Digging in on Trump's Migrant Crime Record and Plans for 2025 and Beyond

UPDATED 11/20 10 a.m. ET - Migration is a core shaper of a nation’s economy, size, sustainability and culture. This graph from a 2009 Dot Earth post - “What’s the Right Number of Americans?” - created by the independent demographer Joe Chamie¹, showed how profoundly different the United States population would be without the flow of newcomers. (Below you can read some of Chamie’s relevant columns.)

Migrants and related policies are also a perennial and polarizing focus of politics, with Donald J. Trump winning a second presidential term in part by lumping all unauthorized migrants as enemies and pledging mass deportation of unauthorized migrants.

I ran a special reality-seeking discussion of migration, crime and politics that you can now watch on YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook or X/Twitter.

My guests were David J. Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, and Paolo Pinotti, professor of economics at Boccini University in Milan.

Bier just wrote a report showing that in Trump’s first term his administration “deprioritized serious criminals to target asylum seekers.” Read the report at https://bit.ly/catomigrantcrime and post questions in the comment thread now or during the livestreams.

Here’s an excerpt from Bier’s Cato report followed by some relevant new analysis from Europe.

New Data on Trump’s Border Security Record: Releasing Criminals to Jail Asylum Seekers

David J. Bier

Donald Trump has portrayed his immigration policies as good for public safety. He said [last] month that he had the “safest” immigration policy in history. However, data obtained by the Cato Institute through the Freedom of Information Act challenges this narrative. The newly uncovered information shows that while the Trump administration (2017–2020) was prioritizing prosecutions of migrant parents, separating families, and banning asylum, it also released criminals, including those who went on to commit crimes. 

Candidate Trump’s “mass deportation” agenda will make the country less safe in two significant ways. First, it would remove a population that is less likely to commit crimes, ultimately making America’s neighborhoods less safe. For instance, Cato’s research has shown that both legal and illegal immigrants are nearly half as likely to commit crimes for which they are incarcerated in the United States. With unique data from Texas, we have found that immigrants—both legal and illegal—are less likely to commit homicides. Numerous studies have also found that immigration is linked to lower crime rates, homicide rates, and drug-related deaths.

The second problem with mass deportation is just as significant: it would shift focus away from the removal of immigrants who do commit crimes. Noncitizens who commit serious crimes should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and deported. Whatever amount the government spends on immigration enforcement, it should spend on detaining and removing this small minority of individuals. Donald Trump claims that he did that, but the facts tell a different story regarding his record on migrant criminals….

Here’s a relevant new commentary Pinotti co-authored for The Conversation focused on the same question but broadening out to other countries. It is reposted here under the website’s publishing guidelines:

Does immigration really drive up crime? Not according to the evidence

Paolo Pinotti, Bocconi University and Olivier Marie, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Immigration and crime were once again central themes throughout the US presidential election campaign. The belief that immigration drives up crime is one of the oldest – and strongest – convictions held by the public, spanning over a century in the US and elsewhere.

This view remains deeply rooted despite mounting evidence to the contrary, in large part thanks to politicians such as Donald Trump, who are all too keen to amplify this narrative. Since his first presidential campaign announcement in June 2015, Trump has persistently linked immigration to crime.

At that time, he stated: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems … They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime.” He has since stepped up this rhetoric.

In the final stretch of his recent presidential campaign, he made claims such as: “The corrupt media is outraged that I keep talking about migrant crime and the migrant crime epidemic. It’s the worst thing that’s happened to our country in 50 years. They’re taking over our small towns and cities.”

According to survey evidence from the Pew Research Center, an American thinktank based in Washington DC, immigration and crime were two of the top three issues for Trump voters in the 2024 election, after the economy.

But what does the evidence really show? Our analysis reveals that studies consistently find no causal link between immigration and increased crime across a variety of countries. Research from the US, including both older and more recent studies, as well as research on Italy and the UK, demonstrates that immigration does not have a significant impact on crime rates.

Our paper also provides new evidence from Europe that reinforces this conclusion. After analysing 15 years of data on immigration inflows and crime rates across 216 regions in 23 European countries, we found no significant link between immigration levels and crime rates.

Indeed, through the application of robust causal methods, our findings demonstrate that even in areas experiencing substantial immigration, crime rates do not rise – and may even decline slightly – as immigration increases.

