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Crime Rate for Illegal Aliens Vastly Understated, Data Shows

Posted on Friday, November 29, 2024
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In June, illegal alien Victor Martinez-Hernandez was charged with the murder of Rachel Morin, a mother of five in Maryland. Police in Oklahoma tracked the accused repeat offender down with a sample of his DNA recovered from a Los Angeles home invasion in which a 9-year-old girl and her mother were assaulted.

Police say Martinez-Hernandez came to the U.S. illegally to escape prosecution for at least one other murder in his native El Salvador in December 2022. 

“That should never have been allowed to happen,” said Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler, referring to the numerous missed red flags the case presented. His office apprehended Hernandez in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Like the member of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua sentenced to life in prison last week for the murder of nursing student Laken Riley in Georgia, Hernandez’s case is shining a light on the federal government’s failure to properly vet and keep track of lawless migrants.

These gaps have led to broad claims that illegal immigrants have less involvement with the criminal justice system than native-born Americans. A review of the available data, however, shows that the criminal records of millions of migrants—the ones President-elect Donald Trump vows to prioritize for deportation—remain unknown due to illegal crossings, lax enforcement, and lax data collection by federal and “sanctuary” jurisdictions. 

In addition, an analysis of the available statistics by RealClearInvestigations suggests that the crime rate involving noncitizens is vastly understated. A separate RCI analysis based on estimates developed by the Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice suggests that crime by illegal aliens who entered the U.S. by July 21 cost the country some $166.5 billion.

These criminals disproportionately entered the U.S. during the Biden-Harris administration.

The problem begins with incomplete initial vetting by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. The criminal histories of migrants from far-flung countries with often shoddy record-keeping are somewhat hard to determine. It is also impractical to hold each person until he or she has passed a rigorous background check.

As a result, ICE routinely releases many illegal immigrants into the country on their own recognizance and then discovers afterward that many had criminal records in their home countries. 

In response to a request from Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, ICE reported this summer that it has released  7.4 million such “nondetained” noncitizens into the U.S. during the past four decades. ICE reports that these include 662,566 noncitizens with criminal histories—435,719 individuals with criminal convictions in their home countries and another 226,847 with pending criminal charges.

These precise figures, however, do not say whether the crimes of the latter group were committed in the accused’s home country or the U.S. 

In a July 21 letter to Gonzales, ICE reported that 13,099 of these nondetained individuals have convictions for homicide, with 1,845 facing criminal homicide charges. Another 9,461 have convictions for sex offenses (not including assault or commercialized sex), and 2,659 face pending charges. The convictions include other crimes such as assault (62,231), robbery (10,031), sexual assault (15,811), weapons offenses (13,423), and dangerous drugs (56,533). 

These figures only suggest the extent of criminality because they only list the most serious crime committed by each individual. A murderer, for example, who also committed a sex offense is counted only as a murderer.

A listing doesn’t include the fact that millions of migrants are violating the law because of their presence in the U.S. It also doesn’t account for the lawbreaking involved in working without proper authorization or the widespread use of stolen Social Security numbers to secure employment. 

The 662,566 convicted and likely criminals make up 9% of the 7.4 million released noncitizens in the last four decades. 

The statistics miss much of the relationship between crime and illegal aliens. Noncitizens in the “national docket data” either surrendered to Border Patrol agents or were apprehended at the border. Those who avoid surrender likely have reasons to evade authorities, such as a criminal background. 

But there are others who avoided being caught and won’t be in these numbers. That group includes “gotaways”—individuals observed crossing the U.S. border illegally but not apprehended or turned back. With up to 38% of border agents shifted from monitoring to processing duties and 30% of surveillance cameras not functioning, millions more likely entered the U.S. undetected, potentially including the most dangerous individuals.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CPB, estimates that some 2 million such “gotaways” have entered the country since 2021.

The data on migrants who have been processed also understates the problem. Criminals rarely commit just one crime.

For example, from 1990 to 2002, in the 75 most populous U.S. counties, 70% of those convicted of a violent felony had a prior arrest and 56% had a prior criminal conviction. In 2023 in Washington, D.C., the average homicide suspect had been arrested 11 times before committing a homicide.

Data for 30 states shows that 60.1% of criminals released from prison in 2005 had been arrested again within two years, and 73.5% had been arrested within four years.

The ICE data set provides a single entry for each individual.

Most violent crimes don’t result in an arrest, so looking at arrests or convictions in other countries will underestimate whether illegal aliens are criminals. Across all U.S. cities in 2022, only 35.2% of violent crimes resulted in an arrest. While 50.6% of murders resulted in an arrest, just 24.1% of rapes produced an arrest, 22.7% of robberies, and 39.9% of aggravated assaults. 

