The U.S.'s own policy of accepting in immigrants is often compared to Europe, as the U.S. is considering letting in Syrian refugees after the recent emerging humanitarian crisis, and considered by many to be the largest in the world since WWII. While my personal opinion is to let in immigrants in to the U.S. or neighboring areas, but only in to specific refugee camps until they can be vetted after the fact, there is a serious crime problem that can come from mass immigration that needs to be considered. While there is some actual contentious debate on the issue, there seems to be little room for interpretation when spikes in the murder and overall crime rates across European countries have occurred immediately following mass immigration from these countries, and for the most part have been confirmed to be a direct result of the immigrants themselves. While high crime rates among the immigrants should not be used as a reason to deny their immigration outright, it is a legitimate security concern that should be taken seriously, rather than dismissed off hand as many European leaders have, and many U.S. leaders have expressed a desire to do. Looking at numerous European countries after they accepted in large waves of immigrants, we do in fact find murder rates and other serious crimes, such as rape, have increased substantially, sometimes as high as 2-3 times as much. Notably in Sweden there was a doubling of the rape rate, and a doubling of the murder rate in Hungary, but in other countries like Germany there was also a noticeable spike in crime, and especially serious crimes. These are almost entirely attributable to new migrants, with a key victim of these migrants crime being, other migrants. This puts migrants at risk, and needs to be taken as a serious threat to their health and well being, as well as the original native population.
If we look at other European countries as a whole who accepted in the immigrants (Such as Denmark, Finland and Greece) we see the exact same trend after 2011-2013 when mass immigration from the Syrian and other conflicts began. As can be expected, once controlling for other factors such as unemployment, homelessness and poverty, the migrant crime isn't that much higher than native citizens people in similar conditions. However, it is actually higher among the immigrants because of those conditions. Bear in mind, I want to let these people in and help them due to the humanitarian needs, but it should be under intelligent security conditions to protect the native citizens and to ensure these immigrant people will have a place to stay, be it a refugee camp or a house paid for by a job, given that without adequate shelter and care the crime will sky rocket. One can only imagine what suddenly letting in thousands of unemployed homeless people is going to do when they can't survive in the new country they've been put in to. The effect is the same after a hurricane or other natural disaster, you would get widespread looting and crime. You need to give these people an actual place to stay and take care of them or else everyone will suffer, including the immigrants themselves.
Because much of the statistics only find a correlation and not direct causation, in many circumstances many will argue that for some reason it is "all a coincidence" that from 2011 to 2013 murder rates and rape rates started to sky rocket in European countries after a wave of migrants began entering the countries. But when you consider that most other countries at the same time can attribute the rise in crime to the new migrants, it likely remains true that the issue was the new migrants, even in these countries that did not directly record the demographics of the offenders. If you look at Hungary, eastern Europe and many other countries, they're just flat out denying immigrants all together over these concerns. If we refuse to compromise on security issues, there may be a good chance that few if any of these people in need will be allowed in at all, meaning it is not only a concern for the well being of the local citizens, but for the immigrants in general, for many different reasons. Denying the problems only stands to hurt the immigrants who are also more likely to be victims of crime by other immigrants, and so helping these people and admitting the problem even exists is the only moral way to begin solving the crisis at hand. If one really wishes to help them, then it begins by acknowledging the problems so that we can fix them.
Sweden
Sweden is a particular point of contention, because it has been argued by the president of the United States that the rape and murder rate is increasing and the country's security is quickly breaking down, something which has been denied by numerous Swedish officials (many who later apologized for being wrong [1]) and been of major debate in both the U.S. and Sweden. A key part in the argument of immigration, it is equally precarious given that Sweden is one of the few countries that does not directly record migrant crime rates, and only looks at it's country's crime rate as a whole. However, if a comparison of the crime rates before 2013 and mass immigration are made to the crime rates after (particularly from 2012 to 2015), we do see a very serious spike in crimes, with a 60% rise in the murder rate, a nearly doubling of the rape rate, and a 60% increase in the robbery rate. [1][2][3] Knife crime, Child Abduction, and Vandalism have all seen similar increases, and have largely been connected to the immigration population. On top of this, mass rapes and gropings have been reported, as well as numerous riots. [1][2][3][4]
Between 2005 and 2012 the rape rate had stayed about the same, with a high of 1.6% in and a low of 1.1%, being an average of about 1.4 for most of the years. Then suddenly in 2013 and beyond, it jumped between 2.4%, 3.0%, and 1.8%. That's still much higher than the average Sweden had been previously, and it occurred immediately following the immigrant migration. You don't just have a doubling of rapes over night out of nowhere as a random statistical variation when it's been really consistent for many years. If you look at the murder rate, robbery rate, knife crime rate, and child abuse rate after 2012 and during the migration crisis, you find the same picture. A slightly decreasing rate that's very consistent until it explodes after 2013, when they began letting in migrants. Notice that in 2013, immigration in Sweden was at it's highest, ever, and has continued to be extremely high from each year after that. Bear in mind, if you average it out, the migrant crime is supposed to be about the same as poor swedes in similar conditions (mostly homeless people), meaning that it's not specific to migrants but just, really poor people. Which is not surprising since they're not really being given the supplies they need to survive. But to deny the high crime rates among the immigrants and their higher chances of being victims, hurts everyone, including the immigrants and the local native swedes.