Why perceptions and reality diverge

One of the main reasons why the belief that immigration drives crime has persisted for so long is the influence of media and political rhetoric. During an election campaign, for example, selective coverage and targeted political messages can fuel public fears.

In Chile, where the foreign-born population tripled over a decade in the early 2000s amid a booming economy, public concern about crime intensified and demand for private security increased. However, research indicates that this surge in immigration had no impact on crime rates, and that intense media coverage played a significant role in shaping and amplifying public misperception.

Such negative messaging, though effective (as exemplified by Trump’s successful campaign), often diverges sharply from reality. Developing policies that focus on the social and economic integration of immigrants, rather than assumptions based on fear, can promote safer and more cohesive communities.

This isn’t to say migrants are not involved in crime. In fact, immigrants are often over-represented in the prison populations of many host countries.

But the fact this doesn’t lead to a rise in crime rates, according to our analysis, could be because immigrant populations are often too small to alter crime rates significantly. And it is also possible that some form of offender substitution occurs, where immigrants replace natives in local “crime markets”.

One strand of research has explored whether the over-representation of immigrants in crime statistics may stem from external factors, such as restricted legal status or limited economic opportunities, rather than any inherent criminal propensity.

Our review highlights how legal work permits and stable employment are directly linked to reductions in crime rates. For example, in cases where certain Eastern European immigrants to other countries in Europe were granted legal work permits, their crime rates dropped by over 50%.

This is consistent with separate research that finds that granting immigrants legal status can lead to significant reductions in criminal activity, and that policies expanding legal access to work can help reduce crime rates among immigrant populations.

In fact, one study from March 2024 that examined long-term trends in the US revealed that immigrants today are much less likely to be imprisoned, compared with the 1960s. The same study attributes this reduction in crime to better work opportunities and more stable family structures among male immigrants. These insights provide a pathway toward policies that value integration over exclusion.

Expanding access to legal work, particularly for asylum seekers and other vulnerable groups, could foster safer communities. But restrictive policies focused on criminalising undocumented immigrants or barring them from employment may, paradoxically, increase crime.

As the US considers its approach to immigration, prioritising causal evidence over fear-driven narratives could pave the way for policies that benefit both immigrants and the communities they join. By fostering economic participation and addressing public misperceptions, we can build fairer, safer societies for all.

Paolo Pinotti, Professor of Economics, Bocconi University and Olivier Marie, Professor of Labour Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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A longtime source of mine on everything related to human development and sustainability policy, Jesse Ausubel, sent a response to this post by email that’s worth including here because it shows a close-focus view of how the recent migrant surge is affecting life in New York City:

Try to set aside time for this Sustain What episode zooming out to the global picture of people on the move on a heating planet full of imbalances

Sustain What: Stop Debating Climate Dislocation and Start Enhancing Climate Mobility

Hundreds of millions of people are on the move in a changing climate – and a disrupted global economy, and turbulent political climates and a persistent pandemic. Labels are flung. Debates rage over responsibility.

In this Sustain What episode, I led a discussion with solution-seeking social scientists and practitioners pursuing a shift from arguing causality to enhancing, safeguarding and more fully understanding mobility – a fundamental human response to change, stress and opportunity.

My guests were:

Michael W. Doyle, University Professor, Columbia University, is a renowned scholar of global constitutionalism, international affairs, and democratic peace theory. He led the development of the Model International Mobility Convention, a framework for a holistic, rights-respecting governance regime for all aspects of international migration.

Gustavo Macedo is a professor of international relations at the University of São Paulo and a former researcher at the Columbia University Institute of War and Peace. Here’s a piece on the Global Compact on Migration and Brazil’s role in shaping international policy: http://j,mp/mobilitybrazil.

Lisa Thalheimer was a doctoral candidate at the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford (@ClimateLisa). Her research gauges the impacts of human mobility and extreme weather events in the context of climate change. Before beginning her doctoral studies, she graduated with an M.Sc. in Sustainability Management from Columbia University.

1. From Joe Chamie: “According to the US Census Bureau, the US population in 2100 is 366 million with migration and 226 million without migration. They assume a net international migration figure of around 950 thousand per year. Also, here's a piece about the US that I wrote in 2022 that may be of interest to you: For the foreseeable future, immigration will fuel US population growth. On the troubling issue of illegal immigration, here's  what I had to say in a piece from a year ago: Illegal Immigration: A Mounting Global Crisis.”