DOJ: In 2018, Non-Citizens, 7% Of Population, Accounted For 15% Of Prosecutions In U.S. District Court For Non-Immigration Crimes

A new report from the Department of Justice revealed that the percentage of federal arrests has practically reversed itself in the last twenty years, as in 1998, 63% of all federal arrests were of U.S. citizens while by 2018, 64% of all federal arrests were of non-U.S. citizens.

The report’s data came from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Federal Justice Statistics Program (FJSP), which got its data from the U.S. Marshals Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, the U.S. Sentencing Commission, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

The report added, “Non-U.S. citizens, who make up 7% of the U.S. population (per the U.S. Census Bureau for 2017), accounted for 15% of all federal arrests and 15% of prosecutions in U.S. district court for non-immigration crimes in 2018 … Ninety-five percent of the increase in federal arrests across 20 years was due to immigration offenses.”

More: “Federal arrests of non-U.S. citizens more than tripled from 1998 to 2018 (rising 234%), while federal arrests of U.S. citizens rose 10% over the same period. Federal arrests of non-U.S. citizens increased from 73,022 in 2017 to 125,027 in 2018, a 1-year increase of over 50,000. In 2018, non-U.S. citizens accounted for 24% of all federal drug arrests and 25% of all federal property arrests, including 28% of all federal fraud arrests.”

NBC News noted, “Prosecutions for violating immigration laws have flooded the nation’s federal courts, especially in border states. Nationwide, arrests of noncitizens for immigration offenses rose 440 percent in the two decades from 1998 to 2018 — from 19,556 a year to 105,748. By contrast, the number of noncitizens arrested for other crimes rose about 8 percent.”