As President Joe Biden’s open border policies continue incentivizing illegal border crossings, the Center for Immigration Studies analyzed data from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), which has previously been used to claim illegal aliens commit fewer crimes than Americans, and found the opposite to be true.
“Illegal immigrants in Texas appear to be convicted of crimes such as homicide, sexual assault, and kidnapping at higher rates than the state average,” says CIS. “By contrast, they appear to be convicted at lower rates for crimes such as robbery and drugs.”
However, CIS says a caveat to the “lower rates for crimes such as robbery and drugs,” is that lesser offenses carry shorter prison sentences and are lower priority for determining immigration status and deportation.
“The longer people with unknown status are in custody, the more likely it is that Texas will correctly ascertain their immigration status,” the report states.
According to CIS, “Due to delays in identification, the number of illegal immigrants arrested or incarcerated in Texas is undercounted at any given time.”
Upon arrest or conviction, each arrestee is sorted into one of four categories by DPS: legal immigrants identified by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), illegal aliens identified by DHS, illegal aliens identified by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice while in prison, and an other/unknown category where anyone unable to be identified is placed.
Since the number of illegal aliens is always undercounted, any interpretation that ignores this other/unknown category misses vital context. Additionally, the other/unknown category is whittled down over time as DPS determines citizenship and immigration status.
Thus, CIS says “recently convicted illegal immigrants are the most likely to be undercounted,” and “Texas is more likely to ascertain the immigration status of offenders who have served long prison terms for serious crimes”:
Lesser offenses (e.g., larceny) carry shorter sentences and are a lower priority for deportation purposes, resulting in fewer unknown statuses moving to the “illegal immigrant identified in prison” category over time.
Due to this lower priority for lesser offenses, “the most serious crimes tend to generate the most accurate illegal immigrant conviction rates.”
Even though the DPS numbers from 2019 are still likely undercounted, they show a 0.4 percent increase in homicide convictions for illegal aliens in comparison to the overall Texas population. For sexual assault convictions, there is a 7.8 percent increase for illegal aliens compared to the overall Texas population.
Texans have been sounding the alarm regarding the border crisis for over a year now, including the devastation to property, livelihoods, and human life. Therefore, as communities suffer under the onslaught of illegal aliens, counties across the state are requesting that Gov. Greg Abbott declare an invasion of the southern border.
With the latest analysis showing the problems of illegal border crossings go beyond trampling through Texas land, and with the Biden administration continuing to ignore the crisis, Texas must fill in the gaps.
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