$166.5 Billion, A Very Conservative Estimate of Criminal Victimization Costs from Criminal Illegal Aliens Released into the U.S., Assuming They Commit Just One Similar Crime in the U.S. to the Most Serious Crime They Committed in Their Home Country

We will shortly be releasing a Real Clear Investigations analysis based on estimates developed by the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ) suggests that crime by illegal aliens who entered the U.S. by July 21, 2024, cost the country some $166.5 billion.

In response to a request from Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas, ICE reported this summer that it has released  7.4 million such “non-detained” noncitizens into the U.S. during the last four decades or so. ICE reports that these include 662,566 noncitizens with criminal histories –  435,719 individuals with criminal convictions in their home countries and another 226,847 with pending criminal charges. These precise figures, however, do not say whether the crimes of the latter group were committed in the accused’s home country or the U.S. 

These figures are only suggestive of the extent of crime because they only list the most serious crime committed by each individual. A murderer, for example, who also committed a sex offense, is only counted as a murderer. It does not include the fact that millions of migrants are violating the law because of their presence in the U.S. It also does not account for the lawbreaking involved in working without proper authorization or the widespread use of stolen Social Security numbers to secure employment.

ICE presented Congressman Gonzales with numbers on 42 different types of crime. The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) only calculated the cost to victims for eight types of crime. Professor Mark Cohen at Vanderbilt University, who wrote the original NIJ report, updated the list with 15 of the crime categories reported by ICE: murder, sexual assault, sexual offenses, robbery, assault, arson, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, weapon offenses, drugs, fraud, liquor offenses, gambling, and stolen property. Cohen’s updated numbers provide estimates for the damage from child abuse, drunk driving, and vandalism, but ICE didn’t collect numbers on those crimes.

More details will be available at Real Clear Investigations.