Stealing jobs, creating danger, and… eating pets? Immigrants in the United States have certainly been accused of doing a lot of illegal things. This is especially prevalent during the 2024 presidential election, as some candidates have been relying on xenophobic rhetoric when discussing hot-button issues like immigration and crime — evoking fear, mistrust, and urgency, all of which are powerful motivators to sway voters’ opinions.
But the myth of the “criminal migrant” isn’t just hurtful — it’s harmful, and, based on facts and data, untrue. To break down this myth that’s been highly discussed in the leadup to the election, Her Campus spoke with Jasmin Singh, a U.S. immigration lawyer and leading expert in her field.
“There’s no data to support this,” Singh says of the “criminal migrant” myth. In fact, there’s data indicating the opposite. According to a 2019 study by the Oxford Economic Papers, undocumented immigrants are 33% less likely to be incarcerated than U.S. citizens. Further, in a May 2024 article published by the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute, “immigration is associated with lower crime rates and an increase in structural factors — such as social connection and economic opportunity — that are linked to neighborhood safety.”
The idea that immigrants are criminals is a concept leveraged by politicians as a fear-mongering tactic, according to Singh. “The Trump administration was actually very successful with this, in his first campaign, because he made immigration at the center of his campaign,” Singh says. “He created this fear. It’s not true.”
Perpetuating this fear toward immigrants fosters hostility toward whole communities that are already vulnerable. “It’s just not a good way to be going about creating a society by using somebody’s immigration status, somebody’s vulnerability in society — yeah, they don’t necessarily have the same rights as the U.S. citizen, so we’re going to use them as a punching bag to create fear and then get voters to vote for somebody based on this information?” Singh says. “It’s just not the way we generally want to operate as a country.”
This rhetoric isn’t only harmful to immigrants, but to many non-white citizens living in the U.S. too. “These are people who may have foreign-born parents [or] they look like immigrants, now they have the reputation of being a ‘criminal eating animals,’” Singh says.
So, in order to combat this harmful myth of the “criminal immigrant,” Singh shares three important facts about immigrants that she has learned in her time working in immigration law.
Fact: Immigrants are top contributors to the U.S. economy.
Foreign nationals contribute a significant amount to the U.S. economy. According to a special report from the American Immigration Council, roughly 45% of Fortune 500s in 2023 were founded by immigrants or children of immigrants, and generated about $8.1 trillion in revenue for the economy in 2022. For a demographic that makes up only 14.3% (or roughly 47.8 million) of the U.S. population in 2023, this is a significant contribution. “Their innovative contributions and dedication to entrepreneurship have contributed significantly to the United States’ standing as a global economic powerhouse,” American Immigration Council senior data scientist Steven Hubbard said in the report.
Another contributing demographic to the U.S. economic growth are international students. In the 2022-2023 academic year alone, international students contributed $40.1 billion to the economy through everyday student needs such as textbooks, rent, groceries, and tuition, which supported over 350,000 jobs in the country.
Fact: Immigrants bolster STEM in the U.S.
Beyond money, foreign nationals contribute substantially to the U.S. economy, as they make up a large percentage of the U.S. STEM workforce. While U.S. citizens obtain more STEM bachelor’s degrees in comparison to foreign nationals (only 19% of foreign nationals obtain just a bachelor’s degree), more international students continue on in higher education than U.S.-born citizens; according to a 2024 Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report, 53% of international students obtained a masters and 43% graduated with a doctorate. This, of course, means they are able to fill more advanced and specialized roles that U.S.-born citizens aren’t.
If somebody knows they need their U.S. residency, the last thing they want to do is commit some sort of crime that jeopardizes that
But does this back up the claim that immigrants are taking jobs away from Americans then? Nope.
First of all, according to the CSIS report, there will be an estimated 1.4 million unfilled jobs in STEM (computer science and engineering) by 2030 in the U.S. So, there are plenty of STEM jobs to go around!
Plus, as Singh explains, for immigrants working in STEM to even be permitted to live and work in the U.S., “they have to go through these rigorous hurdles to prove that A.) they’re qualified and B.) they’re not taking US workers’ positions.” Further, while in the U.S., individuals have to maintain the marks of a good citizen, which further discredits the myth of the “criminal migrant.”
“If they commit certain crimes, they’re done,” Singh says. “That within itself is a self-policing system because if somebody knows they need their U.S. residency, the last thing they want to do is commit some sort of crime that jeopardizes that.”
Fact: Voting can drastically alter immigration policies.
When looking at the recent developments in U.S. immigration policies, Singh points to the Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, a bipartisan bill created in February 2024 that would have increased the amount of visas and green cards given out per year, addressed issues with work permits and years-long waits for asylum seekers, and added more security to the U.S.-Mexico border. However, on May 23, Republican senators blocked the bill from passing. (Alaskan Sen. Lisa Murkowski was the only Republican to vote yes on the bill.)
If you don’t express yourself politically in the system, you are essentially cutting yourself short of the economic opportunity that lies before you
Vice President Kamala Harris has said that she will pass the bill if elected as president, and in the Sept. 10 debate against Trump, Harris claimed her opponent was the reason the bill did not pass: “Trump got on the phone, called up some folks in Congress and said ‘kill the bill’, and do you know why? Because he’d rather run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.”
This is just one example of how the outcome of the 2024 presidential election could have big effects on immigration — and in turn, the U.S. economy, which Singh believes should be a strong motivator for young people to get out and vote.
“If you don’t express yourself politically in the system, you are essentially cutting yourself short of the economic opportunity that lies before you when you graduate, because you’re going to be entering this U.S. economy,” she says. “Who you choose is going to have a significant impact on what opportunity is going to be waiting for you.”