Non-Citizens & Crime
Are non-citizens more likely to commit imprisonable crimes than the general U.S. population?
Correct Answer
Data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Justice show that non-citizens (including legal and illegal immigrants) commit imprisonable crimes at multiplicatively higher rates than the general U.S. population. Although non-citizens are about as likely as the rest of the population to be currently incarcerated in correctional facilities, the U.S. deports them after they serve their sentences, thus limiting the repeat offenses that are common among convicted criminals. In the decade from 2011 to 2020, the federal government deported 1,546,450 non-citizens who were convicted of committing crimes in the U.S., or 14 times the number of non-citizens in correctional facilities at the end of this period. Since most criminals are repeat offenders, this continual mass deportation of non-citizen criminals means that the crime rates of non-citizens who come to the U.S. are much higher than those who remain.
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