In the debate over U.S. immigration policy, MAGA conservatives begin with the premise that anyone who crosses the border into the U.S. without advance permission is breaking the law. Therefore, the very act of entering the country is a crime.
This premise guides modern-day conservatives’ support for President Donald Trump’s harsh deportation policies.
Thus Robert P. Jones of Public Religion Research Institution recently commented: “It has become virtually impossible to write a survey question about immigration policy that is too harsh for white evangelicals to support.”
But this premise that anyone who steps foot in the U.S. without advance permission has committed a crime is wrong. Our laws allow people to enter and seek asylum. That process, of course, is broken, which allows a demagogue like Trump to manipulate it.
“Being undocumented is NOT a crime,” U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., declared on X. “And despite the endless stream of xenophobic and racist rhetoric from Trump and Republicans, the vast majority of immigrants — both documented and undocumented — contribute to America in more ways than we could imagine.”
“Being undocumented is NOT a crime.”
Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, on MSNBC’s “The Katie Phang Show,” argued that illegally entering the country is not a “crime” but a “civil accusation,” meaning illegal immigrants are not criminals.
Neither Jayapal nor Crockett control a government and media empire or have enough clout to counter the simplistic, emotional and straightforward appeal of Trump to his fearful base. In our current political environment, Trump’s rhetorical trope that “Immigrants are criminals” has become their official truth.
U.S. Immigration law
U.S. immigration law actually uses the term “improper entry,” which has a broad meaning. It’s more than just slipping across the U.S. border at an unguarded point. Improper entry can include:
Entering or attempting to enter the United States at any time or place other than one designated by U.S. immigration officers (in other words, away from a border inspection point or other port of entry)
Eluding examination or inspection by U.S. immigration officers (people have tried everything from digging tunnels to hiding in the trunk of a friend’s car)
Attempting to enter or obtain entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or willful concealment of a material fact (which might include, for example, lying on a visa application or buying a false green card or other entry document)
Improper entry into the USA is a crime but it doesn’t rise to the level of rape or murder or any felony. Illegal entry is more on a par with pick-pocketing. Trump and his allies have elevated “improper entry” into a crime more serious than assault or DUI.
At the same time, Trump is going after those immigrants and asylum seekers who do work the process exactly as outlined in the law. His secret police — masked and unnamed agents — stalk courtroom halls and arrest people when they show up to immigration court in fulfillment of the law.
“Trump is going after those immigrants and asylum seekers who do work the process exactly as outlined in the law.”
Clearly, Trump’s agenda is not about stopping violent crime — only 7% of those detained by Customs and Border Control have been charged with serious crimes — but about keeping all immigrants out of the country.
Add to this the closure of the U.S. refugee resettlement program — unless you’re a white Afrikaner — and it’s obvious Trump’s agenda is not about upholding existing U.S. law. It is about ignoring the law while claiming you’re enforcing it.
Trump’s claims about immigrants
The key to the immigration issue is the word of Trump. Words gush from his mouth like a broken sewer emptying its contents into Lower Manhattan. Those words have since spread over the nation.
Trump’s most repeated rhetorical claims about immigrants include:
Our communities are being ravaged by migrant crime.
South American countries are emptying out their prisons and their mental institutions into the United States.
Unique cases like the murder of Kate Steinle in San Francisco by a five-time deported illegal immigrant are normative.
Democrats want sanctuary cities, which means crime and drugs and death.
Democrats are the party of open borders, socialism and crime.
Trump also attacks individuals he believes are illegal immigrants. During a Pennsylvania rally, he launched an attack on Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat who has served in Congress since 2019.
Trump claimed Omar is in the U.S. illegally: “I love this Ilhan Omar, whatever the hell her name is. With her little turban. I love her. She comes in, does nothing but bitch. She’s always complaining. She comes from her country, where, I mean, it’s considered about the worst country in the world. We gotta get her the hell out. She married her brother in order to get in, right … she married her brother to get in, therefore she’s here illegally.”
While Omar was born in Somalia in 1982, she became eligible for citizenship five years after she entered the U.S. and became a citizen in 2000, when she was 17 years old. She also didn’t marry her brother.
“Everything Trump says about Somalis is easily contradicted.”
Trump currently is on a rampage about Somalis in Minnesota. Everything Trump says about Somalis is easily contradicted. According to Concordia University economist Bruce Corrie:
Somali Minnesotans generate at least $500 million in income annually.
Somalis pay about $67 million in state and local taxes.
