Reports find that immigrants commit less crime than US-born citizens

By Victor Landa, NewsTaco (1 minute read)   

The story is from The Hill: “Immigrants commit crimes and are incarcerated at a much lower rate than U.S. citizens, according to two separate studies released this week.”

One report is from the Cato Institute and the other is from The Sentencing Project (an ominous name, I know). It’s interesting to note that the overall crime rate decreased in the 1990’s as the immigration rates increased. We’ll cut to the gist in . . .

Today’s numbers

2 million – The number of U.S.-born citizens incarcerated in U.S. jails.

123,000 – The number of undocumented immigrants incarcerated in U.S. jails.

64,000 – The number of documented foreign citizens incarcerated in U.S. jails.

1.83 – The percentage of U.S. citizens who are incarcerated.

0.85 – The percentage of undocumented immigrants who are incarcerated.

0.47 – The percentage of documented immigrants who are incarcerated.

730 – The number of violent crimes per 1000 citizens in 1990.

3.5 million – The number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. in 1990.

362 – The number of violent crimes per 1000 citizens in 2014.

11.1 million – The number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. in 2014.

[Photo by meesh/Flickr]