As the Laken Riley and Rachel Morin murder cases make clear, it is difficult to calculate all the victimization costs of crime to families and society.

Using tools developed by the National Institute of Justice, RealClearInvestigations estimated the likely bare-minimum economic costs of crimes committed by illegal aliens. It arrived at an estimated cost to victims in dollar terms by assuming that each of the 662,566 “nondetained” noncitizen offenders on ICE’s list committed just once in the U.S. the crime for which he had been previously accused.

ICE presented Gonzales with numbers on 42 different types of crime, but the National Institute of Justice calculated the cost to victims for only eight types of crime.

Professor Mark Cohen at Vanderbilt University, who co-authored the original National Institute of Justice report, updated the list with 15 of the crime categories reported by ICE: murder, sexual assault, sexual offenses, robbery, assault, arson, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, weapon offenses, drugs, fraud, liquor offenses, gambling, and stolen property. Cohen’s updated numbers also provide estimates for the damage from child abuse, drunk driving, and vandalism, but ICE didn’t collect numbers on those crimes.

The National Institute of Justice’s estimated losses from crime victimization include medical care/ambulances, mental health care, police/fire service costs, social/victim services, property loss/damage, reduced productivity (at work, home, and school), and nonmonetary losses (fear, pain, suffering, and lost quality of life). 

Murders account for almost $153.8 billion of the $166.5 billion in estimated criminal victimization costs (a breakdown of the costs of crime for each type of crime is available here). Another $6 billion involves sexual assaults/offenses, and an additional $5.2 billion comes from sexual assaults and sexual offenses.

Half of the crimes these nondetained individuals commit don’t have cost estimates. These crimes include kidnapping, embezzlement, extortion, smuggling, traffic offenses, and weapon offenses.

These criminal illegal aliens entered the U.S. under multiple presidential administrations, but the size of the problem was likely larger under the Biden-Harris administration. That isn’t just because so many more illegal aliens were entering the country. Under the first Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services performed background checks on immigrants. That included contacting their countries of origin. 

ICE agents can’t access the same databases to check on migrants, and the agents don’t contact their home countries. Plus, the massive inflow of illegal immigrants has overwhelmed the system. ICE’s deputy director blames the “enormous workload” agents face, preventing them from doing even limited background checks. There are so many coming in that the government can’t house these immigrants until their backgrounds are properly checked.

ICE has been processing criminals as they enter the country, but without identifying them as criminals. So, under the Biden-Harris administration, they have simply been released into the country. Now, they are walking freely in the United States, and no one knows where they are.

As bad as these numbers are, the reality may be even worse. The Biden-Harris administration is accused of presenting the border crisis so that it does not look as bad as it is. In mid-September, retired San Diego Border Patrol Chief Aaron Heitke testified how the Biden-Harris administration ordered him not to publicize the arrests of illegal border crossers identified as having terrorist ties.

The American Immigration Council, which strongly opposes Trump’s deportation policies, estimates that it could cost $88 billion to deport 1 million illegal immigrants. But if we accept this estimate and ignore the various government benefits that these individuals might be receiving, ICE’s number of 662,556 illegal criminal immigrants implies a cost of $58.3 billion to remove them—just over one-third of the conservative estimate given here of the cost of the crimes by these criminals.

The estimate of over $160 billion in costs from criminal illegal aliens is quite likely an underestimate. It assumes the average criminal coming into the country commits only one offense similar to what he committed in his home country. We also aren’t counting the costs of half of criminal illegal aliens.

John R. Lott Jr., an economist, is a political commentator and gun rights advocate who founded the nonprofit Crime Prevention Research Center.

Reprinted with Permission from The Daily Signal – By John R Lott Jr.

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.

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anna hubert
anna hubert
8 days ago

Lets not forget the most important group of all, without which the mentioned groups would not enter, the group that committed the treason, crime on on the nation. Biden Harris and their junta. and all the other vote buying politicians with private securities paid by us. They belong in prison before alien criminals.

Cher
Cher
8 days ago

I think we ALL knew this!!! but the O-JB junta ruled over the Dem Media Arm that controls most of the News in the US! But that’s going to CHANGE! SOON!

