The biggest political deception of 2024

In the 2024 presidential election, one of the central attacks that Trump and his political allies are levying against Biden is that Biden is responsible for a "migrant crime" wave. The argument was summarized by Trump in a March 22 video:

[A] real bloodbath is occurring right now under crooked Joe. It’s Biden’s Border Bloodbath. There’s never been anything like that. Every day, Joe Biden is setting loose thousands of unvetted, unscreened, military-age men into the United States from parts unknown… We had the safest border in history. Now we have the worst border probably in the history of the world. Every day innocent citizens are being killed, stabbed, shot, raped, and murdered because of Biden migrant crime. It’s a new word, a new term. It’s migrant crime, but we call it Biden migrant crime cause he’s responsible for it 100%... When I’m your president, we’re going to end this disgrace, and we’re going to stop Biden’s Border Bloodbath. It is a bloodbath indeed, and we’re going to get it stopped.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has launched a website dedicated to the issue, BidenBloodbath.com. "History will remember Biden for his destruction, chaos, and failure. Lives of everyday Americans have been shattered as a direct result of Biden’s open border policies — and he doesn’t care," the RNC claims on the homepage. "We have to stand up and stop Biden before he destroys our nation. The cost of doing nothing is measured in the lives lost to the… crime wave washing across America."

This message has been amplified by the right-wing media. Fox News' Jesse Watters, who hosts the network's top-rated primetime show, offered this commentary on April 12:

Migrant crime is quickly becoming one of the largest issues affecting the American people. Communities all across the United States are being terrorized by violent illegals, while Biden rolls out the red carpet for them with his open border policies, but Donald Trump is pledging to take care of the problem and keep our citizens safe when Republicans get back in power

There are violent crimes committed by undocumented migrants, which are traumatic for the victims, their families, and their communities. That is why the accusation that Biden is responsible for a surge in violent crime by undocumented migrants is so politically potent. There are disturbing anecdotes of crimes that make powerful fodder for attacks during a political campaign. People, understandably, want to feel safe. 

But is there evidence that, since Biden took office, there has been a surge in violent crime by undocumented migrants? 

The most straightforward answer would be to look at crimes committed by undocumented migrants over time. Unfortunately, this data is unavailable because law enforcement agencies do not typically collect or report information about immigration status, analyst Jeff Asher notes. 

In his newsletter, Jeff-alytics, Asher came up with the next best alternative. He looked at trends for "violent crime across the 14 counties along the Texas border with Mexico." If there is, in fact, a violent crime wave fueled by migrants, it would show up in these counties before anywhere else. The Texas Department of Public Safety maintains up-to-date, reliable crime data at the county level. 

Asher found "no evidence of increasing violent crime along the US border with Mexico." In fact, these border counties "have seen a relatively steady violent crime rate below that of the rest of their state and the nation as a whole."

The same trends hold when you look at murder alone. The murder rate in border counties is consistently lower than the country as a whole, with little change over the last four years. 

In other words, the best available data does not support the claim that Republicans have made a central issue in the 2024 campaign. There is no "bloodbath" at the border. These areas, in fact, have less crime than the nation as a whole. 

The national crime decline

If there is no migrant crime wave at the border, perhaps it will show up in other areas of the country. The data does not support that claim either. 

Nationwide, homicide and violent crime dramatically declined in 2023. According to the latest FBI’s Quarterly Uniform Crime report, which was released in March, homicides were down 13% in 2023 compared to 2022. Meanwhile, violent crime and property crime dipped 6% and 4% respectively. This data is preliminary and based on reports submitted by 15,199 of 19,152 law enforcement agencies across the country, reflecting “about 82% of the U.S. population.” (The FBI will release a more complete analysis for 2023 in the fall.) 

Based on initial findings, Asher said “[t]he decline in murder in 2023 is likely the largest one year decline ever recorded.” The last time that happened was in 1996 when murder dropped 9.1%. In 163 of the 232 cities that submitted data, murder “was down or even,” Asher wrote. These findings were also mirrored in a survey by the Council on Criminal Justice, “which found that homicides were down an average of 10%” across 32 cities. The preliminary data also “suggests 2023 likely had the lowest reported violent crime rate nationally since the late 1960s,” Asher said. A few cities, including Chicago and DC, bucked the trend and saw an increase in violent crime in 2023. But there is no evidence this increase was attributable to migrants.

Asher said early data from 2024 shows that “murder is down around 20 percent in 2024 in more than 180 cities” compared to the same time period last year. In some cities, like DC, Las Vegas, and New Orleans, murder has declined by “more than 30 percent.” In Chicago, murder has declined 12%. But Asher concluded that the data, though incomplete, is encouraging overall. “A murder decline of even half the magnitude suggested by the early 2024 data would place the US murder rate this year largely on par with or below where it was from 2015 to 2019,” Asher noted.

The fact that we are not seeing evidence of a migrant crime surge is consistent with historical data that shows migrants, even undocumented migrants, are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans. A peer-reviewed 2020 study, which used data from the Texas Department of Public Safety from 2012 to 2018, "found a lower felony arrest rate for immigrants in the U.S. illegally compared to legal immigrants and native-born U.S. citizens and no evidence of increasing criminality among immigrants." An upcoming study by a researcher at the libertarian Cato Institute similarly found that "undocumented migrants in Texas were about 26% less likely to be convicted of homicide than native-born Americans over the decade of 2013-22."

It appears, however, that Republican messaging around the issue is having an impact. Despite the data, most people believe crime is up. A Gallup poll in November 2023 found that 77% of Americans “believe there is more crime in the U.S. than a year ago.”