Two prominent criminal justice research and advocacy groups, The Sentencing Project and Cato Institute, released two separate studies this week; their findings indicate immigrants commit fewer crimes and are incarcerated at a much lower rate than U.S. citizens.
“All immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than natives relative to their shares of the population,” according to the Cato study. While the Sentencing Project’s study focused on foreign-born U.S. residents committing crime less often than native-born citizens, the Cato Institute study focused on the incarceration rates of immigrants relative to natives.
On the campaign trail and as President, Donald Trump has portrayed illegal immigration as a double threat to this country, economically and as a source of increased crime. However, the Cato study found that there are about 2 million U.S.-born citizens, 123,000 undocumented immigrants and 64,000 documented foreign in U.S. jails.
If natural-born citizens were incarcerated at the same rate as undocumented immigrants, “about 893,000 fewer natives would be incarcerated,” read the Cato study. The Sentencing Project’s study goes as far as suggesting that immigration “may have contributed to the historic drop in crime rates” since 1990.
Democrats assert it is well known that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes, but claim Trump is using scare tactics and the fear of immigrants to gain points among his support base. They feel that the Republican and Trump administration’s anti-immigrant strategy will inevitably catch up to them.
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