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Despite Trump's speech, immigrants commit far fewer crimes than native Americans

Veronika Bondarenko,Skye Gould   

Despite Trump's speech, immigrants commit far fewer crimes than native Americans
Politics1 min read

Donald Trump

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Donald Trump.

On Tuesday night, President Donald Trump called on the Department of Homeland Security to create an office to documents crimes committed by immigrants.

In an emotional address to Congress, Trump proposed VOICE -short for Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement - to publish a regular repository of crimes committed by anyone who has ever moved to the US.

While Trump's rhetoric focused on the goal of keeping communities safe from horrific attacks like the one in which 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle was killed by an undocumented immigrant in 2015, there's a glaring problem.

While some immigrants certainly commit crimes, decades-worth of data indicate that immigrants commit far less and are far less likely to commit crime than native born Americans. Immigrants are also highly unlikely to commit acts of terrorism.

Here's what studies show:

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