Sheriffs push Trump’s ‘migrant crime’ message with scant evidence

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Richard Jones is one of the most outspoken sheriffs in America when it comes to illegal immigration and crime, echoing themes pushed by Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential campaign as the Republican tries to win back the White House.

Jones has been sheriff for two decades in solidly Republican Butler County, Ohio, where Trump running mate JD Vance was born and raised. Typically attired in a cowboy hat and sporting a bushy, white mustache, he regularly appears on conservative news outlets to criticize Democrats’ border policies.

Jones said crimes committed by immigrants in the U.S. illegally saddle local taxpayers with millions of dollars in costs from arresting, jailing and processing them in court. But he concedes a fundamental fact obscured by the bombastic rhetoric: he has no evidence that immigrants in his county commit crime at a higher rate than native-born Americans.

“They’re not committing anything at any higher rate,” he said in an interview. “It’s just an additional group that shouldn’t be here.”

Numerous studies have shown immigrants do not commit crimes at higher rates than native-born Americans.

Trump has put what he calls “migrant crime” at the forefront of his campaign as he tries to best Democrat Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election. The former president frequently cites cases of women and girls allegedly killed by immigrants in the country illegally and has embraced even darker rhetoric in recent weeks.

Trump’s message has been amplified by sheriffs and other local law enforcement officials across the country, including some who have appeared at his campaign events, lending legitimacy to his claims.

Reuters contacted 12 sheriffs who have raised concerns about migrants and crime, including sheriffs from Wisconsin, North Carolina, Michigan, Florida, Idaho and Maryland. But none said they were experiencing a migrant-fueled crime wave or could produce evidence of one.

Still, Trump has ramped up the allegations in the final stretch of the campaign, spreading false rumors that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating people’s pets and portraying Aurora, Colorado, as overrun by Venezuelan gangs, a claim city officials denied.

“And you remember when they say no, no, these are migrants and these migrants, they don’t commit crimes like us,” Trump told a Wisconsin rally in September. “No, no, they make our ​​criminals look like babies. These are stone cold killers. They’ll walk into your kitchen, they’ll cut your throat.”

U.S. voters believe immigration is the top domestic issue the new president should address during their first 100 days in office, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll this month. The message that immigrants in the U.S. illegally pose a threat has resonated with Republican voters and some independents, groups that Trump is banking will carry him back to the White House.

Some 76% of Republicans said immigrants in the U.S. illegally are a threat to public safety while only 15% of Democrats took that stance, the Reuters poll found. Independents were split with 41% in agreement and 49% opposed.

Frank Luntz, a veteran pollster, said Trump has the opportunity to tap into Americans’ concerns about illegal immigration but could alienate swayable voters with vitriolic anti-immigrant comments.

“He goes too far to appeal to people on his right,” Luntz said.

The Trump and Harris campaigns did not immediately respond to requests for comment. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to a request for data related to immigrants in the U.S. illegally and crime.

NO SIGN OF A CRIME WAVE

Many sheriffs are elected and their jurisdictions typically cover counties, including rural areas, while cities often have their own police department.

Jeffrey Gahler, sheriff of Harford County, Maryland, north of Baltimore, has dealt with two high-profile recent murders involving immigrants in the U.S. illegally: the 2023 killing of mother-of-five Rachel Morin allegedly by a man from El Salvador, and the 2022 murder of Kayla Hamilton by a gang member also from El Salvador.

Gahler, a Republican who plans to vote for Trump, said stronger border security policies could prevent such crimes, even if they are standalone cases.

“When you stack up all these anecdotal cases from across the country, there’s a problem,” he said.

Gahler said the federal government’s ability to deport immigrants who violate laws is an important tool that he wishes could be applied to U.S. citizens from outside his county.

“I’d rather deport them back to Baltimore city, but that’s not within my power,” he said.

Daniel Abbott, sheriff of Van Buren County, Michigan, said during an event with Trump in April that migrants were committing “heinous crimes” in his area. But Abbott, like the other sheriffs, did not provide any statistical evidence to show the scope of crimes committed by immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

County records obtained by Reuters via a public records request did not show the immigration status of arrestees.

Van Buren, a rural county in southwest Michigan, has drawn Mexican farmworkers for decades. Several advocates said the laborers were the ones more likely to be victims of crimes, including exploitation by employers.

INCREASED COSTS

Some sheriffs have complained about increased costs related to illegal immigration. Jones, the Butler County sheriff, has said 1,000 immigrants in the U.S. illegally had been in the county jail from 2021-2023, costing $4 million. The sheriff’s office did not respond to a request to provide the total number of detainees over that time and total cost.

The police department in the small city of Whitewater, Wisconsin, saw a 112% increase in tickets issued for driving without a license from 2021-2023, which Chief Daniel Meyer said limited the ability to charge other traffic offenses. Meyer also cited several thousand dollars in increased costs for interpretation services.

While Trump-backing sheriffs have focused on illegal immigration, some local law enforcement leaders have had issues batting down false rumors.

In the small Pennsylvania town of Tunkhannock, Police Chief Keith Carpenter said his officers were inundated with calls in September after a photo of people walking near a bus in the town went viral on X.com as purported evidence of a migrant-busing program.

Reached by phone, Carpenter said allegations of criminality were baseless and that the group appeared to be going to a local Mexican restaurant.

(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Mary Milliken and Daniel Wallis)