In June, Victor Martinez-Hernandez was charged with the murder of Rachel Morin, a mother of five in Maryland. Police in Oklahoma tracked the accused repeat offender down with a sample of his DNA recovered from a Los Angeles home invasion in which a nine-year-old girl and her mother were assaulted. Police say he came to the United States illegally to escape prosecution for at least one other alleged murder in his native El Salvador in December 2022.

“That should never have been allowed to happen,” said Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler, referring to the numerous missed red flags the case presented. His office apprehended Hernandez in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Like the member of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua sentenced to life in prison last week for the murder of Laken Riley in Georgia, Hernandez’s case is shining a light on the federal government’s failure to properly vet and keep track of lawless migrants.

These gaps have led to broad claims that illegal immigrants have less involvement with the criminal justice system than native-born Americans. A review of the available data, however, shows that the criminal records of millions of migrants – the ones President-elect Donald Trump vows to prioritize for deportation – remain unknown due to illegal crossings, lax enforcement and lax data collection by federal and “sanctuary” jurisdictions.

In addition, an analysis of the available statistics by RealClearInvestigations suggests that the crime rate of noncitizens is vastly understated. A separate RCI analysis based on estimates developed by the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ) suggests that crime by illegal aliens who entered the United States by July 21, 2024 cost the country some $166.5 billion. These criminals disproportionately entered the U.S. during the Biden administration.

The problem begins with incomplete initial vetting by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The criminal histories of migrants from far-flung countries with often shoddy record-keeping are somewhat hard to determine. It is also impractical to hold each person until they have passed a rigorous background check. As a result, ICE routinely releases many illegals into the country on their own recognizance and then discovers afterward that many had criminal records in their home countries.

In response to a request from Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas, ICE reported that it has released 7.5 million such “non-detained” noncitizens into the U.S. during the last four decades or so. ICE reports that these include 662,566 noncitizens with criminal histories – 435,719 individuals with criminal convictions in their home countries and another 226,847 with pending criminal charges. These precise figures, however, do not say whether the crimes of the latter group were........

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