Refugee Numbers Tank, Violent Crime Plummets: Coincidence?

refugee-numbers-tank-violent-crime-plummets-coincidence-n2205745

By Ward Clark  | 11:40 AM on August 18, 2026 

The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com. remember, many years ago, having a conversation with my old hippie brother. My brother was a hippie back in the 1960s, when the whole thing was first thought up; he was in on the ground floor, you might say. He still harbors a lot of those old '60s hippie-liberal attitudes, but he's still my brother, and we get along despite our disparate political views; and, yes, we do talk politics. Some years ago, he made a comment that made me do a double take: "Why do we have so many people in prison when crime rates are falling?" And, I actually made him stop to think with my reply: "Maybe the crime rate is falling because the criminals are in jail?"

Correlation doesn't always equal causation, but sometimes, it sure points a finger in that direction.

Case in point: In 2025, violent crime rates in the United States plummeted. That's an unalloyed good thing in and of itself, and vigorous enforcement is almost certainly a big part of the cause for the drop, at least in some places. Also in 2025, the number of "refugee" admissions into the United States also plummeted. And, yes, the use of scare quotes there is intentional; I'll go into that more in a minute. Let's look at the particulars.

First, the crime rates.

The U.S. violent crime rate plunged 9.7% last year — the largest annual drop since the FBI's national estimates began in 1936 — according to the bureau's data released Friday and reviewed by Axios.

Why it matters: The FBI's 2025 report indicated that the post-pandemic declines in violent crime accelerated sharply last year in communities of all sizes across the U.S. (That drop appeared to continue during the first half of this year, a separate Axios analysis of big cities' violent crime data found last week.)

Among the declines cited by the FBI:

• Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter dropped 18.1%.
• Robbery fell 18.5%, rape 7.6% and aggravated assault 7.2%.
• Meanwhile, the U.S. murder rate decreased 18.5% to 4.1 per 100,000 residents, tying 1955 and 1956 for the lowest rate since FBI national estimates began.

Now, note that there is some estimation involved, and always has been in these reports. Note also that some major areas aren't reporting crime rates consistently. But the trends are there; overall and nationwide, violent crime is trending downward.

Now, the "refugee" entry rates:

The number of refugees admitted to the United States has fallen significantly during President Donald Trump’s second term in office and could hit its lowest level on record this fiscal year, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. State Department data.

The federal government has admitted 10,258 refugees through the first 10 months of fiscal year 2026, which ends on Sept. 30. That’s down from 38,102 refugees in fiscal 2025 and 100,034 in fiscal 2024. (President Joe Biden was in office for part of fiscal 2025 and all of fiscal 2024.)

So, we have a violent crime rate dropping by almost 10 percent, and a dramatic drop in "refugee" numbers. Coincidence?

Well, probably not. Here's why, and I'm going to tell you.

First and foremost, during the late and unlamented presidency of the befuddled old Joe Biden, the borders were wide open. Worse, many people who were caught attempting entry or who simply showed up at the border seemed to know precisely what terms to invoke to claim "refugee" status, even though they may well have passed through several countries or, in some cases, oceans, to get to the United States border. During the Biden years, if you claimed to be fleeing persecution or just made the nebulous claim that they feared for their lives if they remained at home, they would be allowed in, with little or no screening or verification of your claims. It's a near-certainty that some, maybe most, of these people were gaming the system to gain entry; thus, my use of scare quotes around "refugee." Now, there are legitimate refugees the United States is taking in, white farmers from South Africa, for example. These people are being allowed in not because they are white, but because they actually have a legitimate fear of being murdered or simply having their land confiscated if they remain.

Second, Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been focused not just on illegal immigrants in general in its detention and repatriation efforts, but particularly on illegal immigrants with criminal records. We recently heard the Trump administration's Border Czar, Tom "The Hammer" Homan, describing how 70 percent of ICE apprehensions are of illegal aliens with criminal records, many of them with violent crimes on their lengthy rap sheets.

So, we have an extensive federal effort to detain and either imprison or repatriate illegal aliens, at the same time as the nation's violent crime rates appear to be dropping. Coincidence? Perhaps. But there's an awful lot of correlation here for there not to be some causation in there somewhere.

Editor’s Note: We voted for mass deportations, not mass amnesty. Help us continue to fight back against those trying to go against the will of the American people. 

Join RedState VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.