Republican lawmakers say the border is dangerous. FBI stats show that's bullshit.

As Republicans continue to wield immigration as a political cudgel, GOP lawmakers have painted the U.S.-Mexico border as a dangerous place and invoked racist language likening the influx of asylum seekers to an "invasion."

For example, when unveiling his Operation Lone Star border crackdown in June 2021, Gov. Greg Abbott claimed border crossers had unleashed "carnage" in South Texas and that "people are being threatened on a daily basis with guns."

And during a GOP-led border hearing in the U.S. House earlier this year, Arizona Republican Rep. Andy Biggs railed against the "dangerous" border region: "Drugs pour across, international terrorists, criminal gang members, people from all over the world."

But FBI crime statistics collected this week by U.S. Henry Cuellar — a South Texas Democrat whose district includes San Antonio — shows that communities along the U.S.-Mexico border are safer than most other U.S. cities, and when it comes to murder rates, safer than the national average.

The murder rate in Cuellar's hometown of Laredo is just 4.76 per 100,000 residents, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report. Compare that to the 72 murders per 100,000 reported in New Orleans, the 40 per 100,000 in Cleveland, the 19 per 100,000 in Houston and the 15.69 per 100,000 in San Antonio.

Other Texas border cities had similarly low murder rates per 100,000 residents: Brownsville at 2.12, El Paso at 3.24 and McAllen at 3.44.

In 2022, the national murder rate was 6.3 per 100,000 people, according to the FBI. Similar ratios hold true for violent crime, according to the FBI data. In that case, Laredo, Brownsville, El Paso and McAllen all had considerably lower incidents of violent crime per 100,000 people than other large U.S. cities.
“As someone who lives on the border and has raised a family here, I have found that the rhetoric about our southern border offers little resemblance to what is on the ground,” Cuellar said in an emailed statement. “Year after year, FBI statistics show that crime rates are lower on the border than non-border cities across the country. The reality of our border communities is simple: our crime rates are low, and our residents feel safe because of the efforts of our local, state, and federal law enforcement."

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