What’s happening: A recent wave of violent acts by illegal migrants has prompted the legacy media to claim there is no correlation between open borders and crime in the U.S.

• The supposed consensus: Articles with dismissive conclusions on crime are widespread, like this one from CNN: “Many researchers have found no such connection between immigration and crime levels, with some finding immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the US.”

Here’s the problem: Accurate data on migrant crime is scarce because it can take years for agencies to determine a criminal’s immigration status — sometimes they don’t. Studies promoted by the media are generally based on faulty information.

A key example: Several media outlets cited a 2020 study claiming lower-than-average violent crime rates among illegal migrants in Texas based on government data. But in 2022, the Center for Immigration Studies found this research excluded criminals later identified as illegal migrants in prison. When rightly including those individuals, the data actually suggest higher-than-average crime rates among the illegal population.

• Beyond America: European data, which are typically considered precise, have demonstrated a strong correlation between violent crime spikes and immigration — both legal and illegal within the European Union (E.U.).

Zoom out: Regardless of statistics, some circumstances make illegal border crossers prone to commit more crimes. Many enter the country indebted to human smugglers and cartels — a reality that law enforcement has linked to recent burglaries.

Why it matters: There are many unanswered questions about the true scale of migrant criminality in the U.S., a key issue in the debate over border policy. The media rely on handpicked “experts” with unreliable information to discourage the public from asking tough questions about violent crime.