an estimated 10.8 million illegal immigrants in the US in 2016. The population in 2016 was 323 million according to the Census Bureau. So, here’s more quick math for you to give you an idea of how much more likely illegal immigrants are to commit federal crimes once they’re here. 5.9% of 323 million is just over 19 million. In other words, the incarceration rate for illegal immigrants is substantially higher than legal immigrants/Americans or to make it even more simple, here’s the final number...
An illegal immigrant is 76% more likely to be incarcerated for committing a federal crime once in the US
That’s kind of a big deal isn’t it? It also goes hand in hand with the logical argument I’ve always advanced. If someone’s first act in the US is to break the law, why should we suddenly expect them to abide by them once here. Especially given that more than half of those detained have less than a high school education in their country of origin – let alone the United States.
With this information in hand, how can anyone justify the lawlessness associated with tolerating illegal immigration?