Here’s an ad you won’t see this election year, but should: The migrant crime crisis is bullshit.

It’s a convenient, easy scapegoat used to justify harsh policies, sow division, and fuel the fearmongering machine that keeps their poll numbers afloat. But when you strip away the hysteria and actually look at the data, the truth is clear: migrants don’t drive crime.

Let’s get one thing straight. Migrants are fleeing violence, persecution, and economic despair. They aren’t coming to your country to commit crimes—they’re coming to escape them.

And yet, conservative leaders and media outlets continue to sell this fear that somehow, immigrants are turning neighborhoods into war zones.

It’s a lazy, harmful narrative with no statistical backbone. If anything, it’s a reflection of how little politicians want to focus on the real causes of crime—like poverty, inequality, and broken social systems.

But don’t just take my word for it. Let’s look at the numbers:

• According to a 2018 DOJ and DHS report, non-citizens make up only 6.4% of the federal prison population, despite being 13.7% of the U.S. population.

• The American Immigration Council found that immigrants are less likely to commit serious crimes than native-born citizens, with increased immigration correlating with decreases in violent crime.

• FBI data reveals that as immigration increased over the past several decades, violent crime rates dropped significantly across the U.S., with no evidence linking higher immigration to more crime.

These are the facts. Yet, we’re bombarded with news stories that magnify the rare instances of crime committed by immigrants, creating the illusion that migrant crime is rampant. It’s not.

The migrant crime myth thrives because fear is a hell of a motivator. But it’s time we started demanding more from our leaders than using immigrants as political piñatas.

It’s not the migrants who are the problem. It’s the bullshit narrative that blames them for everything wrong in society. And that’s what needs to change.