MYTH EXPOSED: No Relationship Between Homicide Rates in Central America and Illegal Border Crossings

One of the most common arguments from advocacy groups with regard to the influx of Central American migrants is that these migrants are fleeing violence. Groups such as the ACLU and SPLC cite “gang brutality”, “gang violence”, and fear of murder as reasons why the number of illegal, border-crossing migrants from the Northern Triangle (Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador) has soared in recent years.

As such, one might expect that, as the murder rate rises in those countries, the number of border-crossers would correspondingly go up, and vice versa. But the data show no obvious relationship between Central American homicide rates and the number of Central Americans apprehended illegally crossing our border in a year.

In Honduras, murder rates have fallen by over half since 2011 — from 86.5 per 100,000 to 42.8 per 100,000 in 2017. During that same time, the annual number of apprehensions of Hondurans at the U.S.-Mexico border quadrupled, albeit with fluctuations.

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