Germany
Germany has been another key figure in the debate, with Angel Merkel and the U.S. particularly at odds in the debate, and with Germany largely considered the "New leader of the free world" [1][2] as a result of her response to this crisis. However, denying the legitimately higher crime rates puts both immigrants and your native citizens at risk. If we look at Germany, Foreign nationals are thought to account for around 11 or 12 per cent of the total population of Germany, while Illegal immigrants and asylum seekers account for around 2.5 per cent of Germany’s population. However amongst total offenses, non-Germans accounted for 27.6 percent of all crimes, while illegal immigrants and asylum seekers accounted for 5.7 percent of all crimes, or disproportionately more crimes. Of homicides, the figures are 29.3% and 8.2%, and of sexual assaults, the figures were 20.5% and 4.8%. The total number did increase from 2014, and immigrants and non-germans are overrepresented in the crime statistics. While you can get the information straight from the source, here, it's in german and likely unreadable by the majority of english speakers, but it tells the same stories. Immigrants are dramatically responsible for a huge spike in violence in Germany and the rest of Europe.
Hungary [1][2][3] - "In 2012, Hungary had a murder rate of 1.3 per 100,000 population. There were a total of 132 murders in Hungary in 2012. The murder rate doubled in 2013 to 2.7 per 100,000.The country recorded 202 homicides in 2015 for a rate of 2.0 per 100,000." Interestingly enough, crime dropped as soon as Hungary began denying the immigrants and built a wall to keep them out, the murder rate dropped to 1.02 per 100,000 people, down from 2.7, in three years, merely by constructing a wall that kept out migrants. Hungary at the time had one of the largest asylum applications per 100,000 people in existence. There is merit in not denying the migrants from coming in order to help them, but there is also no denial a bout their tactics working to lower crime. Hungary remains a good example about being careful in how we take migrants in.
Denmark [1] - "Danish national police reported in 2012 that conviction rates per resident 1000 citizenship in Denmark were, per 1000: 12.9 for Danish, 114.4 for Somali and 54.3 for other citizenships, meaning that more than 1 in 10 Somalis citizens resident in Denmark were convicted for a crime"
Finland - "According to 2014 official statistics, 24% of rapes are estimated to have been committed by individuals with foreign surnames in Finland. For some context, foreign-language speakers and the foreign-born comprised roughly 6% of the Finnish population in 2014, meaning that the percentage of individuals with foreign surnames in Finland is at very least 6%."
Greece [1] - "The evidence now indicates that nearly all illegal immigration to the European Union flows through the country's porous borders. In 2010, 90 percent of all apprehensions for unauthorized entry into the European Union took place in Greece, compared to 75 percent in 2009 and 50 percent in 2008. Official statistics show that immigrants are responsible for about half of the criminal activity in Greece."
Italy - "According to a 2013 report, "undocumented immigrants are responsible for the vast majority of crimes committed in Italy by immigrants... the share of undocumented immigrants varies between 60 and 70 percent for violent crimes, and it increases to 70‐85 for property crime.
The 2013 report notes that "immigrants accounted for almost 23 percent of the criminal charges although they represented only 6‐7 percent of the resident population" in 2010."
Norway - "A 2011 report by the Oslo Police District shows that of the 131 individuals charged with the 152 rapes in which the perpetrator could be identified, 45.8% were of African, Middle Eastern or Asian origin while 54.2% were of Norwegian, other European or American origin. In the cases of "assault rape", i.e. rape aggravated by physical violence, a category that included 6 of the 152 cases and 5 of the 131 identified individuals, the 5 identified individuals were of African, Middle Eastern or Asian origin. "
Switzerland - "In 2010, a statistic was published which listed delinquency by nationality (based on 2009 data). To avoid distortions due to demographic structure, only the male population aged between 18 and 34 was considered for each group. From the study, it became clear that crime rate is highly correlated on the country of origin of the various migrant groups. Thus, immigrants from Germany, France and Austria had a significantly lower crime rate than Swiss citizens (60% to 80%), while immigrants from Angola, Nigeria and Algeria had a crime rate of above 600% of that of Swiss population. In between these extremes were immigrants from Former Yugoslavia, with crime rates of between 210% and 300% of the Swiss value."
France - "A 2009 study found "that the share of immigrants in the population has no significant impact on crime rates once immigrants’ economic circumstances are controlled for, while finding that unemployed immigrants tend to commit more crimes than unemployed non-immigrants." A study by sociologist Farhad Khosrokhavar, director of studies at the EHESS, found that "Muslims, mostly from North African origin, are becoming the most numerous group in [French prisons]."
Spain [1]- Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE) published a study that analyzes records in the Register of Convicted in 2008. The data show that immigrants are overrepresented in the crime statistics: 70% of all crimes were committed by Spaniards and 30% by foreigners. Foreigners make up 15% of the population.
