Non-Citizens Commit 42% Of Federal Crimes, Despite
Being Only 7% Of US Population
Fri, 05/17/2019 - 17:45
A new federal report shows non-citizens in the United States
commit nearly half of all federal crimes, or more than six times
their proportion to the American population.
For 2017, data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American
Community Surveyshows non-citizens comprise about 7 percent of the country’s
population, but the 2018
Annual Report and Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics shows they committed more than 40
percent of all federal crimes.
The United States Sentencing
Commission reviewed 321,000 sentencing documents in fiscal year 2018 and
outlined several statistics in the annual report:
In fiscal year 2018, the courts reported 69,425 felony and Class A
misdemeanor cases to the Commission. This represents an increase of 2,552 cases
from the prior fiscal year, and the first increase since fiscal year 2011.
The race of federal offenders remained largely unchanged from
prior years. In fiscal year 2018, 54.3 percent of all offenders were Hispanic,
21.2 percent were White, 20.6 percent were Black, and 3.8 percent were of another
race. Non-U.S. Citizens accounted for 42.7 percent of all federal offenders.
Immigration cases accounted for the largest single group of
offenses in fiscal year 2018, comprising 34.4 percent of all reported cases.
Cases involving drugs, firearms, and fraud were the next most common types of
offenses after immigration cases. Together these four types of offenses
accounted for 82.9 percent of all cases reported to the Commission in fiscal
year 2018.
A breakdown of crimes in the
report shows about 92 percent of immigration crimes, or about 21,835 cases,
involved non-citizens. But they also committed other crimes at far higher rates
than their 7 percent proportion of the population as a whole.
Cases involving drug possession, for example, were nearly evenly
split between citizens and non-citizens with 361 and 339, respectively. In other words, non-citizens
violated federal drug possession laws at a rate roughly seven times higher than
citizens.
Statistics were similar for
violations of national defense, with 30 percent of cases involving
non-citizens, as well as money laundering at 27 percent, drug trafficking at 24
percent and murder at 18 percent. Other crimes committed at higher rates
include kidnapping, fraud/theft/embezzlement, extortion/racketeering, burglary,
assault, “commercialized vice,” and environmental crimes, among others.
The largest numbers of crimes occurred in border states, and areas
with sanctuary policies. Arizona, New Mexico,
Texas, Florida and southern California were among the most heavily concentrated
areas for federal crimes. Data in the Sentencing Commission’s report show the
Fifth Circuit Court covering Texas and the Ninth Circuit Court covering
California and Arizona are the busiest, with about 26 and 20 percent of cases,
respectively.
In the vast majority of cases
involving both citizens and non-citizens – 87.8 percent – the offenders were
sentenced to prison. For the roughly 29,000 non-citizens convicted of federal
crimes in fiscal year 2018, that statistic was 98.5 percent, according to the
report.
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