Crime and Immigration Status in the U.S.: What the Best-Tracked Data Shows
January 31, 2026•725 words
Definitions
Undocumented immigrants: People living in the United States without legal authorization.
Legal immigrants: People living in the United States with lawful immigration status. (Research datasets can differ on whether this category includes people who later naturalize; readers should consult the study methods for how categories are defined.)
U.S.-born citizens: Citizens born in the United States.
Arrest rate (per 100,000 residents per year):
The number of arrests for a given offense divided by the relevant population group, scaled to 100,000 residents, measured annually. Arrests are not convictions.
Offense scope used below: The primary research dataset below excludes misdemeanors and reports rates for higher-severity offenses.
Why state-by-state data is limited (and why Texas is commonly used)
Many U.S. states do not publish a consistent, research-ready linkage between criminal-justice records and immigration status across the full pipeline needed for population-rate comparisons. As a result, sweeping national claims about serious crime by undocumented status frequently exceed what can be supported with nationwide data.
Texas is frequently used because it is widely described as the only state with routinely analyzable records that track arrests (and in some analyses, convictions) by immigration status, enabling population-rate comparisons by status.
A commonly cited mechanism is that Texas law enforcement cooperation with DHS allows biometric checks for arrestees and the retention of results by Texas DPS, which makes immigration-status-linked analyses possible.
Population context (national)
Pew Research Center estimates about 14 million unauthorized (undocumented) immigrants lived in the U.S. in 2023 (about 4.1% of the total U.S. population).
Serious-crime arrest rates by offense (Texas, 2012–2018 average)
Rates are per 100,000 residents per year.
Official Texas counts (not rates)
Texas DPS also publishes counts of arrests/charges and convictions associated with individuals identified as illegal noncitizens within its reporting scope. These are counts, not population rates, and should not be compared across groups without denominators.
Method and interpretation notes (scope limits)
Arrests vs convictions: Arrest rates are not the same as conviction rates.
Texas-specific: The rate tables above are computed from Texas data; they do not automatically generalize to every state.
National claims: Reuters notes there is no comprehensive national database tracking homicides by undocumented status, which limits precision for nationwide claims.
Primary dataset used for the rates below
A peer-reviewed study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences analyzes Texas Department of Public Safety data and reports arrest rates per 100,000 residents per year by immigration status, covering 2012–2018.
Sources:
How to verify the numbers (step-by-step)1) Texas serious-crime rates by immigration status (PNAS study)Source (publisher page):https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014704117Source (full text on PubMed Central):https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7768760/How to verify:Open the PubMed Central link.Use the page search (Ctrl+F / Find on page) for “Figure 1” and “Figure 2”.The rates used in the tables come from Figure 1 and Figure 2, which show arrest rates per 100,000 for:Broad categories (violent/property/drug/traffic)Specific offenses (homicide, sexual assault, robbery, assault, burglary, theft, arson)The figure captions/labels specify the scope of offenses used in the analysis (misdemeanors excluded in the presented figures/tables).Direct figure images (often easiest to view/share):Figure 1 image (categories):
https://cdn.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/blobs/8ff5/7768760/9fd588eb294e/pnas.2014704117fig01.jpgFigure 2 image (specific offenses):
https://cdn.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/blobs/8ff5/7768760/b42f08ff4d71/pnas.2014704117fig02.jpg
2) National population context (unauthorized immigrant estimate)Source (Pew Research Center):https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2025/08/21/u-s-unauthorized-immigrant-population-reached-a-record-14-million-in-2023/How to verify:Open the Pew link.Use Find on page for “14 million” and “4.1%”.Pew states the estimated unauthorized immigrant population size for 2023 and provides the approximate share of the U.S. population.
3) Why Texas is used (and why most states aren’t comparable)Source (Migration Policy Institute explainer PDF):https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/mpi-explainer-immigration-crime-2024\_final.pdfHow to verify:Open the PDF.Use Find (Ctrl+F) for “Texas” and “only state”.The explainer describes why Texas is often used for comparisons by immigration status and notes that other states generally don’t have equivalent public, linkable datasets.Additional Texas mechanism explanation (Cato Institute):https://www.cato.org/immigration-research-policy-brief/criminal-immigrants-texas-2019How to verify:Open the Cato link.Use Find for “Texas”, “DPS”, “DHS”, and “biometric”.The brief explains how Texas can link criminal records to immigration status in a way that enables statewide comparisons.
4) Limits of national claims / data gapsSource (Reuters fact check):https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/no-evidence-4000-people-are-killed-yearly-by-undocumented-immigrants-2024-09-27/How to verify:Open the Reuters link.Use Find for phrases like “no national database”, “Texas”, or “data”.Reuters summarizes why certain nationwide claims are not supported by comprehensive national tracking and points to the limits of available data.
5) Official Texas publication (counts, not rates)Source (Texas DPS landing page):https://www.dps.texas.gov/section/crime-records/texas-criminal-illegal-noncitizen-dataHow to verify:Open the Texas DPS page.Locate the linked reports/tables for “illegal noncitizen” crime data.Note that DPS publishes counts (e.g., charges/convictions) rather than population-rate comparisons across all groups; counts should not be compared across groups without denominators.