Opponents of open borders argue that, under an open borders regime, immigrants would commit crimes and natives would be the victims of at least some of those crimes. Thus, it is argued that open borders endanger the safety of natives.

Some versions of these arguments consider the crime rates of immigrant groups versus groups of natives, in an attempt to show that increased immigration would increase crime rates.

In addition, it is claimed that not just immigrants, but the children and grandchildren of immigrants, also commit crimes (at higher rates than natives or suitably chosen subgroups of natives) and endanger the lives of natives.

The details vary based on the nature of migrants and the target country of immigration. However, rather than get bogged down in the statistics, it may be worthwhile considering the deportation to Africa analogy and consider whether deporting millions of illegal immigrants is really the most humane solution for dealing with a handful of criminals.

Here are some pages with country-specific and region-specific information:

• Hispanic crime and illegal immigration in the United States.
• Islamic immigration and crime in Europe.

There are two other related arguments:

• Second-order crime: This claims that higher immigration rates may increase crime rates among natives who suffer economically due to immigration.
• Legal versus illegal: This argument applies only to “illegal” immigration, and it basically says that illegal immigration itself is a crime.

Related blog posts

• Open borders, crime, and targeting the natives: the case of South Africa by Grieve Chelwa, Open Borders: The Case, May 13, 2013.
• Crime in the US under open borders by Vipul Naik, Open Borders: The Case, October 14, 2012.

Photograph of handcuffs at the top of this post taken by “Klaus with K,” and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike licence. Found on Wikimedia Commons.