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Introduction
Most Americans equate illegal aliens with a higher incidence of crime. Some academic researchers have attempted to prove that is a misimpression. But, in fact, data show that the American public understands the facts better than the academics.
Adult illegal aliens represented 3.1 percent of the total adult population of the country in 2003. By comparison, the illegal alien prison population represented a bit more than 4.54 percent of the overall prison population. Therefore, deportable criminal aliens were more than half again as likely to be incarcerated as their share of the population.
Misleading Academic Studies
The misleading data produced by academics and think tank researchers that show a lower incidence of crime by aliens is based upon a comparison of data that include all foreign born residents with data for the native born population. Because these data compare all foreign born residents to the native born population, they are largely irrelevant to describing the illegal alien crime incidence.
Read the full report in pdf format.
March 2007
