# Illegal immigrants - do they commit more crimes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 17, 2015, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegal-immigrants-do-they-commit-more-crimes/728090 "2015-08-17T16:51:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2015, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegal-immigrants-do-they-commit-more-crimes/728090/21 "2015-08-17T23:30:32Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Ron Unz has published the definite article on the subject: [http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/his-panic/](http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/his-panic/) It is not “on the subject”. It is about Hispanic crime rates. The subject in this thread is illegal immigrants’ crime rates. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2015, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegal-immigrants-do-they-commit-more-crimes/728090/22 "2015-08-18T00:19:38Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > It is not “on the subject”. It is about Hispanic crime rates. The subject in this thread is illegal immigrants’ crime rates. > **[Crime rises among second-generation immigrants as they assimilate](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2013/10/15/crime-rises-among-second-generation-immigrants-as-they-assimilate/)** > > Second-generation immigrants are just “catching up” with the rest of us, a new study says. One would think that Pew is more rigorous in its methodology than your apparent practice of barfing up dissimilar sets of data and drawing dramatic conclusions. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2015, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegal-immigrants-do-they-commit-more-crimes/728090/23 "2015-08-18T00:28:07Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > One would think that Pew is more rigorous in its methodology than your apparent practice of barfing up dissimilar sets of data and drawing dramatic conclusions. Unless I missed something, that study doesn’t directly address the issue. There’s no separation between how the first generation immigrants arrived here. Without that the average across all doesn’t speak to the subset that immigrate in a less formal way. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2015, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegal-immigrants-do-they-commit-more-crimes/728090/24 "2015-08-18T01:12:36Z")
The nature of illegal immigration makes the question almost impossible to answer definitively. First, we don’t know how many illegal immigrants there are. And second, we don’t know whether their interaction with the criminal justice system accurately reflects their involvement in crime. There’s every reason to think that this population might have more or less police contact than the average American for reasons other than the rate at which they commit crimes. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2015, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegal-immigrants-do-they-commit-more-crimes/728090/25 "2015-08-18T20:48:30Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > It is not “on the subject”. It is about Hispanic crime rates. The subject in this thread is illegal immigrants’ crime rates. Its quite reasonable to suppose that 1) the majority of current illegal immigrants are Hispanics and 2) that illegal immigrant Hispanics in particular would be concentrated in border cities considering their movement would be more circumscribed compared to a legal resident or a citizen. If illegal immigrants were really significantly more violent than average, that would mean the rest of the Hispanic population would have rates of violent crime comparable to New England whites or Orientals if one is to explain the crime rates of El Paso or Santa Ana. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2015, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegal-immigrants-do-they-commit-more-crimes/728090/26 "2015-08-18T21:03:30Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > The nature of illegal immigration makes the question almost impossible to answer definitively. > > First, we don’t know how many illegal immigrants there are. And second, we don’t know whether their interaction with the criminal justice system accurately reflects their involvement in crime. There’s every reason to think that this population might have more or less police contact than the average American for reasons other than the rate at which they commit crimes. I’d be willing to go with the estimates on population if we could get a number of crimes committed per year for illegal immigrants (aside from the crime of immigrating illegally) and the same number for the entire population using the same measuring stick. Shouldn’t this be a GQ thread? Has it been conceded that there’s no factual answer? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2015, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegal-immigrants-do-they-commit-more-crimes/728090/27 "2015-08-18T21:06:19Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Ok, so 90% of arrests are for a 20 year period. That definitely changes the stat - so the % of homicides committed by illegal aliens, instead of 25%, becomes about 7-8%. Still way higher than the less-than-4% of the population but much less egregious. It’s much less than 7-8%. Crime rates were much higher for most of the study range than they are today, so there were far more than the approximately 14,000 homicides per year rate you seem to be using. That’s why I gave the approximate total homicide number for that period in the post above. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegal-immigrants-do-they-commit-more-crimes/728090.md?page=1)