The headlines often read with the criminal threats that illegal/undocumented immigrants pose to the US native population. The story usually includes a heart wrenching and tragic story about a native minor who was harmed by an immigrant and a politician to help propose a solution. There’s also usually a number cited for how many such crimes happened in the most recent year with data. Stories like this are designed to provoke feelings – not to provoke thinkings.

First, the tragic story is probably not representative. Even if it is, the citation of a raw count of crimes is not communicative in a helpful way.  Sometimes politicians will say something like “one victim of a crime by an illegal immigrant is too many”.  But that seems like a silly argument to make *if* immigrants reduce the probability of being a victim of a crime.

I argue that (1) immigrants who commit crimes at a lower probability than the native population cause the native population to be safer and, counterintuitively, (2) immigrants who commit crimes at a *higher* probability than the native population cause the native population to be safer.

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