Thread: Illegals Crime -

Note the low number of total illegals.


United States Government Accountability Office:

Washington, DC 20548:

May 9, 2005:

The Honorable John N. Hostettler:
Chairman, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims:
Committee on the Judiciary:
House of Representatives:

The Honorable Steve King:
House of Representatives:

The Honorable Melissa Hart:
House of Representatives:

Subject: Information on Certain Illegal Aliens Arrested in the United
States:

The former Immigration and Naturalization Service estimated that as of
January 2000 the total unauthorized immigrant population residing in
the United States was 7 million.[Footnote 1] This total includes those
who entered the United States illegally and those who entered legally
but overstayed their authorized period of stay. A more recent study
estimated that there were about 10 million illegal aliens living in the
United States as of March 2005.[Footnote 2] The study estimated that
nearly 700,000 aliens entered the United States illegally or overstayed
their authorized period of stay each year between 2000 and 2004. Some
illegal aliens in the United States have been arrested and incarcerated
in federal and state prisons and local jails, adding to already
overcrowded prisons and jails.

On April 7, 2005, we issued a report on criminal aliens[Footnote 3]
that were incarcerated in federal and state prisons and local
jails.[Footnote 4] Our report contained information on the number of
criminal aliens incarcerated, their country of citizenship or country
of birth, and the cost to incarcerate them. You also requested that we
provide information on the criminal history of aliens incarcerated in
federal and state prisons or local jails who had entered the country
illegally. For a population of aliens that entered the country
illegally and were incarcerated in federal or state prisons or local
jails, this report addresses the following questions:

* How many times have they been arrested?

* How many and what type of criminal offenses have they been arrested
for?

* What states were they arrested in?

To obtain information to answer these objectives, we identified a
population of 55,322 aliens that the U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) in the Department of Homeland Security determined,
based upon information in its immigration databases, had entered the
country illegally and were still illegally in the country at the time
of their incarceration in federal or state prison or local jail during
fiscal year 2003. We then analyzed selected data contained in the
criminal history record, commonly referred to as the rap sheet, of
these illegal aliens maintained within the Federal Bureau of
Investigation's (FBI) Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification
System (IAFIS).[Footnote 5] To assess the reliability of immigration
databases used to make the determination about an alien's legal status,
we discussed internal control processes for ensuring data quality with
responsible ICE staff and found the data to be reliable for purposes of
this report. To assess the reliability of IAFIS data, we discussed the
data collection methods and internal control processes for ensuring
data quality with responsible FBI staff and reviewed relevant policies
and procedures. IAFIS may not contain all of the arrests for the
illegal aliens in our study population since seven states report only
their first arrest to the FBI. Subsequent arrest data is available only
from the state's criminal history record system. While the magnitude of
any undercount is unknown, we found that the data we used for our
analyses were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report.

Several things should be noted regarding our analysis. First, an arrest
does not necessarily result in a prosecution or a conviction. Second,
our analysis is limited to the aliens that ICE determined to have
entered the United States illegally. Third, since all arrests for an
individual may not be recorded in IAFIS, our data represent the minimum
number of arrests for these illegal aliens. Last, our analysis is not
designed to infer conclusions about the arrest history of other illegal
aliens not in our study population who entered the country illegally
and have been arrested.

In April, we discussed with your offices the results of our work. This
report conveys the information provided during those discussions (see
encl. I).

We performed our work from October 2004 through May 2005 in accordance
with generally accepted government auditing standards. Further details
on our scope and methodology, including how we selected the illegal
aliens in our study population, are discussed in enclosure II.

Results:

The briefing slides in enclosure I address each of our three questions.
In summary, for our study population of 55,322 illegal aliens, we found
that:

* They were arrested at least a total of 459,614 times, averaging about
8 arrests per illegal alien. Nearly all had more than 1 arrest. Thirty-
eight percent (about 21,000) had between 2 and 5 arrests, 32 percent
(about 18,000) had between 6 and 10 arrests, and 26 percent (about
15,000) had 11 or more arrests. Most of the arrests occurred after
1990.

* They were arrested for a total of about 700,000 criminal offenses,
averaging about 13 offenses per illegal alien. One arrest incident may
include multiple offenses, a fact that explains why there are nearly
one and half times more offenses than arrests.[Footnote 6] Almost all
of these illegal aliens were arrested for more than 1 offense. Slightly
more than half of the 55,322 illegal aliens had between 2 and 10
offenses. About 45 percent of all offenses were drug or immigration
offenses. About 15 percent were property-related offenses such as
burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and property damage.
About 12 percent were for violent offenses such as murder, robbery,
assault, and sex-related crimes. The balance was for such other
offenses as traffic violations, including driving under the influence;
fraud--including forgery and counterfeiting; weapons violations; and
obstruction of justice.

* Eighty percent of all arrests occurred in three states--California,
Texas, and Arizona. Specifically, about 58 percent of all arrests
occurred in California, 14 percent in Texas, and 8 percent in Arizona.


To read more go to
http://www.gao.gov/htext/d05646r.html

To put human faces with the statistics above please visit the website below. It is dedicated to the victims of illegal alien crime:

http://www.immigrationshumancost.org/