Fact-checking former President Donald Trump’s claims about crime in America

SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — As Election Day approaches, the rhetoric is heating up. Former President Donald Trump is using fear as a major tactic in his bid for the White House, describing major cities as crime-ridden and overrun with what he calls “criminal migrants.”

“You can’t cross the street to get a loaf of bread. You get shot, you get assaulted, you get raped,” former President Donald Trump said during the campaign.

The former president said there had been a wave of “bloodshed, chaos and violent crime” since he left office.

Here are the facts.

FBI data shows that violent crime dropped nationwide for the second year in a row in 2023, and a Justice Department study of 88 cities showed a 17% drop in murders in the first half of this year, another record decline.

According to U.S. News and World Report, San Diego is locally recognized as one of the safest large cities in America. Murders are down 13%, sexual assaults are down 17%, gang crime is down 12%, and even overall property crime rates are down 3%.

Team 10 spoke in-depth about crime in the county with Escondido Police Chief Ed Varso.

“The latest countywide data shows that overall crime in Escondido is down 14%. Every one of our crime categories, in terms of property crimes and violent crimes, is currently lower,” Varso says.

Crime rates have increased slightly during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“So crime today is lower than it has been in the last 30 years,” Varso says.

Chief Varso actually worries that property crimes, especially shoplifting and other retail crimes, may be underreported because business owners are upset with California laws that don’t allow police to arrest people for petty thefts.

But violent crimes are a different story.

“In Escondido, violent crime is really at an all-time low,” Varso says.

The former president also condemns what he calls “migration crime,” saying the United States has become “the world’s garbage can.”

There is no separate category for immigrant crime, but here are three data points.

Trump is correct that both the number of immigrants entering the country and the number of immigrants apprehended at the border with criminal histories in their home country have increased dramatically during the Biden-Harris administration.

However, a 2023 Standford study found that immigrants to the U.S. are 60% less likely to commit crimes than those born in the United States. And here in San Diego County, Escondido’s police chief says immigrant crime is nothing.

“Anecdotally, I will say that I have not met anyone who has reported to me the impression that there has been an increase in the immigrant population,” Varso says.