Barb
Barb
8 days ago

Well, now who’s trying to fool who? Who is giving out the info to the media that the illegals have stopped coming? That person/s needs to come to the Processing Center on San Pedro Street in San Antonio, Tx to see for themselves. Bring the news crew with you! The illegals continue to come by the hundreds! For the last three (3) weeks, these people are all in their light gray sweats, walking both sides of the street, hanging out in front of the car parts store, to the side and in front of McDonald’s, up the street towards Oblate St. One police car is parked in the strip mall area across the street from the Processing Center, just to make presence known. There is nobody stopping these people at the border, don’t believe everything you hear on the news.

Leslie
Leslie
8 days ago

I’m sur ethe numbers are way higher. Since 70% of criminals are never ever caught, the statistics deal with the 30% that are caught. We have no idea of how many illegals rea in the country, probably never will. E-Verify is a priority on Day 1. ALL EMPLOYERS MUST USE THIS. When jobs dry up, maybe some will go back across the border never to be seen again. ICE agents need to start hanging out at all places where illegals looking for work congregate, like Home Depot, gardening supply centers, etc. They need to start visiting construction sites all over the place and asking for ID at every job site. Then the contractors can be cited and fined for employing illegals. They’ll likely never do it again.

Kim
Kim
8 days ago

First crime, you’re out! When someone commits 11 crimes before being arrested for murder, something is wrong with this system. We will not tolerate this laissez-faire approach to the safety of our communities. If local authorities can’t control the crime, bring in the national guard and deduct that cost from whatever funds the city or state was expecting from Uncle Sam.

The MSM still like to crow that illegals commit crimes at half the rate as American citizens. This is bu … hogwash … It has been reported that major crimes have not been recorded in most of our largest cities, most—if not all—of which are sanctuary cities. Add that data to the mix, and illegals are committing crimes are more than double the rate of Americans. So, who are those elected officials supposed to be protecting: the citizens or the criminals??

Maybe President Trump should consider these issues when negotiating deals with foreign heads of state. We should demand that any documented immigrants (not talking about illegals here, because illegals are criminals from Day 1 and should be booted out) committing crimes of a serious nature (those crimes need to be indicated) will be deported—and that country must accept them—before we come to the table.

Americans and America First.

Denise
Denise
8 days ago

Grossly underestimated on purpose by the pretend “media”. Not only Biden/Obama and Harris, but those enabling of “media” should be hauled into prison and face High Treason charges of the highest magnitude. American citizens have been brutally murdered around this nation while the “media” (see “sleaze”) covered up and lied through their yellowed teeth. To see every single traitor who participated in this attack on our Sovereign nation in prison for life is being kind. We may never know the extremes against this nation in our lifetimes. All who participated in this egregious attack, no different than if Putin had launched missiles into major cities, must be tried as traitors of the worst of the worst kind, they literally declared war on our once Sovereign nation!

uncleferd
uncleferd
8 days ago

Of course the illegal alien crime rate is underestimated… by the same members of our press who underrepresented it in the first place.

Charlotte Mahin
Charlotte Mahin
7 days ago

We all know that the DC Dems and their fake news outlets always lied to us and still are. If it concerned anything to do with the border, they said we Republicans were simply making up the stories of rape, murders, sex trafficking and drugs committed against our citizens. They said the border was not a problem. When they told us the economy was fine and thousands of jobs were created under Joe, they told us the Republicans were lying when we said their numbers were false. They absolutely lie about everything to make themselves look better. They found out on Nov. 5th that we, the people showed them that we all knew the lied to us and we kicked them OUT. I just hope that in the next election the same people who voted for Trump will do the same for Republican candidates in the future. That is the ONLY way we will get back to sanity and stop the Communists from taking over our America!! Four years is not enough to to clean the swamp!

Jim Johnson
Jim Johnson
7 days ago

We need an investigation into the financing of pro open border media outlets, politicians and businesses to find out how many of them are bankrolled by foreign gangs, the drug cartels, the people smugglers and slavers, and foreign governments. Protecting these types of criminals only makes sense if you are profiting from their activities.

Sean Rickman
Sean Rickman
7 days ago

So,what would the old west do,where the real AMERICA found a way to solve its problems.The wokists would not let that happen today,but the gallows on the town square did reduce crime,”just sayin”.

Marie Saqueton
Marie Saqueton
7 days ago

Politicians who are protecting ILLEGAL ALIENS must really be arrested as they are openly violating our laws. They must also repay the cost of caring for the aliens that tax payers paid. They do the crime, they must do the time and the cost to tax payers. No politics, just our laws.

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President Joe Biden, son Hunter Biden and sister Valerie Biden walk across the South Lawn of The White House on July 28, 2024 in Washington, DC. President Biden is returning from a weekend trip to Camp David. (Photo by Michael A. McCoy/Getty Images)
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