Immigrant Crime Problems? Trump Says Immigrants Are Killing Everyone Even Though Data Says Otherwise

President Donald Trump invited family members of victims killed by undocumented immigrants to attend his first speech congress Tuesday, as his White House administration has continued focusing its spotlight on violence caused by immigrants. Trump kicked off his first week in office by ordering a weekly report on crimes committed by "aliens" after launching his successful presidential campaign by claiming Mexico was sending criminals and rapists into the country through the nation’s southern border.

Trump's broad claims of rampant violence and crimes committed by immigrants defy all sorts of facts and data, however. While undocumented immigrants have committed heinous acts and violent felonies on domestic soil, the rate at which those living in the country illegally commit crimes isn’t any more than that of U.S. citizens, according to several studies and multiple experts.

And when it comes to legal immigrants, reports indicate they're actually less likely to commit crimes than those born in the U.S. A study published in 2015 titled “The Nature Of Crime: Continuity And Change” found immigrants have no effect on crime rates, and have been less likely to become incarcerated than native-born Americans for the majority of modern history.

"Roughly 1.6 percent of immigrant males 18-39 are incarcerated, compared to 3.3 percent of the native-born," Ramiro Martinez, Jr. and Matthew T. Lee, the lead authors of the study, said in a statement. "The disparity in incarceration rates has existed for decades, as evidenced by data from the 1980, 1990, and 2000 decennial census. In each of those years, the incarceration rates of the native-born were anywhere from two to five times higher than that of immigrants."

Activists have questioned the Trump’s motives for releasing weekly immigrant crime reports, saying his administration has repeatedly failed to address other upticks in crimes, including anti-Semitic acts and bomb threats and violence targeting the Muslim community.

Democrats countered Trump’s invitation Tuesday by inviting undocumented immigrants and others impacted by the president’s travel restrictions on several Muslim-majority nations to his highly anticipated speech.