By Michael T. Light, Jingying Hea, and Jason P. Robey

We make use of uniquely comprehensive arrest data from the Texas Department of Public Safety to compare the criminality of undocumented immigrants to legal immigrants and native-born US citizens between 2012 and 2018. We find that undocumented immigrants have substantially lower crime rates than native-born citizens and legal immigrants across a range of felony offenses. Relative to undocumented immigrants, US-born citizens are over 2 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over 4 times more likely to be arrested for property crimes. In addition, the proportion of arrests involving undocumented immigrants in Texas was relatively stable or decreasing over this period. The differences between US-born citizens and undocumented immigrants are robust to using alternative estimates of the broader undocumented population, alternate classifications of those counted as “undocumented” at arrest and substituting misdemeanors or convictions as measures of crime.

 Madison, Wisconsin: 2020. 8p.

By Texas Department of Public Safety, Criminal Intelligence Service

The perpetual growth of gangs and active recruitment within the state, compounded by the continual influx of criminal illegal aliens crossing the Texas-Mexico border, threatens the security of not only Texans, but also all US citizens. Furthermore, the established alliances between Texas prison gangs and various drug trafficking organizations pose a significant threat to the state of Texas and the nation. Gangs now have access to a larger supply of narcotics, which will undoubtedly increase their influence over and presence in the drug trade, as well as increase the level of gang-related violence associated with illegal narcotics trafficking. Illegal alien smuggling has also become profitable for Texas prison gangs and other street gangs, and potentially may pose a major threat to national security. Multi-agency collaboration and networking—supplemented with modern technology, analytical resources, and gang intervention and prevention programs—will be critical in the ongoing efforts to curtail the violence associated with the numerous gangs now thriving in Texas.

Austin, TX: Texas Department of Public Safety, Criminal Intelligence Service, 2007. 45p.