Do immigrants, with or without papers, commit crimes? Of course they do. Every group of people includes some lawbreakers. Do immigrants commit more crime than American citizens? The factual answer is simple: No.

Most criminologists have long known that immigrants are no more, and often less likely than American citizens to commit serious crimes. This fact was underscored by a 2023 study by the nonpartisan National Bureau of Economic Research, which found that between 1870 and 2020 immigrants were less likely to have been imprisoned than American citizens. Since immigrants typically have fewer resources to defend against criminal charges, the gap between the lower immigrant incarceration rate compared to American citizens is probably even greater than this study shows. Other studies have shown that cities with large immigrant populations tend to have lower crime rates than cities that do not.

The claim that immigrants bring crime is one of the oldest political scams going. Donald Trump and JD Vance are its latest practitioners. The sleight of hand is to find or invent examples of violent crimes committed by immigrants, and then imply that the people who committed them are typical rather than exceptional representatives of immigrant populations. Once politicians create fear of immigrant crime, they set the hook by promising to make the fear go away by making immigrants go away.

Hopefully, enough people will see through this ruse to keep America from going through another convulsion of mass xenophobia.

Raymond Michalowski
Old Orchard Beach