Somalis have an estimated $8 billion impact on the state’s economy.
Trump is notorious for repeating himself. According to the Marshall Project, Trump has made more than 350,000 public statements about immigrants. He has said at least 565 times that immigrants are criminals.
MAGA hears these words as manna from heaven; the rest of us hear the drip, drip of a leaky faucet.
Here are the Marshall Project’s findings of Trump’s most repeated claims:
Unauthorized immigrants are criminals (575+ times)
They are snakes that bite (35+ times)
They eat pets
They come from jails and mental institutions (560+ times)
They cause crime in sanctuary cities (185+ times)
They are killing Americans en masse (235+ times)
The facts refute Trump’s claims
There is an abundance of factual evidence available from multiple qualified sources refuting Trump’s claims.
Fact: All immigrants are not criminals.
As of November, 48,377 of the 65,735 people held in ICE detention — 73.6% — have no criminal convictions. Many of those convicted committed only minor offenses, including traffic violations.
That’s just looking at those in ICE detention and not including those detained and released by ICE, Customs and Border Patrol and other parts of the president’s secret police.
Further, according to court records, only 1.59% of fiscal year 2025 new cases sought deportation orders based on any alleged criminal activity of the immigrant, apart from possible illegal entry.
“Only 1.59% of fiscal year 2025 new cases sought deportation orders based on any alleged criminal activity of the immigrant.”
“There’s a deep disconnect between the rhetoric and the reality,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, co-faculty director of the UCLA Law School’s Center for Immigration Law and Policy. “This administration … (is) targeting for arrest (immigrants) who have no criminal history of any kind.”
Fact: Immigrants are not increasing violent crime in the U.S
Research has consistently found immigrants are not driving violent crime in the U.S. and actually commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans. A 2023 working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, for example, reported immigrants for 150 years have had lower incarceration rates than those born in the U.S. In fact, the rates have declined since 1960 — according to the paper, immigrants were 60% less likely to be incarcerated.
The American Immigration Council’s report, “Debunking the Myth of Immigrants and Crime,” summarized: “A robust body of research shows that welcoming immigrants into American communities not only does not increase crime, but can actually strengthen public safety. In fact, immigrants — including undocumented immigrants — are less likely to commit crimes than the U.S.-born. This is true at the national, state, county and neighborhood levels, and for both violent and non-violent crime.”
Yet Trump has changed this fact-based narrative into the false claim that all immigrants are criminals. He may or may not believe immigrants bring crime, but he knows making immigrants our national enemy, the enemy of democracy, has been a winning formula.
A rhetorical analysis of Trump’s claims
Rhetoric is written large throughout any attempt to comprehend and respond to Trump. His immigration policy is a rhetorical phenomenon.
The way Trump uses words as weapons — they drop like cluster bombs — requires attention to his weapons. Specifically, Trump uses, in addition to repetition, three other rhetorical strategies in his campaign against immigrants: Enthymematic reasoning, strategic misnaming repetition, scapegoating and toggling between material and spiritual explanations.
Enthymematic reasoning is a type of argumentation where one or more premises or the conclusion are left unstated, relying on shared knowledge or context for the audience to fill in the gap and reach the intended conclusion, making communication efficient but also potentially manipulative if harmful assumptions are hidden
“The logic is this: ‘She is an illegal immigrant. Therefore, she is a criminal.’”
Trump says all immigrants are criminals. The logic is this: “She is an illegal immigrant. Therefore, she is a criminal.”
Strategic misnaming calls a policy the opposite of what it really is. Trump’s most repeated misnaming is his persistent representation of illegal immigrants as violent criminals. Immigrant agricultural workers, bricklayers, roofers, restaurant owners and waitresses — all criminals to Trump. When he misnames and misinforms, he needs to be corrected every time.
Projection and scapegoating are powerful tools Trump knows resonate with his base. Americans are drawn to scapegoating immigrants for the loss of jobs, inflation, a poor economy, and a variety of cultural diseases.
These rhetorical tricks are Trump’s favorite weapons. He is a master of illusion.
Allowing Trump to turn the dreams of immigrants into an “American nightmare” can’t be accepted. We must reject Trump’s weaponized words so the facts can resurface.
Immigrants are not crime-bringing animals. The spirit of U.S. immigration law is to provide a reasonable path to American citizenship for people risking everything to find a better life and become part of the American dream. (Previously published in Baptist News Global: https://baptistnews.com/article/are-all-undocumented-immigrants-criminals/
