Study Saying Texas Migrants Commit Less Crimes Disappears From DOJ Website

The Trump administration appears to have removed a Department of Justice webpage that detailed a study finding undocumented immigrants in Texas commit significantly fewer crimes than United States citizens.

Newsweek reached out to the DOJ via contact form for comment.

Why It Matters

The data challenges the White House’s repeated portrayal of undocumented migrants as violent criminals.

President Donald Trump has vowed to conduct large-scale deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants as he enforces stricter immigration enforcement measures.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed in January that the Trump administration sees all migrants without legal status as “criminals.”

What To Know

David J. Bier, director of Immigration Studies at Cato Institute, told Newsweek: “My reaction is that the Trump administration obviously doesn’t want people to access information potentially counter to its narrative about immigration and crime.”

The National Institute of Justice webpage, “Undocumented Immigrant Offending Rate Lower Than U.S.-Born Citizen Rate,” described a study it funded in Texas that scrutinized crime data between 2012 and 2018.

The study, still available in House of Representatives records, found that undocumented individuals were arrested at half the rate of native-born citizens for violent and drug crimes and at a quarter of the rate for property crimes.

It also showed that undocumented immigrants had the lowest overall offending rates for both felony and violent felony crimes in the border state.

The White House said in a statement last week: “Illegal immigrants removed from the country has topped 50,000 as the Trump Administration continues getting illegal immigrant killers, rapists, and drug dealers off our streets.”

There have been a series of high-profile murders committed by migrants without legal status, including those of Joclyn Nungaray and Rachel Morin. However, half of those held in immigration detention since Trump took office have not been convicted of any criminal offense, according to a New York Times data analysis.

Illegally entering the U.S. is a civil offense, not a criminal one.

DOJ — File photo of the Department of Justice seal on a lectern before a press conference in Washington, D.C.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

According to the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, immigrants are less likely to commit crimes compared to U.S. citizens.

The Cato Institute looked into Texas in 2019 and discovered that undocumented immigrants were 37.1 percent less likely to be convicted of a crime compared to U.S. citizens. It found that both legal and illegal immigrants in Texas are convicted of homicide at significantly lower per capita rates than native-born Americans.

Analyzing data from 2013 to 2022, the study reported a homicide conviction rate of 3.0 per 100,000 for native-born Americans, compared to 1.2 per 100,000 for legal immigrants and 2.2 per 100,000 for illegal immigrants.

During the same period, the homicide arrest rate was 6.2 per 100,000 for U.S.-born individuals, while legal immigrants had a rate of 2.6 per 100,000 and illegal immigrants 3.4 per 100,000.

Another study led by economist Elisa Jácome of Northwestern University examined U.S. Census incarceration data between 1850 and 2020.

“Our study shows that since 1870, it has never been the case that immigrants as a group have been more incarcerated than the U.S.-born,” Jácome said in a statement.

What People Are Saying

David J. Bier, director of Immigration Studies at Cato Institute, on X, formerly Twitter: “Sometime in the last week, the DOJ removed this from its website. Wonder why?”