IMMIGRATIONTrump’s Immigration Policies Made America Less Safe. Here’s the Data.
New data reveal that Trump was the one whose immigration policies damaged the country’s security. In fact, he released more convicted criminals into the United States than his successor. This is not to lend credence to Trump’s efforts to demonize immigrants as dangerous or violent. Data shows that immigrants — both legal and illegal — are at least half as likely as citizens to be incarcerated for crimes committed in the United States.
Listen to just about any of former president Donald Trump’s rallies, and you’ll hear claims that President Joe Biden’s border policies have made the country less safe. At a recent town hall, Trump said Biden is releasing murderers, “drug dealers, drug addicts, everybody” into the country.
But new data reveal that Trump was the one whose immigration policies damaged the country’s security. In fact, he released more convicted criminals into the United States than his successor.
This is not to lend credence to Trump’s efforts to demonize immigrants as dangerous or violent. Data from the Census Bureau shows that immigrants — both legal and illegal — are at least half as likely as citizens to be incarcerated for crimes committed in the United States. (This is why deporting everyone living here illegally would increase crime rates.)
But when it comes to the small percentage of noncitizens who do commit crimes, Trump did not prioritize removing them during his term in office. In fact, he explicitly deprioritized them.
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Trump released more criminals into the United States than Biden.
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In his first week in office, Trump signed an executive order rescinding Obama-era orders that directed the Department of Homeland Security to focus its resources on detaining and removing noncitizens who committed serious crimes. Trump said he would not “exempt classes or categories of removable aliens.” His goal, he said, was enforcement “against all removable aliens.”
What did that mean in practice? Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were no longer required to focus on felons. They could arrest anyone caught here illegally, and they did — from pizza delivery drivers to domestic-violence victims to spouses of U.S. citizens with no criminal records.
New government data obtained by the Cato Institute highlight what happened next: Immigrants with serious criminal records were frequently released into the country instead of being detained for deportation. This included individuals who were transferred to the custody of ICE after serving their sentences and those who were previously deported and encountered ICE after crossing into the country again.
